State Budget Negotiations Give a Window For Substantive Change to Local Revenue Stream
During a recent interview on the Friday Morning Podcast, Tony Minghine, chief operating officer of Michigan Municipal League, discussed a few opportunities in ongoing budget negotiations that could fundamentally change the way tax revenues flow to local governments.
Minghine was a guest on last week’s Friday Morning Podcast, hosted by politico Bill Ballenger and pollster Dennis Denno. Both men are veterans of Michigan politics and keen observers of policy landscape issues in Lansing.
On lengthy budget talks: “Obviously, not having a budget is detrimental to everybody. … I’m hopeful that, at the end of the day, they can find a way to come together on a plan that puts real money into the system and not just moves the chess pieces on the board.”
But Minghine did note that years of one-party control, with Republicans holding majorities in the House, Senate and the governor’s office, had complexities too. Minghine spoke on the Friday Morning Podcast about the continuing efforts of SaveMICity, a comprehensive campaign to educate Michigan citizens about the broken way Michigan’s funds its local communities.
Early budgets provided information and insight into what was coming down the pike, allowing local units of government the ability to “know what you’re dealing with and make preparations to do some of that stuff.” But Minghine noted that municipalities have “been on the short end of the budget stick for quite some time going back some time, a couple of decades, since Governor (John) Engler. … This has been a sustained disinvestment in local government.”
Going forward, he wants to see some “meaningful restoration of our local funding as well so we can provide those critical services. … We don’t think you’re going to have any kind of a strong economy or strong Michigan without those strong communities.”
Road funding is a hugely complex part of the budget negotiations. On that front, Minghine said: “We need a real road funding package. There isn’t money in the general fund to play games with and move things around. That’s just moving it down the road. … we need to be honest about this and create appropriate funding to make appropriate investments in that infrastructure both at the state level and the local level. We have tremendous infrastructure needs at the local level that we have just not funded for decades. We need to take steps to do that.”
The budget talks this year provide an opportunity to change course on the way municipalities get funding to provide services for residents, Minghine said.
“I don’t think there’s enough money in the system to do all the things we need to do. We need to be honest about the type of services, the type of communities, the type of state we want to create. And that requires investment. And we have been disinvesting. … We’ve got to rethink what we’re doing here.
“This is a reaction to a system that is remarkably stressed because we’re not being honest about what it takes to provide all the things that everyone wants. … (But) we continue to play this game of acting like there’s all this money to invest in and it’s just not there.”
