LANSING – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Monday she's looking into millions of dollars in vehicle registration fees the state has paid to an arm of the Michigan Trucking Association and she's not sure she will vote to approve the grant when it comes before the State Administrative Board on Tuesday.

"I'm going to be sitting down with my team this afternoon to talk about that," Whitmer told the Free Press on Monday after inspecting a Lansing bridge that needs $3 million in urgent repairs.

Whitmer says Michigan needs about $2 billion a year more in road repair money, but the roughly $8 million in heavy truck registration fees that has been paid in grants to an arm of the trucking industry's Lansing-based lobbyist since 2012 "could have helped a little bit."

She said she has asked the heads of the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Michigan State Police — whose office of Highway Safety Planning administers the grant — to "look into that and get some answers."

The Free Press reported Monday that the Lansing-based lobbying organization for the trucking industry has a nonprofit arm that receives an annual grant — paid for from truck registration fees — to educate truckers and the general public about truck safety.

Money from vehicle registration fees normally goes to fix the roads, but 1988 legislation redirected $15 from each heavy truck registration fee, plus some business fees paid by firms operating interstate trucks, to a Michigan Truck Safety Fund, which supports the grants.

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The latest no-bid award to the Michigan Trucking Association — $1.1 million for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 — is set for final approval at a Tuesday meeting of the State Administrative Board. The board awards significant contracts for the state and the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, superintendent of public instruction and transportation director are all voting members.

Grants are awarded by a majority vote.

Among the Free Press findings:

The Center for Truck Safety, which receives the annual grant, shares Lansing office space and has also shared employees with the trucking association, according to federal tax filings. The center uses some of the state grant money to pay the Michigan Trucking Association more than $51,000 a year in rent, up to $20,000 a year for services such as legal advice and personnel management, and $16,800 in annual interest payments on a loan, according to the filings and other state records.

The state continues to fund the Michigan Center for Truck Safety despite a 2013 finding by the Office of Highway Safety Planning that the center was reimbursed by the state for close to $300,000 in impermissible costs over a two-year period.

A monitoring report — less invasive than an audit — found that the person the center hired to answer a truck safety "hotline" funded by the grant was doubling as the telephone receptionist for the Michigan Trucking Association, said Michael Prince, director of the Office of Highway Safety Planning.

The report also found that while expenses for certain programs — such as advanced truck driver training on a "skid pad" that simulates hazardous road conditions — were being charged to the Michigan Center for Truck Safety through the grant, revenues from those programs, such as tuition paid by truck drivers, were going to the Michigan Trucking Association, Prince said. The revenues should have stayed with the center to offset its expenses, he said.

The report also found that equipment worth more than $13,000, paid for with state funds, was sold to pay off a trucking association debt for equipment storage, according to state records.

The commission has in the past called for proposals from other groups to seek the grant money to handle the education efforts, but officials said it has been rare for any other group to bid on the work.

The most recent request for proposals, issued in 2016, contained an unusual requirement. It said: "Current personnel involved with the Truck Driver Safety Education project will remain on staff." In other words, any proposal to compete with the Michigan Center for Truck Safety had to be built around using all of the center's existing staff. Officials agreed that could discourage other organizations from bidding on the grant.

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said the bridge Whitmer inspected Tuesday, which crosses the Red Cedar River on Elm Street, is under load restrictions because of its poor condition, needing $3 million in repairs.

Schor said it is one of several Lansing bridges in critical need of repair. The city is allowed to request state funding for five bridges each year, and always does so, but only receives funding for one or two because of a lack of available repair funds, he said.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.