By Mary Drier
Staff Writer
MICHIGAN — County officials who were looking for some definitive answers during Gov. Rick Snyder’s state of the state address last week didn’t hear them.
When state officials announced they had about a $1 billion fund surplus, hopes were some of that money would go restoring revenue sharing levels to counties, but that wasn’t mentioned in the hour-long speech that toted Michigan’s accomplishments as the “comeback state.”
“It would take about $40 million to make counties whole again. That’s only about 4 percent of what they say they will have in reserves,” pointed out Tuscola County Controller Mike Hoagland. “Besides property tax, revenue sharing is the county’s second largest revenue source.
“We’ll have to wait a few weeks now until he announces his executive 2015 budget. Until then all then all we can do is write letters to our state reps and remind them of the promise that was made to counties years ago when we helped out the state with their financial problems.”
In 2004 when the state started having financial problems they had counties roll forward property tax collection a third each year so the state could get their tax revenue early to help bail them out of their money woes. In order to do that, counties agreed to forgo revenue sharing for a period of time to help. In return for doing that, the state “promised” to return revenue sharing and create a pool of money to give back to the counties as they came back into formula to re-establish their revenue sharing levels.
“That hasn’t happened. The state needs honor their commitment,” stated Hoagland noting he encourages every resident to write their lawmaker about restoring revenue sharing so counties can continue to afford to provide needed services.”
What Snyder did talk about was the $65 million that had been put into early education in the state that helped 29,000 more youths attend preschool programs, and about investigating that much again in that program, funding for K-12 education, the Health Endowment Fund for low income families, improvements to veteran programs, public safety improvements for the Flint, Saginaw and Detroit with more police officers, and license reforms such as narrowing down 227 different hunting and fishing licenses into 42.
According to Snyder, since 2011, the legislature has increased spending on K-12 education by $800 million paired with significant reforms to modernize public education and improve accountability to taxpayers.
In other educational remarks, Snyder talked about year-around schools for low-performing districts.
Also, Snyder recognized Senator Mike Green (R – Mayville) for his fiscal responsibility and support in pushing the federal government to balance their budget like Michigan as done.
“I applaud the governor for laying out a positive plan for building on the accomplishments of the last three years and solving the challenges that Michigan continues to face. I also appreciate his support for my efforts to pass a federal balanced budget amendment. If we are to fulfill our greatest potential as a state, we must force the federal government to follow Michigan’s lead by budgeting responsibly and living within its means,” said Green.
“Through bold leadership and thoughtful reforms, we have put Michigan on the path to economic prosperity and financial stability. Since Michigan’s reinvention began in 2011, we have balanced the state budget early every year and turned deficits into surplus. Nearly 223,000 new private sector jobs have been created. The unemployment rate has been cut by more than a third and people are choosing to live here. Even more exciting, Michigan closed out 2013 with the second largest gain in jobs over a year since 1999.”
Another key point made during the address, was the part agriculture played over the last three years in the state’s comeback.
Michigan agriculture’s contributed an estimated $96 billion annual to the state’s economy. One in four Michigan workers has a hand, directly or indirectly, in our food, energy and farm sector, and the need for an adequate supply of skilled labor has never been more acute.
“This year the long reach of Mother Nature and still-unresolved federal immigration policy resulted in a dramatic shortage of seasonal labor,” said Michigan Farm Bureau President Wayne Wood. “Thousands of acres of crops went unharvested – tree fruit, grapes, berries and vegetables worth millions of dollars were left to rot. To a farmer, that means both economic hardship and flat-out heartbreak.”
Snyder said he wants the state to welcome immigrants and to do that proposed the creation of the Office of New Americans is a forward-thinking approach to attracting new residents, friends and neighbors, and offering them a helping hand as they work toward achieving citizenship.
Senator Mike Green can be reached at P.O. Box 30036, Lansing, MI 48909-7536, and Rep. Terry Brown can be reached at S1188 House Office Building, P.O. Box 30014, Lansing, MI 48909-7514
Mary Drier is a staff writer for the Tuscola County Advertiser. She can be reached at drier@tcadvertiser.com.