LANSING – Legislation aimed at helping food service establishments could leave local health departments operating at a loss.
The two Michigan Senate bills would waive licensing fees for one year to help food service establishments recover from financial losses suffered during the pandemic. But waiving those fees could leave local health departments hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole because the legislation does not include a mechanism to offset the local revenue loss.
The bills, introduced by Sen. Curt VanderWall, R-Ludington, passed the Senate in May by a 20-16 vote and are currently pending before the House of Representatives.
“It’s not a bad idea at all, in concept,” Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail said. “There should be a way to fill that budget hole.”
7 lessons learned from Michigan’s spring COVID-19 surge
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Saginaw resident Linda Moton receives a dose of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine during a clinic hosted by the Saginaw County Department of Health in the former Sears located in the Fashion Square Mall in Saginaw. The site will have vaccine May 11 through June 30 Tuesdays and Wednesdays. (Cody Scanlan | MLive.com)
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It’s been a difficult spring for Michigan, which quickly went from a state with one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 transmission to the worst state in the country.
Since March 1, the state has had more than 240,000 confirmed coronavirus case and almost 2,700 deaths. Since late March, more than 20,000 have been hospitalized with COVID.
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Wexford County
The Michigan dashboard showed Friday Wexford County s confirmed cases were 2,500 cases. Confirmed deaths reached 42 according to state data.
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Missaukee County
Missaukee County showed a pandemic total of 1,232 cases, according to the state dashboard data. The state dashboard showed deaths held at 16.
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Lake County
Lake County cases were at 563 Friday, according to state data. Lake County also reported 14 total deaths since the pandemic started, according to the state data.
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Osceola County
Cases were up by nine Thursday for a pandemic and rose by Friday by five. Heading into the weekend, Osceola County had a total of 1,630. Deaths again held at 28. Of the total number of cases, 945 had ârecovered. Central Michigan District Health Department defines recovered as the number of persons with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who are alive 30 days post-onset â or referral date if onset is not available â and not hospitalized.