New Database Shows How Michigan Allocates Funds to Cities

The Michigan Municipal League has unveiled a new database that allows residents to see how the state is allocating revenue to local governments.

The information can be found on a new website “SaveMICity.org.”

Tony Minghine is the Chief Operating Officer and Associate Executive Director of the League. He says the site helps users search for individual communities.

“This is a question we get all the time: What’s the effect upon my community? Where does my community stack up to when doing this? So on the site that we’ve created, SaveMICity — and anybody can do this — this is for city officials, this for the press, this is for residents who just want to understand better what’s going on in their city,” Minghine says. 

Minghine says the data shows Michigan has been strategically disinvesting in local governments since 2002. He says Michigan’s revenue sharing system is fundamentally flawed.