Why should residents, businesses, or local officials care about how we fund local government? Isn’t this just a pitch for higher taxes? In short, no. While new revenues need to be part of this conversation, so do cost management and government structure. But that isn’t why you should care. This is about directing resources where they matter the most: your hometown.
In Michigan, we have built a tax system that is broken and have set spending priorities that simply do not direct dollars where they have the most impact for residents of the State of Michigan.
Ask yourself what governmental services you value or use the most. Is it a responsive police force or great local parks and recreation opportunities? Maybe it’s a great downtown, or a strong fire department, or when snow plows clear your local street after a big snow storm.
Unfortunately in Michigan, the state has diverted dollars away from local services to shore up the state’s bureaucracy. Since 2002, that diversion has totaled over $8.6 billion. If you would like to see how much has been taken from your community, click here to visit the revenue sharing lookup tool. This database shows dollars that could have been used to fund the local services that matter most, but instead have been co-opted to sustain the state’s $54.9 billion dollar budget. This is one of many issues that directly affect the ability of local governments to create great places for all of us to live and work.
We encourage you to ask your legislator to rethink budget priorities and stay engaged on the broader issue of reforming our system. We need to fund what matters most. Our system is horribly broken and, left unchanged, will prevent us from having the Michigan we all want and deserve.
As a business owner in Michigan, there are two main reasons that you should want to assure that we properly direct resources in Michigan: talent attraction and talent retention. No other resource is more important to a business than the people that they are able to attract to help run their company. There was a time when talent chased the company and the promise of a paycheck and career was the only thing a company needed to do to attract the best and brightest. Those days are over, and the evidence is overwhelming that people, especially the millennial generation are choosing a place first.
If we hope to compete, we must resource what matters, and what matters are creating great places as talent and retention magnets. Michigan is blessed with some of the most amazing natural resources on earth – tremendous industrial capacity, strong universities, and attractive tax environment – but we are still losing our young talented work force. Why? We would suggest that we are starving our cities, making them less desirable places, and people locate in a place they love. We must start setting new budget priorities that will strengthen businesses by growing our economy by attracting the best and brightest.
Help us SaveMICity, because strong, vibrant communities mean strong vibrant, businesses. Please take a minute and sign up to receive action alerts and help us change our future. We encourage you to ask your legislator to rethink budget priorities and stay engaged on the broader issue of reforming our system.
As a local leader, you know all too well that we are burdened with a broken municipal finance system. We have seen money diverted by the state, precipitous drops in property values that are now horribly constrained by tax limitations, and little to no ability to raise money locally. We need a new way forward. We need a system that will track not only with a weak economy, but with a strong one as well.
Our ability to create strong communities is at the precipice, and we must begin to change the system to properly fund the services that matter most: local services. We are the front line on almost every issue that our residents care about, but we have built a system that simply cannot sustain us, and certainly won’t invigorate a strong Michigan. Michigan is a collection of cities, villages, and townships. Our residents identify and care deeply about their little corner of the state and we owe it to them to make our little piece of it the best possible place.
In order to do that we need to fund what matters, and we need your help. As local officials, you understand this issue better than anyone. We encourage you to ask your legislator to rethink budget priorities and stay engaged on the broader issue of reforming our system. We need to fund what matters most. Our system is horribly broken and, left unchanged, will prevent us from having the Michigan we all want and deserve.
