New SaveMICity Video Shows Impact of Revenue Sharing Cuts on Michigan Communities

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/rqxWz8jBlI8″ title=”SaveMICity: Local Leaders Speak Out”/]

What have revenue sharing cuts done to your community?

“We’ve had to do less, with less,” is what Pontiac Mayor Dr. Deirdre Waterman said when we asked Michigan Municipal League members this question during our 2018 Annual Convention in Grand Rapids.

Local leaders from all over Michigan told us about the essential services they’ve had to cut back, the infrastructure projects they’ve had to postpone, and the people they’ve had to lay off. They recorded their responses with us and we’ve compiled them in a video you can now see on the SaveMICity website here (http://www.savemicity.org/videos/) and on the SaveMICity YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxEV_mwZlLtRs-ZWottjRDA).

For Muskegon Heights, the cuts in revenue sharing, exacerbated by the economic downturn, forced them to lay off 50 percent of their police force; causing crime rates to rise, explained Muskegon Heights Mayor Kimberely Sims, a member of the Michigan Municipal League Board of Trustees. Grand Rapids officials – Mayor Rosalynn Bliss and City Commissioner Ruth Kelly, told how they had to lay off hundreds of employees. And many local officials referenced the issue that’s at the top of most Michiganders’ minds: they’ve had to postpone fixing and maintaining local roads.

In the most extreme example of what revenue sharing cuts have done, the cost-saving Flint water supply switch and improper water treatment created a public health crisis. “The 100 million dollars we lost in Flint [from revenue sharing cuts] that could have prevented the crisis in the first place will now cost the state and federal government about 500 million dollars to fix the problem,” said Congressman Dan Kildee, D-Flint, “So, even if people thought they were saving money when they cut revenue sharing to cities, they were actually just deferring the cost to another day and increasing the cost astronomically.”

We also asked them what they could do if revenue sharing were fully restored. The answers are varied but all in the same vein – they’d make their communities better, safer; and bring back the services residents want and need.

Watch the video to see the real problems Michigan communities and Michigan people are facing. Then ask yourself, “What does the loss in revenue sharing mean for my community?” Take a look around. Do you see crumbling sidewalks, washboard roads, unplowed streets, blighted homes or poorly maintained parks? Talk with your local elected leaders, city managers, township supervisors, police officers, public works directors and parks staff. They’ll tell you that something needs to change before it gets worse. And make sure you ask them how you can get involved to flip the script in your community.

The video also features comments from League President Melanie Piana, Ferndale councilmember; Rosalynn Bliss, Grand Rapids mayor; Floyd Kloc, Saginaw mayor pro tem; Ruth Kelly, Grand Rapids city commissioner; Ken Massey, Farmington Hills mayor; and Kimberley Sims, Muskegon Heights mayor.