Relating to funding to develop successful children; declaring an emergency.

2025 Regular Session Introduced by Ben Bowman and 11 co-sponsors

The bill makes minimum public safety staffing a mandatory bargaining issue under the Public Employment Relations Act, with a local-revenue-based voluntary bargaining exception.

In committee upon adjournment.

SB 1167 — Summary (Public Employment Relations Act: minimum staffing for police & fire)

Status & Sponsors
- Sponsor (Senate): Senator Veronica Klinefelt. Companion House bills: HB 2022 and HB 4785.
- Key actions: Substitute (S‑2) adopted and bill passed the Michigan Senate (roll call Dec. 12, 2024). Subsequent committee reports and readings continued into early 2025; currently recorded as placed on second reading in the legislative calendar.

Purpose / Intent
- To make minimum staffing levels for public police and fire bargaining units an explicit subject of collective bargaining under the Public Employment Relations Act (1947 PA 336), thereby allowing those staffing levels to be negotiated between public safety employees’ bargaining units and their employers.

Key Provisions
- Amends MCL 423.211 and 423.215 (sections 11 and 15 of 1947 PA 336).
- For public employees subject to 1969 PA 312 (the compulsory arbitration statute covering many police and fire personnel), the statute’s definition of “other conditions of employment” is expanded to expressly include minimum staffing levels within the bargaining unit — making staffing levels a mandatory subject of bargaining.
- Exception tied to local revenue: if, compared to the immediately preceding fiscal year, a public employer experiences (a) a reduction in sales tax revenue received via revenue sharing or (b) a reduction in property tax collections caused by a reduction in the employer’s total taxable value, then the public employer may (but is not required to) bargain with PA‑312 employees over minimum staffing levels. In other words, bargaining over staffing becomes voluntary for that employer in that fiscal circumstance.
- For employees not covered by PA 312, the bill does not prohibit bargaining over minimum staffing; those employees remain free to negotiate staffing.

Who is affected
- Primarily local public safety employees: estimated ~18,000 police officers and ~8,700 full‑time paid firefighters in Michigan, plus other PA‑312-covered classifications (county corrections officers, certain EMS personnel, emergency telephone operators employed by police or fire).
- Local governments and municipalities that employ those public safety personnel; potential fiscal implications for local budgets when staffing is negotiated upward.

Fiscal Impact & Rationale
- Nonpartisan fiscal analyses: no fiscal impact on the State; indeterminate fiscal impact on local governmental units depending on negotiated staffing and associated personnel costs.
- Rationale cited in committee materials: Michigan’s per‑capita firefighter staffing is lower than some neighboring states; enabling negotiation over staffing is presented as a way to improve public safety staffing levels.

Procedural / Timeline Notes
- Substitute (S‑2) adopted and Senate passage recorded Dec. 12, 2024. Committee reports and readings continued into Jan–Apr 2025 (various referrals and calendar placements). Check the current legislative calendar for the bill’s latest status and any House action on companion bills.