In a recent article titled, “Michigan has abandoned cities,” the head of a lobbying organization for state municipalities claimed Michigan has had the worst state government in the country when it comes to providing financial support for cities.

However, Michigan Municipal League CEO Dan Gilmartin based his comments on data that is six years old and from a time when the state was just starting to recover from nationwide Great Recession and its own Lost Decade of the 2000s.

“The state of Michigan ranks dead last in the nation when it comes to supporting our communities. This disinvestment in our communities has resulted in our local officials limping along trying to do more with less,” Gilmartin wrote in a Sept. 28 op-ed that appeared in Bridge Magazine.

Matt Bach, spokesman for the MML, said Gilmartin’s claim was based on U.S. Census data from 2002 to 2012.

“Name a thing Michigan wasn’t worst at over that period,” said James Hohman, director of fiscal policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Michigan’s unemployment rate was over 9.0 percent in 2012. But the state economy and the finances of municipalities have improved greatly since then. In August, for example, Michigan’s unemployment rate was down to just 4.1 percent.

Revenue sharing — money the state takes primarily from sales tax collections and then distributes to municipalities – rose from $1.04 billion in 2011-12 to $1.31 billion in 2018-19.

And property tax collections across the state – the largest revenue source for municipal governments – increased from $12.76 billion in 2012 to $13.98 billion in 2017. The property tax revenue for 2012 was the lowest collected since 2004.

The city of Lansing, to cite one city, has seen total operating fund revenues increase from $101.0 million in 2012 to $126.6 million in 2017. The 2012 figure of $101.0 million would be equivalent to $107.8 million if stated in 2017 dollars. That means that even after adjusting for inflation, the city is collecting an extra $18.8 million in operations revenue compared to five years earlier.

In late May 2017, just 11 months after Detroit’s public school system received a $617 million bailout, the executive director of the state-appointed review board reported that the district would once again be spending more than it takes in if not for three things.

Romaneir Johnson, then the executive director of the Detroit Financial Review Commission, said that the district would be kept from overspending, because it had not filled 300 teacher positions, the district had received $10 million from the sale of school property and still had $15.7 million from the 2016 bailout by the state to cover costs.

But more than a year after that statement, the school district has hired 230 teachers and now has just 70 vacancies. The district has budgeted for all 300 teaching positions this year. Detroit Public Schools had been in deficit from 2007-08 to 2016-17 before receiving the state bailout. 

The tighter margins will also make more challenging the school district’s plan to increase teacher pay as part of a recruiting effort.

According to the school district, teacher compensation increased by $5 million in 2017-18 and then increased by another $8 million in 2018-19.

And $25 million in bailout money, designated for “transition costs,” will be gone by the end of this year.

District officials are not worried. “DPSCD is not concerned about going back into debt,” said Chrystal Wilson, the spokeswoman for the school district. Detroit Public Schools Community District stated it had about $96.4 million set aside in reserves as of March 2018.

According to the most recent annual city financial report available, total revenue for the school district was $219.3 million as of June 30, 2017, while total spending was $202.4 million, giving it a $16.9 million margin.

The state Legislature approved a $617 million bailout for the Detroit school district in 2016. It used state money to assume the district’s debt and included extra an $25 million to cover anticipated “transition costs” during what those involved called a “fresh start” for the newly renamed Detroit Public Schools Community District.