Child labor, charter school transparency, public transit among bills signed by Whitmer

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a slew of bills this week lawmakers passed in the previous Democratic-led legislative session last year. She approved legislation touching on a range of policies from child labor to public transit.

Here’s a look at what she put her signature on during bill signings Thursday and Friday.

Charter school transparency

Whitmer signed House Bills 5231, 5232, 5233 and 5234 to require charter schools to disclose their partner organizations — including for-profit entities contracted to manage the schools — in promotional materials, websites and student application forms. She also approved House Bill 5269 which requires charter schools to publicly disclose on their websites the average salary information for teachers and support staff.

Name change proceedings

House Bills 5300 and 5303 change the process for someone changing their name or gender identity on legal documents. For instance, the legislation eliminates the requirement that someone provide an affidavit from a doctor certifying they performed a sex reassignment surgery to change the sex designation on a birth certificate.

Equality Michigan — an LGBTQ+ advocacy group — applauded the changes, describing them as a legislative victory for transgender individuals. “House Bills 5300 and 5303 remove archaic, harmful, and inequitable restrictions in our State’s legal name change process such as arduous fingerprint criminal background checks, presumptions of fraud, and the dangerous demand that trans folks publish their name-change hearings in newspapers,” said Equality Michigan Executive Director Erin Knott in a statement Dec. 20 after the Senate voted on the bills. Every Democratic state lawmaker voted for the bills while every Republican opposed them.

Wayne County opt-out communities

House Bill 6088 signed by Whitmer would end the ability of Wayne County communities to opt out of the transit millage that funds the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) regional bus system in Southeast Michigan. Seventeen Wayne County communities currently opt out of SMART, including Detroit but Michigan’s biggest city has its own transportation department. The bill passed with unified support from Democratic lawmakers against Republican opposition.

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Child labor in Michigan

A 2023 investigation published by The New York Times uncovered child labor law violations in the U.S. and migrant children skipping school to work dangerous jobs, including in Michigan. The reporting prompted legislative efforts in Congress and the Michigan Legislature.

House Bill 5594 signed by Whitmer makes changes to Michigan’s child labor law to require the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity instead of schools to issue work permits for minors and modify the hours minors can work.

Bill sponsor state Rep. Phil Skaggs, D-East Grand Rapids, said child work permits are scattered across high schools in Michigan, but his legislation would create a central database within the state’s labor department to keep track of children who are working. “They didn’t know where they were because the old system all went through their local high school,” he said. Skaggs’ other bill proposed an increase in the fine for employers who violate Michigan’s child labor laws, but that didn’t cross the finish line in the last legislative session. “But we’re going to work and see if we can move them in a bipartisan way,” he said.

Education savings and disabled residents

Whitmer approved House Bill 5783 which expands the type of expenses the Michigan Education Savings Program (MESP) can cover to include fees, books, supplies and equipment for an apprenticeship program and student loan payments.

Another bill Whitmer signed — House Bill 5781 — expands the eligibility for the Michigan Achieving a Better Life Experience (MiABLE) savings program to about 500,000 disabled residents in the state and their families, according to bill sponsor state Rep. Sharon MacDonell, D-Troy.

State Treasurer Rachael Eubanks celebrated the new laws in a statement Thursday. “For MiABLE, this means more people with disabilities will have the option to save for current and future expenses without jeopardizing government assistance like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income,” she said. She also applauded the expansion of MESP. “I applaud Governor Whitmer for signing these two bills that financially empower Michigan residents and taxpayers.”

Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New Michigan laws on education, transit and child labor

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