Michigan Municipal League’s Dan Gilmartin Writes About Community Investment in Detroit News

As part of the ongoing SaveMICity work, Michigan Municipal League CEO and Executive Director Dan Gilmartin wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the Detroit News recently.

With the headline, “Time is now to invest in Michigan communities,” the Dec. 31st column talked about Michigan’s continued disinvestment in its communities and it detailed the new PSC report the SaveMICity intiative released late last year.  Here’s an excerpt from the column:

The PSC report reaffirms that Michigan’s cities are in trouble, and the broken economic system in place needs to change.  Despite record highs in our country’s stock market, low unemployment, and increasing home values, cities are still not able to keep pace with inflation and address the needs of residents under our current fiscal structure. 

Since 2002, our state has diverted $8.6 billion away from cities, villages, townships and counties with cuts to revenue sharing—a main source of income for local government.  Through education efforts—such as the League’s SaveMICity initiative—we are working to fully fund the state’s statutory revenue sharing formula and increase support for local communities by $600 million each year.

The key to Michigan’s bright future lies not in Lansing, but in local communities.  From Marquette to Monroe and every municipality in between we need our elected state leaders to provide solutions that ensure our cities and villages grow to their fullest potential.

This column is part of our continuing effort to raise awareness about the need to fix Michigan’s broken system for funding communities and to keep this issue top of mind for legislators, the media, our members, and the public.  View the full column here.