The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Michigan’s leading small business association, announced its opposition to Senate Bill 660, which would allow local governments the ability to add a new, uncapped, and unsupervised fee on small businesses.

When asked, NFIB Michigan members overwhelmingly voted against (95.7%) state legislation that would give local governments the authority to adopt stormwater management fees without a local vote.

“Senate Bill 660 is bad policy for small businesses,” said Amanda Fisher, NFIB Michigan State Director. “Michigan’s small businesses employ almost half of all workers in the state and are a critical aspect of Michigan’s economic success – owners are already managing difficult economic challenges and are preparing for the new and costly paid sick leave and minimum wage laws to take effect next year. These stormwater management fees, which are essentially a rain tax, will only add to their challenges. Small business owners are also concerned with the fact that these fees wouldn’t be subject to a public vote and owners would have to go through a stringent adjudication process. We ask members of the Michigan state Senate to oppose SB 660 and avoid increasing fees on small businesses.”

Senate Bill 660 would require small businesses to pay more in fees without any sort of recourse outside of the local government that imposed that assessment.