City of Lansing cleans up in 2025 pork projects

The city of Lansing hit the jackpot in the 2025 state budget raking in more than $25 million of earmarks.

Millions of taxpayer dollars will fund city elections, infrastructure, and entertainment through enhancement grants in the annual budget.

Critics of the grants say they lack transparency and competition, leaving taxpayers in the dark about annual allocations that reach into the tens of millions. 

The capital of Michigan was granted $1 million to administer election activities. The budget states the money must “support the administration of election activities including, but not limited to, the storage of election equipment, secure spaces for tabulation or processing ballots, and the training of election workers.”

Lansing will receive another $1 million for local infrastructure and municipal services, plus $2.5 million for school infrastructure. 

An additional $11 million will go toward city entertainment and recreation in Lansing. The city’s Minor League Baseball team, the Lansing Lugnuts, was granted $1 million for infrastructure improvements to Jackson Field. 

The money will fund field and locker room improvements, according to local news reports.

Lansing Entertainment and Public Facilities Authority manages Jackson Field. The organization did not respond to a request for comment.

Potter Park Zoo is owned by Lansing and operated by Ingham County. The latest state budget awarded the zoo $10 million. The money will fund the restoration of the historic Feline and Primate Building, the zoo said in a June 27 Facebook post. 

The budget does not name sponsors of earmarks, but the zoo’s Facebook post credits Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing and Rep. Angela Witwer, D-Delta Township, for the new spending.

“Lawmakers are given broad discretion to spend the public purse to benefit the public,” James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told Michigan Capitol Confidential. He said district grants do not accomplish this.

“If they thought the state needed more swimming pools, they would have started a program, established criteria and selected the best pool projects,” he said. Instead, legislators advance their own political interests by using the earmark process to put their pet projects first in line.