New report: Michigan’s cities look financially grim

Michigan cities are managing with 12 percent less revenue today than they did 15 years ago. What does that mean for Michigan’s communities?

The financial struggles facing Michigan communities received statewide attention recently following the release of a new report showing revenue declines in select Michigan cities from 2002 to 2017.

Multiple media outlets covered a news event hosted by the Michigan Municipal League in Lansing Wednesday, November 20. The event unveiled a study by Public Sector Consultants and a related online database that paints a bleak financial picture for Michigan cities. Both the study and online lookup tool containing financial information of 225 Michigan cities can be found at savemicity.org/revenue-snapshot. View a press release about the report here.

League Director of State and Federal Affairs Chris Hackbarth, League Policy Development Director Shanna Draheim and Vice President of Public Sector Consultants Tim Dempsey spoke of the bleak numbers found in the Public Sector Consultants report and showcased the SaveMICity initiative’s new revenue sharing search tool.

Using hard data from the Public Sector Consultants’ “City Revenue Snapshot” Report, MML built an online database to easily show the drastic revenue losses for cities comparing 2002 pre-recession data to 2017 post-recession data gathered by the Michigan Department of Treasury.

“The report shows what the League has been saying for a long time now, that our system is broken,” Draheim said. “But this isn’t about us complaining. This is a call to action.”

According to the report, cities experienced a decline in total revenue, state revenue sharing and property taxes. What does it all mean? Michigan’s current system is broken, and the state needs to save its cities and communities by giving them the ability to grow.

“Michigan’s communities have not recovered from the recession, and furthermore, they will never recover under Michigan’s current system for funding our communities,” Hackbarth said.

To ensure a future for Michigan, the League and League Board President Brenda F. Moore, Saginaw Mayor Pro Tem, is asking state officials to stop strangling its own communities by withholding cities’ and villages’ share of revenue.

“We need state leaders to understand that our local communities have taken it on the chin financially over the last two decades,” said Brenda F. Moore, League Board President and Saginaw Mayor Pro Tem. “This disinvestment in our communities cannot continue if we expect Michigan to provide the types of places and cities that today’s talent and businesses want. I just don’t see how we can expect Michigan to become more economically competitive when we starve cities and villages of resources they need to survive.”

Moore hopes the report and online tool will open the eyes of legislators, business leaders and residents to the notion that Michigan’s financial system for local government is broken.

“It’s time for a change in Lansing to how we do business,” Moore said, adding proposed solutions to fixing the broken system are available at savemicity.org.

For the Revenue Sharing search tool: https://www.savemicity.org/search/

For the full Public Sector Consultants report click here.