Dan Gilmartin and the Michigan Municipal League has been featured in multiple news articles recently about the funding crisis facing Michigan communities, Michigan’s infrastructure and the nation’s infrastructure woes in general.

The coverage was sparked by recent testimony before Congress by League CEO and Executive Director Dan Gilmartin. One recent piece was done March 16 by Michigan Public Radio. The public radio network had Gilmartin come down to its Ann Arbor studio and record this indepth article under the headline “Michigan Municipal League pleads case to U.S. Senate on behalf of road-weary motorists,” about municipal finance, road funding and other issues with Lester Graham.

And another piece was done last week by WDIV TV 4/ClickonDetroit. THe TV 4 crew came from Detroit and stopped by the League’s Capital Conference in Lansing and interviewed Gilmartin and Sterling Heights City Manager Mark Vanderpool. Under the headline, “Officials say $175 million to repair Michigan roads isn’t enough,” you can check out that article here.

And the coverage continued as recent as this week in this excellent article by John Austin for Bridge Magazine.

Under the headline, “Michigan infrastructure rebuild can’t be borne by local communities”, Austin writes about how, the Trump administration a few weeks ago unveiled a framework to support a much-needed rebuild of the nation’s infrastructure. As the  Brookings Institution has also noted, Austin explains that the Trump proposal leans heavily on governments outside Washington to foot the bill.

Here are some excerpts from Austin’s well-done article:

Michigan and our sister Rust Belt states are in a real quandary: As we are painfully aware during pothole season, we are home to some of the nation’s most aged and degraded infrastructure, but we also host a large number of communities with little to no ability to pay for rehabilitating it.

While the administration’s plan isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, it nonetheless exposes anew the fiscal and governance dilemmas that underlie infrastructure challenges in so many Michigan communities.

…

As Bridge Magazine’s own reporting and a recent summary of discussions with municipal leaders convened by the Michigan Municipal League reveal, “A combination of years of state disinvestment, tax policy flaws that have decoupled municipal revenues from income and property value growth, growing legacy costs, and perverse tax incentives around new development, among other factors, have contributed to a compounding crisis of decay in communities’ municipal revenue base.”

Many of our communities have lost residents, diminishing property values and tax bases. As a previous article in Bridge explored, these dynamics go hand-in-hand with the our high levels of racial segregation, as “white flight” drove losses of wealth, population, businesses and tax base in many communities.

At the same time, these communities still bear the costs of maintaining existing infrastructure designed for larger populations, delivering services to remaining residents, and paying generous health and retiree benefits to municipal workers and retirees promised during the region’s economic salad days.

Michigan’s local fiscal situation was already fragile when the Great Recession and auto collapse struck in 2008. Ten years later, property taxes—the largest source of revenue for locals—are largely below their pre-recession peak. This is true for 85 percent of Michigan’s communities despite low unemployment and a recovered auto industry.

According to a Michigan State Housing Development Authority review in 2017, there are nearly 200 Michigan cities, villages, and townships exhibiting economic distress. At any given time, about one in ten Michigan municipalities and school districts faces significant fiscal stress and mounting deficits.

It’s a vicious cycle for communities on the losing end of these changes. Population loss results in lower tax revenues. Less revenue means reduced services. Fewer services drive out more residents who, if nothing else, move a mile down the road to an adjacent community with better-funded schools, safety and public works.

Oftentimes, those who stay in the community remain on the hook to pay pensions and health care benefits for employees who moved away.

….

We have urgent need to reform our municipal finance systems to better support older communities, including by consolidating or sharing wealth in the form of revenue sharing (or at least services) among multiple local governmental units. Without bolder moves in Washington and Lansing, a true rebuild and revival of our Michigan communities will remain a chimera.

Additional media coverage on Dan Gilmartin’s testimony before Congress:

Detroit Free Press: “Michigan’s Lousy Roads: Congressional Panel Get an Earful” 

WJR Radio: Paul W. Smith Talks with Dan Gilmartin from Washington D.C.

Landline Magazine: Senate infrastructure funding hearing addresses trucking needs at state and local level

Dave Aklery Show on WILS Radio 1320: “Dan Gilmartin”

News Talk 94.9 WSJM: “Municipal League Wants Federal Infrastructure Money”

Town Crier Wire: “Municipal League Wants Federal Infrastructure Money”

U.S. House of Representative: Meeting Minutes