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Michigan schools one step closer to snow day forgiveness

EMMA WINOWIECKI / MICHIGAN RADIO

(LANSING) - Snow day forgiveness legislation has passed out of a Michigan House committee. A bill would still count snow days taken during a state of emergency declared by the governor toward the minimum number of instruction days. 

Tim Greimel is with an organization that represents many hourly employees in school systems, like maintenance workers and bus drivers. He says those employees only get paid if they work. The group wants the bill to make sure that hourly employees will be paid if snow days are forgiven.

"They live on modest incomes. Typically they make somewhere in the range of $10 to $15 an hour. They are not people who live high on the hog by any means," Greimel says.

Supporters of the legislation say those hourly workers can negotiate pay and changes to their own contracts. 

Before becoming the newest Capitol reporter for the Michigan Public Radio Network, Cheyna Roth was an attorney. She spent her days fighting it out in court as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Ionia County. Eventually, Cheyna took her investigative and interview skills and moved on to journalism. She got her masters at Michigan State University and was a documentary filmmaker, podcaster, and freelance writer before finding her home with NPR. Very soon after joining MPRN, Cheyna started covering the 2016 presidential election, chasing after Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and all their surrogates as they duked it out for Michigan. Cheyna also focuses on the Legislature and criminal justice issues for MPRN. Cheyna is obsessively curious, a passionate storyteller, and an occasional backpacker. Follow her on Twitter at @Cheyna_R