Representative Makes Passionate Case For Revenue Sharing on House Floor
[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSeJqeaxAKY” align=”center” title=”Rep. Kara Hope Offers Revenue Sharing Budget Amendment”/]
This week on the floor of the Michigan House, Representative Kara Hope made an impassioned case for one of her core issues: revenue sharing. While advocating for her revenue sharing budget amendment, she laid out the history of the fiscal relationship of municipalities with the State, making clear that by not making fully sharing revenue owed to municipal governments, the State has been breaking a promise and shortchanging all Michiganders.
“Breaking this agreement, as the State of Michigan has done for the past twenty years, does not come without a huge cost to our communities. Think about what our cities, townships and counties provide: streets and sidewalks, streetlights and parks, senior centers and libraries — the things that contribute to a community’s sense of place, and quality of life.”
Rep. Hope also made clear the critical role revenue sharing plays in providing public safety in our state. Police, fire and emergency response are provided by municipal governments, and the budget cuts forced by the $8.6 billion dollar shortfall in revenue sharing payments by the state since 2000.
“Since the state started leaning on revenue sharing to plug holes in its own budget, Michigan has lost 22% of our law enforcement positions and 30% of our firefighter positions. We can only guess how many lives might have been saved, how much property preserved, how many crimes prevented, had we had the benefit of thousands of first responder positions for the last 18 years.”
“The fact is that local governments have to reckon with a truth that some of us in state government haven’t quite accepted: infrastructure and services like public safety cost money.
“Michigan has the dubious distinction of having disinvested in its local governments more than any other state in the United States. Since 2002, Sault Ste. Marie has lost $10 million dollars, the city of Portage has lost $20.3 million dollars, this city that serves as home to our Capitol, Lansing, has lost more than 101 million dollars of revenue sharing. The City of Detroit has lost $1.5 billion, with a ‘b’, since 2002. And remember: this is their money! It’s not a grant or a gift. It’s money that rightfully belongs in our local communities.”
SaveMICity couldn’t agree more with Representative Hope: Michigan must fully fund revenue sharing to make our communities safe, resilient, and attractive.
