The House Committee on Government Operations voted to report Senate Bill 595 H-1 to the full House with a recommendation after adopting Representative Harris’s substitute, which would allow professional surveyors residing in adjacent counties to serve on the Michigan–Indiana State Commission and extend the commission’s deadline.

Supporters told the committee the measure is aimed at completing a long-running effort to remonument the Michigan–Indiana border, work officials say has not had a full, modern survey since the early 1800s. Senator Lindsey, who testified in support, said the issue creates everyday problems — from confusing sales-tax obligations for businesses to residents having mailing addresses and driver’s licenses in different states — and warned that a statutory sunset scheduled to take effect on January 1 would dissolve the commission and erase more than two decades of progress.

“The bill will enable adjacent counties to survey the Michigan–Indiana state line and extend the deadline,” Senator Lindsey said in committee testimony, arguing the change is primarily mechanical and would not require additional state funds. Paige Fultz, director at the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs’ Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs, told the committee the Bureau of Construction Codes houses the Office of Land Survey and Remonumentation and supports the bill. Fultz said the department and commission have been working cooperatively with Indiana and do not anticipate border disputes as work proceeds.

The substitute H-1 adopted in committee specifically allows county-resident professional surveyors to serve on the state border commission to address quorum shortages that have slowed the remonumentation effort. The bill also would permit the commission to grant resources directly to county remonumentation programs that already perform monumentation work, which supporters said is more efficient than a state-level commission contracting for a single project.

Committee members asked whether the effort would require erecting large visible monuments on the state line; witnesses and the senator said modern practice favors lower-footprint permanent markers such as metal rods and that any visible monumentation decisions would follow the surveying work and resource availability.

The committee recorded the following formal actions: the H-1 substitute was adopted by roll call (reported as 3 ayes, 0 nays, 1 pass on the substitute adoption), and the committee later voted to report Senate Bill 595 H-1 with recommendation (reported as 4 yays, 0 nays, 0 passes). A written support card from Michelle Batorra of the Michigan Society of Professional Surveyors was noted.

The bill now moves to the next House floor or committee step with the committee’s recommendation.