Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spoke Wednesday at the Detroit Auto Show, urging lawmakers to create more taxpayer-funded jobs programs, just weeks after a new study found such programs often fail to create jobs.

The governor encouraged a divided Michigan Legislature to renew a taxpayer-funded jobs program that’s set to disappear in a year.

Whitmer also urged legislators to develop a long-time solution for road maintenance, as her $3.5 billion bonding plan ended in December without completing her campaign promise to fix the roads. Her plan only fixed state trunkline roads, not local and county roads.

“Losing both (a road program and a jobs program) without better, more comprehensive replacements will throw us off track,” Whitmer said.

Whitmer called for taxpayers to fund a new Michigan auto jobs fund. She also called for a new payroll tax cut for Michigan-based hires, more site-development programs, more public spending on housing and brownfield redevelopment, and more spending on transit, buses, rail and roads.

The governor, a Democrat, must work with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on any legislative plans.

House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, said he wants to fix roads, giving priority to local and county infrastructure, without raising taxes, spokesman Greg Manz said in a news release.

“That’s the plan he put forward then — and it’s the plan that remains on the table now,” Manz said in a statement. “We’re hopeful the governor will finally see that a pothole-free path doesn’t require further burdens on hardworking Michigan families.”

Whitmer’s speech suggests she disagrees with that approach.

“To my friends in the GOP, fixing the roads in a sustainable way means looking for new, fair sources of revenue,” Whitmer said. “We can’t just cut our way to better roads.”

Hall’s road plan hinges on directing $2.8 billion from existing tax revenue toward fixing roads. It would allocate $1.2 billion of corporate income tax revenue to infrastructure, add $600 million in additional funding in 2026, and direct state gas revenue entirely to road funding.

The $600 million would come by cutting current earmarks: $500 million for the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund that pays for corporate incentives, $50 million for the Revitalization and Placemaking Fund, and $50 million for the Housing and Community Development Fund.

County road agencies maintain roughly 75% of Michigan’s road miles, which means 90,500 miles of roads and 5,900 bridges, according to the County Road Association of Michigan.

Hall’s road funding plan challenges Whitmer’s strategy of using subsidized businesses as a way to create prosperity. Since 2023 Michigan has given $4.6 billion in subsidies to select, favored corporations.

Only one of every 11 jobs promised by Michigan politicians and public officials actually gets created, according to a study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The study found that only 9% of the jobs mentioned in announcements about state-backed deals were created. It followed two decades of front-page news stories about government grants to private businesses.

Even the Detroit Auto Show received $8 million of taxpayer funds in the 2024 budget, CapCon reported.

The Troy School District adopted a new union contract with its teachers that limits and overtly discourages parents from visiting classroom.The provisions were put in place during the same timeframe when the mother of a second grade student sought but was denied permission to observe her child in the classroom.

Michigan Capitol Confidential previously reported on Michele Maleszyk, a former teacher and mother of a child with dyslexia, who was denied a request to observe her child in the classroom this school year. Her goal was to better understand her students’ reading interventions.

The district adopted a new collective bargaining agreement in June 2024, as reported by The Oakland Press, though the contract was not disclosed on the district’s website until December. A new section in the agreement makes it harder for parents to visit their child’s classroom.

Under the ‘Classroom Visits’ provision, it actively discourages parental visits.

There are 17 paragraphs, listed from A to Q, which define the conditions parents and school employees must satisfy. “Given the learning disruption caused by classroom visits, TSD administration shall actively discourage this practice,” the first graph reads.

A parent can only visit the classroom once per academic year, for no more than 30 minutes unless school officials agree to it.

Another contact provision states that parents are not allowed to take written notes while observing the classroom.

The previous contract, effective from Feb. 1, 2021, through Jan. 31, 2024, does not have a section for rules governing parental visits.

The new language deterring parents from the classroom appears to conflict with state law. The Michigan Revised School Code states that parents and guardians have right to “Be present, to a reasonable degree, and at reasonable times and subject to reasonable restrictions, controls, and limits, to observe instructional activity in a class or course in which the pupil is enrolled and present.”

The contract could confuse parents about what they may do. “Michigan law is clear that parents have the right to observe what is going on in their child’s classroom,” Steve Delie, an expert on government transparency at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy told CapCon. “Unfortunately, these new restrictions create artificial and unnecessary barriers that make it far more difficult for parents to know what their children are being taught. Parents shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to be engaged their child’s education.”

Maleszyk, the Troy school district parent, told journalist Dave Bondy in an interview that the Troy school district sends a message that it does not view parents as a partner in their students’ academic success.

The district did not provide comment when asked about the language in the new contract.