Michael MacDonald
Herald Editor
After months of uncertainty, school leaders in Gratiot County finally have clarity following the passage of a $24.12 billion state education budget. Michigan legislators approved the spending plan last Friday, averting disruptions to the first aid payments of the year and preserving key programs such as free meals, at-risk funding, and student mental health supports.
Gratiot-Isabella Regional Education Service District Superintendent Paul Hungerford told The Herald the bipartisan agreement provides relief, but the delay in getting there caused avoidable anxiety for local administrators.
“The biggest frustration was that it was overdue by three months,” Hungerford said. The Breckenridge-Wheeler Township Volunteer Fire-Rescue Department is trading in its cramped 45-year-old hall for a $3.2 million station under construction in the village’s industrial park. The move reflects years of planning and a financing package stitched together from local savings, bonds, grants, and donations.
The current fire hall at 513 E. Saginaw St. is listed for sale at $525,000. Built in the late 1970s, the 5,680-square-foot building has three drive-through bays with six powered doors, radiant heat, reinforced concrete floors with drains, a 24-by-55-foot conference room, showers, pneumatic lines, and a Generac backup generator. Despite those features, the station is short on space for today’s larger fire engines and equipment.
“Beginning in early 2020 the Fire Board and administration have spent time reviewing plans for renovations of the existing fire hall,” Breckenridge Village Clerk Bridgette McPherson told The Herald. She added the review showed upgrades would cost “just as much as building a new facility.”
The new 12,500-square-foot hall is rising in the Breckenridge Industrial Park, chosen for its central location to the department’s coverage area.