I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
LANSING — Arts organizations in the state of Michigan are looking to the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs to see how Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s $312,000 cut to the state agency’s budget will trickle down.
MCACA issues grants to local arts agencies in five payments throughout the year. Many of those agencies then re-grant the funds to other arts groups. The cuts are $286,000 to MCACA grants to arts groups and $26,000 in administrative costs, said Mike Latvis, director of public policy for ArtServe an arts advocacy group in Michigan.
“What the council will probably do is take a percentage of the total amount of the grants awarded and take that amount off the final payment,” Latvis said, adding MCACA issued a statement announcing a May 21 public meeting to discuss how the cuts will be distributed.
ArtServe President Jennifer Goulet said until last week, her group was hopeful the arts would be spared cuts with this mid-year budget balancing move.
“Since the arts had seen cuts steadily since 2002, we were hopeful it would not happen,” said Goulet. But once the official budget numbers were announced– showing a $1.3 billion revenue shortfall — those hopes died.
But Latvis says so far, he thinks arts were treated like every other department in the state, and that revenue shortfalls open the door for a needed discussion about budget reforms.
FOR FULL COVERAGE on the specifics of today’s budget cuts, see the following stories:
» With revenues down 21%, state officials announce $304 million in cuts
» Actual budget cut is $304 million, not $349 million
» Senate Appropriations Committee moves Executive Order 2009-22 out of committee for floor vote
» DEQ to weather today’s cuts without reducing services
» Michigan State Police union looking at ways to soften blow of governor’s budget cuts
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