ESCANABA — With a new year here, local state representatives took time to reflect on the past year and look ahead to 2025. 108th District State Representative Dave Prestin and State Senator Ed McBroom spoke about EMS, tipped wages, Public Act 235, recent decisions of the Michigan State Supreme Court and more.

Prestin touted the EMT and paramedics plan, a plan crafted by Prestin and unanimously passed through the Senate Veterans and Emergency Services Committee.

It was signed into law in the summer.

The newly enacted state law extends temporary licenses for EMTs or paramedics from 120 days to one year.

“It bought them more time and bought their employers more time, and in a world where EMS is in short supply, anything that we can do to build resources in EMS is helpful,” Prestin explained.

McBroom said the EMS issue is something he and others have been working to address in previous years.

“It was really difficult to speak the language that we needed to in order to cut through the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo from the State of Michigan. Dave (Prestin) knows this stuff. He knows it forwards and backward, and he’s a real leader on solutions on this, and so, I’m really happy to have him and to work alongside him on this issue,” McBroom said.

Even with the law passed, Prestin and McBroom still need to address an EMS issue as expediently as possible.

Parts of the U.P. are dealing with EMS problems after Wellpath Holdings, a former health provider for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), filed for bankruptcy.

“They were responsible for paying all of our EMS or responses to the prisons. Well, they decided to not pay and subsequently went bankrupt and we have a bunch of EMS systems, Kinross probably being the worst; they’re living check to check, week to week, and they could go under at any moment,” Prestin said.

He explained that Wellpath went months and possibly years without providing payments for services already rendered.

McBroom credits the current failure of privatized healthcare in prisons to the state, as it attempts to cover the entirety of Michigan under one plan.

“That’s a really big order, and none of the providers so far have been able to execute this contract very well across the whole state. The latest failure of this exercise is that the current contractor has failed to reimburse our local ambulance services, which provides the transportation of course, for anyone who needs to be moved from the on-site medical facility to an offsite hospital. It’s just another example of how a one-size-fits-all contract across this huge state is not a functional model,” McBroom explained.

He called the problem a desperate situation that must be addressed.

“We need immediate assistance, or these folks might not be able to provide the assistance to the residents who are paying their millages to get this service,” he said.

Should the EMS departments go down, Prestin expects calls for assistance to take much longer.

He said correcting the issue will be a top priority once the legislature returns.

“Alger County is looking at a similar shortfall; Marquette County, Baraga County, they’re EMS departments are all looking at shortfalls due to the negligence and the disingenuous actions of a state-contracted authority to pay the EMS folks,” he said.

The only way to curb the issue is to work the amount owed into the state’s budget.

“The state has to pay its bills. The viability of our local ambulance services in these communities is hanging by a thread because the state is not backing up the contractor who’s failing to pay,” McBroom said.

He added that due to time constraints, a lawsuit against the contractor to acquire unpaid services would take too long, and the state needs to act sooner rather than later.

“Something has got to be done right away,” he said.

While local prisons are in a tough spot right now, McBroom, Prestin, and other U.P. legislators recently passed a bill to the governor’s office to benefit MDOC workers. The new legislation offers corrections officers the opportunity to enroll in a pension plan, similar to plans given to state police troopers. The hope is that the new benefit will attract and retain more good corrections officers.

“I don’t believe that alone is enough to remedy the staffing crisis we’re facing. It’s a significant victory, but there’s a long way to go,” McBroom said.

Prestin agreed with McBroom, saying the bill is a good start.

“This is a big win for the U.P. that the corrections pension package did go through…The pension is a great start to what I think more is needed to be done in order to bolster that profession to make these guys and gals feel like they have not been forgotten,” Prestin said.

He also said the area had great wins in the last budget, and he plans to keep moving forward in the new session.

“We brought a funding mechanism to the Gladstone Senior Center for infrastructure upgrades as well as Stephenson High School for some track upgrades. So, we got wins in the budget for the 108th, and you know, we’re just gonna keep pushing forward,” he said.

Prestin and McBroom spoke about the next legislative session, saying they are working on a carve-out for the U.P. regarding the new energy plan under Public Act 235, which was signed last year and required the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to study how the U.P. can meet the state’s clean energy goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. Prestin said the U.P.’s power portfolio is vastly different from downstate.

McBroom echoed Prestin, calling the plan to transition the entire state to renewable energy by 2040 ridiculous.

Prestin added that the current legislation would put the U.P. in a difficult spot regarding reliable energy.

