Michigan taxpayers are slated to give $259 million to a mystery company to build a semiconductor plant near Mundy Township in Genessee County.

The Charter Township of Mundy entered a nondisclosure agreement with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation on Sept. 9, 2022, which Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a records request.

State officials approved a total of $259 million in Strategic Site Readiness Program funds, which will go to local agencies involved in preparing a large parcel of land for development. The project could be eligible for more grants.

The township entered that agreement at least a year before voters discovered giveaway of state dollars. On Nov. 5, 2024, voters ousted township supervisor Tonya Ketzler and elected Jennifer Stainton, who opposed the giveaway.

“My position has been on the opposition side due to the lack of transparency on behalf of Mundy Township board members,” Stainton told CapCon in an email. “Signing a NDA is unacceptable to hide things from your elective public you represent. Until we see transparency from the township and from the Genesee Economic Alliance, my fight is to protect and serve my Community of Residents who put me in office.”

If the project advances, the taxpayer funds would appear to benefit Western Digital Technologies, a San Jose, California, company. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Flint and Genesee Economic Alliance supports the project, said executive director Tyler Rossmaessler.

“A new advanced manufacturing project will create thousands of new jobs and pump millions of dollars into Michigan’s economy, helping small business, attracting investment and raising property values. It would also make us less reliant on – and more competitive with – foreign countries like China," Rossmaessler wrote.

“Bringing an advanced manufacturer to Genesee County will also provide millions of dollars of new tax revenue, helping to fund our roads, schools and public safety services, including police and fire. It will help bring back to the U.S. jobs and our supply chain, which have been outsourced, enhancing our national security and improving our ability to compete with our economic adversaries, including China.”

The state economic incentives aim to accelerate Michigan’s inventory of investment-ready sites and win economic development projects that will bring long-term economic opportunity and security statewide, said Otie McKinley, media and communications manager at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation

“Supporting the site prep of this parcel will lead to business investment, population growth, improved transportation infrastructure and generational job creation,” McKinley wrote in an email to CapCon. “It’s important to note the funds you reference did not go to a company, as no company has been confirmed for the site.”

When CapCon asked for the nondisclosure agreement and all other documents detailing the Mundy megasite, the economic development agency billed CapCon $4,338 for 6,008 documents. The documents would show how the agency plans to pay taxpayer money to a secret company. The agency rejected a waiver request.

A grant to a hidden company asking for money, given by lawmakers who’ve silenced themselves through a nondisclosure agreement, is bad public policy, said James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

"An unnamed company has asked for an unspecified amount of money. Officials ostensibly have made a threat about what it would do without taxpayer cash, argued in private with our lawmakers who have signed nondisclosure agreements to keep this secret,” Hohman told CapCon in an email. “This is not how public policy is supposed to work."

Six out of ten students are eating taxpayer-funded meals at school, according to a press release from the Michigan Department of Education.

The number of school meals provided has increased since last year, but it may not equate to healthier students and could mean more wasted food.

In the 2023-24 school year, the state enacted a law to provide taxpayer-funded school meals for all students, with no limit on family income. As a result, the percentage of students eating breakfast and lunch at school jumped 26% and 20%, respectively. Last year five out of ten students at meals at school. This year it is six out of ten.

“Our children need to eat a healthy breakfast and lunch in order to learn,” said Michael Rice, state superintendent, in the press release.

Experts say that school lunches, in general, provide better nutrition than home and restaurant-cooked meals. The final results, though, depend on whether students eat the fruits, vegetables, and other healthy options on their plate.

The data on how many school meals are served were based on an average that combines K-12 school buildings in the state, according to Kenneth Coleman, spokesperson for the education department. Before the state made no-fee meals available to students, five out of ten students chose to eat a meal at school.

“The meal pattern provided by USDA dictates the type of food and the serving size by grade,” Coleman told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. He added that all food served is also regulated by the local health department. The state food safety code for handling leftovers, he added.

School meals may not always be as healthy as they should be. “Today, in the absence of any standard on added sugars, 90% of schools provide school breakfast with more than the recommended 10% of calories from added sugars, and 69% of schools exceed this limit for lunch,” according to a Science Direct report evaluating public school nutrition in the United States.

The report pointed to findings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that found that although sodium has decreased in school meals, it still largely exceeds the amount found in dietary guidelines.

School meals can be better aligned with the dietary guidelines for Americans, Juliana Cohen, one of the report’s co-authors, told CapCon in an email.

Cohen concluded that school meals are on average one of the healthiest sources of food that children have access to in the United States. That benefit can be negated, however, if students throw away the healthier portions of their meals.

Catherine Cochran, policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, agreed with Cohen. “School meals are healthy — a 2021 study found that school meals were the healthiest source of food for kids — followed by grocery stores, other sources, worksites, and restaurants,” Cochran said in an email.

Meals have significantly improved since 2012 due to the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act of 2010, Cochran said. The act removed junk food from schools and reduced salt and unhealthy fat while increasing fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

But a Journal of School Health study concludes that offerings in the National School Lunch Programs could vary greatly in nutritional quality.

As the majority of students have begun eating at schools, childhood obesity has increased over the last 20 years.

“Today, overweight children outnumber undernourished children,” according to School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children, a 2010 book published by the National Academy of Sciences.

Although students may be getting fruits, vegetables, protein and whole grains in school meals, some experts question the quality of the food.

“Your child’s public school lunches may be held to lower quality criteria than even fast food,” stated an article Public School Review. The article noted a USA Today inspection in 2009 revealed some schools were using meat from old birds.

Public School Review did not respond to an email seeking comment.

More than $1.2 billion of school food is wasted annually, according to an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A 2016 nutrition study by the Student Nutrition Association revealed that fruit and vegetable waste is a major problem in school lunch programs.

“Fruit and vegetable plate waste increases costs for school nutrition departments and may compromise the health of children because they miss out on vital nutrients from the fruits and vegetables they do not consume,” said the association.