LANSING ? Michigan Senate Republicans unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would trim $1 billion from Gov. Jennifer Granholm?s $2 billion bond fund she hopes to use to fund technology start ups in Michigan.

The good news is Senate Republicans would agree to fast track the Strategic Economic Investment Bond Fund in the Senate at the lower figure, said Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming).

But Michigan Treasurer Jay Rising said the $2 billion figure proposed by Granholm would help build the critical mass the state needs to develop new technological industries. A $1 billion proposal, he said, “makes it a somewhat weaker proposal.” Rising was also encouraged that the Senate was willing to move a bonding proposal, and said the administration would work with it.

Sen. Valde Garcia (R-Howell), chair of the Senate Commerce, Labor and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee said he hoped a proposal, either Granholm’s or the Senate GOP’s, would be reported to the full Appropriations Committee by Thursday.

In his statement, Sikkema said the Senate GOP proposal was “more focused and accountable” than Granholm’s proposal. While the original administration proposal had “merit,” he said, it was “simply too big, too unfocused and repeats the mistakes of the past when we had bond proposals without adequate oversight, ” he said.

The proposal would cut the maximum amount bonded, if approved by the voters in November, from $2 billion to $1 billion and maintain the current constitutional ban on the state taking equity positions in corporations. The plan also ties all of the funds invested in four program areas – basic research, applied research, university technology transfer and commercialization – to job creation, which Sikkema said the Granholm proposal does not do. It also would require all proposals to be peer-reviewed and directs the Legislature to appropriate the funds although a Strategic Economic Investment Board that would make the actual spending decisions.

Part of the proposal is embodied in SB 533. The Senate Republican plan also would use the constitutional amendment proposed by Ms. Granholm (SJR C), but amend the measure so that it simply allows the vote to occur this November. Under the constitution, bond proposals are voted upon at regular general elections.

Garcia said it was important for the state to adopt a program to build a “fourth leg” of the state’s current three-legged economic stool – manufacturing, tourism and agriculture – to help revive the state’s economy.

Rising, along with Bob Swanson of the Department of Labor and Economic Growth and Jeff Mason, technology development senior vice president for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, all spoke before the subcommittee, and Mason and Swanson said $2 billion was an appropriate level to request.

The lead the state showed six years ago in creating the Life Sciences Corridor – which Granholm renamed the Technology Tri-Corridor – is evaporating, Mason said. “We clearly have been passed over by other states and nations.”

Swanson said voters in Ohio would be asked to approve a $2 billion proposal, Pennsylvania had approved a $2 billion proposal and Iowa, a far smaller state than Michigan, was looking at a proposal close to $1 billion.

Mason also said the administration proposal did recognize that the state was better at generating innovations than at commercializing them, which is one reason why the proposal only allows 10 percent of the total to go towards basic research.

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