“The whole Public Act 235 is, I believe, a disaster statewide, particularly for us in the U.P.; it requires the same transitions as everywhere else but doesn’t acknowledge our different geology. It doesn’t acknowledge the significantly different situation we have with transmission and generation,” McBroom said.

The MPSC recently released a report validating Prestin and McBroom’s concerns.

“We’re encouraged by the fact that the MPSC agrees with us that we need to be treated differently, and we’re looking forward to a legislative carve-out that puts the Upper Peninsula in a better place regarding power needs going forward,” Prestin explained.

The report gives Prestin and McBroom confidence that a carve-out for the U.P. will be granted, but nothing is certain.

“It’s going to be very difficult,” McBroom said.

“There are people up here, even in the Upper Peninsula, who continue to fight against it. They’re a minority, but they’re of the right political colors for certain other folks that I work with downstate who are currently still in power (and) that’s going to make it very, very difficult to get this done, not impossible, but it’s going to take a lot of effort from the UP team to make happen,” McBroom explained.

Outside of the legislature, Prestin expressed displeasure with the recent decisions of the Michigan Supreme Court regarding tips and paid time off. The four-to-three decision rescinds the legislature’s adopt-and-amend action in 2018. The original initiative was prompted by a petition by Michigan voters, adopted and amended by the legislature, and kept off the ballot.

“They (the legislature) adopted the ballot initiative and amended it so that it didn’t affect Michigan in an egregious way. Well, the (Michigan) Supreme Court overturned that and said that was unconstitutional, and the ballot initiative will be phased in over the next three years to a full $15 an hour for everybody, wiping out the minimum tip,” Prestin explained.

He said this a terrible decision for not only the entire state, but especially for the UP.

Following the decision, Prestin expects food and beverage costs to increase, ultimately raising the prices on restaurant menus.

“You would have drinks and entrees at a price point that would be unaffordable to the public.

You know, your $15 dollar burger would become a $25 burger,” he said.

Prestin said it particularly hurts local mom-and-pop restaurants more so than chain corporations.

“When you raise those prices, you’re taking away a large portion of the customer base that normally comes. So with that, the table turnover is going to probably drop in half, which means their sales are going to drop, which means the server’s income is going to drop. We’re talking about going someplace that we won’t even be able to go because the math just doesn’t (work). You can’t go from a minimum tip wage of right around $3 and some odd cents to three years from now phasing it up to $15 an hour and expect restaurants to adapt,” he explained.

McBroom agreed with Prestin and added that he expects the impact to be immediate in the area because the U.P. is on the border of Canada.

“For those of us along the border, I think there’s going to be an immediate impact to that because it will force a cost of food directly to go up and, likely cause tips to decline. And drive a lot of our hospitality workers to work in restaurants on the other side of the border,” McBroom said.

He added that a fix to the current law would be to make it apply only to restaurants or corporations with 50 or more employees and restore the tipped wage.

“Which 48 other states have, so it’s really frustrating to see this change. It was primarily driven by petitions gathered from California,” he said.

He explained that the legislature provided a solution, but the Supreme Court disagreed and preferred the petition.

“At the very least, the Supreme Court should have sent it to the people for a vote, but they didn’t. And they have now written a law that was never voted on by the people or by the legislature, and it’s just a sham,” McBroom stated.

In line with the previously mentioned carve-out of the U.P. concerning Public Act 235, McBroom isn’t confident that legislation will pass to address the problem. He said the votes are there in the House and Senate, but he isn’t confident it will come to the floor for a vote.

“There’s bipartisan support to fix it, but there are a few powerful people who are

against its passage and whether they allow it to come forward for a vote or not is what is most difficult to predict,” he said.

Both spoke about working in politics, stating they certainly disagree on issues with their counterparts on the other side of the aisle, but the relationship isn’t as volatile and ugly as portrayed by the national media.

He said he gets along well with his colleagues, even those in the opposing party, for the most part. However, he said both sides of the aisle have a select few individuals who spend their time casting blame and playing political games rather than representing their constituents and their concerns.

“I really have gone out of my way to try to wrap myself up and get involved with Democrats that are interested in doing things for the Upper Peninsula, for Michigan, and (I) try to stay away from the ones that are pushing much more on the social issue aspect,” Prestin said.

McBroom echoed Prestin, saying there will always be a handful of bad actors, but the majority of those working at the state level are there with good intentions to help their district and the State of Michigan.

“The majority of folks there are there for the right reasons; besides, just a guesstimate that 10 percent of the members are somehow there for bad purposes, they’re to promote themselves or to do some other long-term damage. But the vast majority are there with the best intentions and are good people with families and communities that they care about,” McBroom said.