Local Ballot Proposal Success Yet Another Sign of Michigan’s Broken Municipal Finance System

Thank you, thank you voters!!

But to the state of Michigan: There is a lot of work that needs to be done to fix Michigan’s broken municipal finance system.

That’s the best way we at SaveMICity.org can summarize the election results from Tuesday regarding the overwhelming success of the hundreds of proposals on local ballots. Getting these local ballot questions approved is great for our communities, but it’s a sign of a larger problem that the system is broken. All this tax burden is being pushed to the local level, but it would be much better to invest state resources locally.

Let’s first talk numbers (all of which were compiled by MIRS News Service):

There were upward of 850 local proposals on the Aug. 7 ballot when Michigan residents voted earlier this week in the August primary election. Of the 847 local proposals – 808 (or 89 percent) were approved. That’s a big number, but what’s even more impressive is 299 of those proposals involved new or increased money AND voters said yes to 268 of them. That’s an 89 percent success rate.

But check this out – tax questions on fire and emergency-related services saw a 98 percent approval rate and police-related proposals also clocked in at 98 percent approved. And 95 percent of the road-related proposals passed (that’s 161 of the 169 questions). You can view the full MIRS spread sheet showing all the proposal-related results here. You can view the MIRS article here if you have a subscription to their news service, and we strongly recommend you do subscribe.

These are some amazing stats. But what does it all mean? It shows what we’ve been saying – Michigan voters will step up and invest in local services that matter to them.

The Michigan Municipal League has tracked these results in the past and usually the success rate of new-money asks hovers around 80 percent. Seeing numbers in the 89 percent-range and mid-to-upper 90s percent range for certain issue-specific requests is truly impressive. It’s also consistent with a March 2018 EPIC-MRA poll SaveMICity had done. That poll found that 86 percent of residents prefer their taxes be used to provide local services, with only 9 percent saying their taxes should go to Lansing to fund state departments and agencies. The local desire to fund communities is there – we need to convince leaders at all levels that funding our cities is a tantamount priority.

The trend of local millage requests is increasing because the state has repeatedly dis-invested in its own communities and refuses to help raise revenue and change policy and laws to give local communities more revenue-generating options. This has forced municipalities to pick up the slack by whatever means they can. Our research done through our saveMIcity.org municipal finance reform initiative shows that the state has diverted more than $8.5 billion in revenue sharing dollars from Michigan communities since 2002. Michigan is the only state in the nation to invest less in its communities between 2002 and 2012. (View the chart here). In fact, leaders – who have been limping along by doing more with less – now even struggle to provide basic services like adequate roads, police and fire protection, trash removal, and snow plowing – all because the state doesn’t properly invest in our communities.

Our saveMIcity work is an examination of how we can do things differently in Michigan to assure that local government can’t just survive, but can thrive. To that end, the League is developing policy recommendations around three themes: Cost Containment, Revenue Enhancement, and Structure of Government. One of our short-term goals is to make this a major part of the conversation in the upcoming November general election and then to keep the conversation going. Michigan’s future depends on it.

Is this an issue that you care about and would like to have a discussion about locally? The League will work with you to plan an event in your hometown with community groups, local chambers of commerce, economic clubs, rotary clubs, local media, etc. Just contact us by email at savemicity@mml.org and we will provide resources and/or a speaker to help foster the discussion.

Here are additional proposal-related results compiled by MIRS from Tuesday’s election:

• Renewal proposals did as well as they typically do – a 98 percent approval rate, or 540 of the 548 total.
• School proposals were approved at a 93 percent rate, or 89 of the 95 proposals.
• On the big money asks, voters OKed the $107 million bond for Traverse City Area Public Schools, and the public delivered on a $32 million bonding ask from Haslett Public Schools.
• Dearborn was OKed for a $60 million bonding plan for its sewers. The metro Detroit bus system question in Oakland passed, and in Macomb it passed by 23 votes.
• All 24 transit proposals passed.
• 64 of the seniors-related proposals passed, and only 1 failed.
• 37 library proposals passed, and 5 failed.
• 27 general operations questions passed, 4 failed.
• 18 parks and recreation-related proposals passed, 2 failed.
• All 8 waste or recycling proposals passed.
• All 4 mosquito control measures passed.

  – View our similar blog following the 2016 presidential election here