News

Why did the deer cross the road?

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By ALEXANDER SMITH
Capital News Service
LANSING — If you hit a deer hard enough, it has to land somewhere. In Houghton Lake, vacationers had their trip cut short when a deer ran into the side of their truck, flipped into the air, punched a hole into the camper and thrashed around inside. “The whole inside was trashed with blood and guts,” said Sgt. Eric Sumpter of the State Police post in Cadillac. “It was just terrible.”
That’s just one example of what can happen when a deer darts out into traffic.

Diversity Issues

State works to improve payments to county child care programs

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By ALEXANDER SMITH
Capital News Service
LANSING — Delays in paying for programs that help troubled youth are prompting an overhaul of how the state reimburses county courts for the services. The Child Care Fund reimburses half of county court expenses for programs that support abused, neglected and delinquent youth. A recent state audit disclosed slow payments but also said some of them may be ineligible for reimbursement — even though counties’ budgets had previous approval. “If the state can’t uphold a budget it approved, kids and courts suffer,” said Eric Stevens, administrator of the Muskegon County Circuit Court. “Forget about creativity.

Education

Audit says inspectors need to recheck more school buses that fail safety checks

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By ALEXANDER SMITH
Capital News Service
LANSING — A recent state audit says state officials should more aggressively re-inspect school buses that fail safety checks. The number of buses with safety defects rose by 684 to 3,038 in 2016. That’s 19 percent of Michigan’s fleet, according to the 2016 School Bus Inspection Report. According to a September state audit report of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, inspectors rarely reevaluated a bus tagged as defective. In 2016, only 30 percent of tagged buses were reevaluated by inspectors, the audit reported.