Article Archive |
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2010 |
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March |
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March 8 |
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Antitrust a bust for premium costs?
According to the latest report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Education Trust, the average cost last year of an employer-sponsored family health insurance policy was $13,375.
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Barriers to government consolidation pinpointed
Heartwell
The merging of local governments into a larger public entity was keenly featured in the State-of-the City address that Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell delivered in January. The mayor said a consolidation effort could range from integrating all the units in Kent County into a single countywide government or involve combining Grand Rapids with Walker, Wyoming, Kentwood, Grandville and East Grand Rapids.
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Bloem strikes a chord with small business
Sandra Bloem grew up in the town of Wyoming, where her parents instilled the values of hard work and frugality.Sandra L. Bloem has seen first-hand the trials and tribulations of Michigan's small businesses as they try to navigate through the state's economic restructuring and the nationwide recession.
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Communities benefit from health efforts
Michigan hospitals sustained Medicaid payment shortfalls of $706 million, part of the $2.5 billion in community benefits for fiscal 2008, the latest year for which numbers are available, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association reported last week.
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County gets good and bad news on budget
The county’s lodging excise tax fund will finish with a deficit for the ninth straight year when the fiscal-year tally becomes official, even though total revenue to the fund was up by 4 percent over the 2009 calendar year from 2008.
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County: We do collaborate
Delabbio
With a cry for municipal collaboration growing louder in many circles today, Kent County Administrator and Controller Daryl Delabbio tried to muffle that clamor a bit by showing that cooperation among local governments already exists and has for a long time— and that the county has played a leading role in that effort.
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Craft beer business thrives in Michigan
Founders Brewing Co. taps into craft beer market success. LANSING — While many Michigan industries are in decline, the craft beer industry is flourishing, with breweries expanding and bringing tourists to local communities.
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CVB hungry for event for restaurants
Establishments such as Mixology in the JW Marriott figure to benefit from potential Restaurant Week activity.When Convention and Visitors Bureau President Doug Small presents his organization’s business plan for its inaugural Restaurant Week to the Downtown Development Authority on Wednesday, he feels the board will embrace the idea and, more importantly, fund the event.
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Ehlers among leaders who exceed the norm
As the Michigan Senate late last month approved legislation to end pension benefits for elected officials, legislators were given 15-second sound bites from both Republicans and Democrats. (Though it should be noted here that the bill introduced by Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, has a similar companion in the State House, introduced by Dian Slavens, D-Canton Township.) Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop was most eloquent.
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Fed grants available again for agribusiness crop programs
Nonprofit entities involved in some sectors of Michigan agribusiness have until April 22 to apply for special project funding from the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Ag Marketing Services.
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Fed requires audits of large 403(b) plans
The economic downturn and revelations of very risky investments have led to closer scrutiny of employee pension plans by the Department of Labor — even including the 403(b) plans in place at many nonprofit and government organizations.
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Funds boost medical efforts
LANSING — As tens of thousands of citizens and thousands of physicians leave the state, the Michigan State Medical Society hopes that federal stimulus dollars will increase medical technology in hospitals and improve health care for those who stay.
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GVMC makes room for GVSU
By a nearly unanimous vote last week, the Grand Valley Metro Council cleared a path that will allow Grand Valley State University to become the organization’s first non-governmental member.
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Michigan retailers off to better start in 2010
LANSING — Michigan retailers began 2010 with an upswing in sales and confidence, according to the latest Michigan Retail Index survey, a joint project of Michigan Retailers Association (MRA) and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
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Michigan's talent drain under more scrutiny
LANSING — A group of seniors at Michigan State University has teamed up with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the Lansing Area Economic Partnership to find out where college graduates are going.
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Modest growth continues to be the area's signal
Continued modest growth. That's the latest word on the greater Grand Rapids economy, according to the data collected in the last two weeks of February. New orders, our closely watched index of business improvement, eased to +6, down from +14. In a similar move, the production index backtracked to +8 from +22. Activity in the purchasing offices, which we record as our index of purchases, remained positive but came in at +14, down slightly from last month's +17. The best news for the month came from the employment index, which jumped to +9 from +0. All in all, the pace of the recovery continues to slow. Although there is no evidence at this time to suggest any fundamental new problems, the recovery will probably continue to be restrained.
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Nonresidential construction slips
The new year started on a down note for private nonresidential construction as spending fell 2.1 percent in January, according to the March 1 report by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a year-over-year basis, private nonresidential construction was 19.9 percent lower. Total nonresidential construction spending slipped 1.4 percent in January and was down 10.6 percent from the same time last year. Nonresidential construction spending totaled $615 billion on a seasonally adjusted annual rate in January.
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Peninsular makes a Baird move
The recent acquisition of Peninsular Securities by the Robert W. Baird Co. was the culmination of more than 20 months of negotiations. Now nearly all of the Peninsular clients have gone along with the deal and transferred management of their stocks to Baird.
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Proposed PDR purchase gets smaller
When Kent County commissioners agreed last month to buy the options to purchase the development rights of six farms, they weren’t certain how many of the landowners would agree to sell for an average price of $1,786 per acre. Now they know.
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Regal pulls out of AIG's SagePoint
Kailunas
Kentwood’s Regal Financial LLC, an independent financial services firm that constituted the largest U.S. branch of reps and advisors for SagePoint Financial Inc., has pulled out of that AIG-owned business and is setting up its own broker-dealer organization.
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Taxing docs not acceptable
Editor:
For the second time in six months, Gov. Jennifer Granholm proposed to tax physicians an additional 3 percent of their gross revenue. That’s a tax on revenue before any expenses, including medications and medical devices provided to patients in the office for which there is no markup. Insurance companies only reimburse physicians their actual cost of medications and medical devices, which means physicians would lose an additional 3 percent over and above their cost.
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