Michigan licensing agency outlines scope, rule reforms and staffing needs to House subcommittee

At a meeting of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Licensing and Regulatory Affairs and Insurance and Financial Services, officials from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) briefed members on the department's licensing responsibilities, rulemaking workload and recent legislative activity.

The presentation, led by Paige Fultz, director of LARA’s Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs, and Marnie Triemstra, deputy director, outlined LARA’s mission, the department’s four strategic goals and the bureaus and type 1 agencies that operate under its umbrella. “We directly serve nearly 2,000,000 individuals and entities,” Fultz said, summarizing the department’s scale.

The briefing matters because LARA regulates professions and facilities that touch health care, construction, public safety and consumer protection across Michigan. Committee members asked about board structure, new licensing responsibilities, and staffing to implement recently enacted laws.

Fultz told the committee LARA was established in 1965 as the Department of Commerce and was renamed LARA in 2011. She said LARA groups its work into three categories: regulatory bureaus (offices with statutory authority), type 1/autonomous agencies (agencies that operate under LARA but have statutorily granted powers) and central services that provide administrative support. She said LARA coordinated rule promulgation for its bureaus and tracked more than 500 bills in the prior legislative session.

The presentation detailed several bureaus and their responsibilities. The Bureau of Community and Health Systems (BCHS) oversees licensing and oversight for adult foster care facilities, home health care, hospice, hospitals and substance use disorder programs and administers authorities under the Michigan Public Health Code, the Mental Health Code, the Adult Foster Care Facility Licensing Act and the Deaf Persons Interpreters Act. Fultz said BCHS is working to reduce and streamline administrative rules in the adult foster care space from a reported 206 rules spread across 20 pages to a proposed 73 rules on 39 pages to simplify compliance for roughly 3,500 licensed adult foster care facilities serving nearly 32,000 residents.

LARA staff described the Survey and Certification bureau (established in 2022) as the state entity that performs federal Medicare and Medicaid survey and certification duties for more than 20 health care provider types on behalf of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The Bureau of Construction Codes (BCC) enforces statewide construction codes through 11 boards and commissions, administers code enforcement and shares permitting and inspection authority with local governments, and applies 17 statutes and 23 administrative rule sets. LARA also highlighted oversight areas that range from manufactured housing community inspections to boiler safety and specialty oversight such as ski areas and carnival/amusement inspections.

The Bureau of Professional Licensing (BPL) was described as regulating professions under the Michigan Occupational Code and the Michigan Public Health Code and as maintaining the state’s health professional recovery program and the Michigan Automated Prescription System. Fultz told the committee that the interstate medical licensure compact sunset for Michigan on March 28 (noted in the presentation) and that BPL must prepare to exit the compact by March 28 of the following year; she said that change would affect roughly 3,255 MDs and 517 DOs in Michigan.

Representatives asked for clarification on appointment processes and the lawmaking basis for boards and commissions. Marnie Triemstra said the statutory language creating a license commonly prescribes whether a board exists and the membership for that board; she also said departments rely on board members to provide professional subject-matter expertise because departmental staff do not include every licensed practitioner. On question about a new license tied to deceased removal services, LARA staff said the legislature provided statutory authority last year and the department is requesting $300,000 in restricted state revenue and two full-time equivalents to implement licensing and compliance for death-care services and refrigerated removal trucks.

Committee members pressed LARA on how many boards exist and how they are appointed. Fultz and Triemstra said some boards are statutorily required (specifying membership and terms) and some recently were combined by executive order; LARA said it would provide a full list of boards, commissions and membership requirements to the committee. Triemstra clarified that the Michigan Office of Administrative Hearings and Rules (MOAR) is housed as a type 1 agency under LARA for administrative hearings and that MOAR handles administrative rulemaking for the state generally, not only for LARA.

Earlier in the meeting, Representative Steele moved to approve the minutes of the April 24, 2025 subcommittee meeting. With no objections, the minutes were adopted by unanimous consent; the clerk recorded four members present and one absent.

LARA staff closed by offering the committee copies of their “cutting red tape” report and invited legislators to submit legislative concepts and language for coordination on statutory changes.

LARA officials said they would follow up with lists requested by committee members — including the full roster of boards and commissions, the specific composition of those bodies, and clarifications about which appointed positions go to the Senate advice and consent process — and the committee recessed to hear the next presentation.