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.
Adrian Township’s Board of Trustees have decided to pulverize a section of a local road because it can’t afford the repairs, reports the Adrian Telegram. The Board voted last week to spend just over $14,000 to reduce a half mile of Old Plank Road, which is currently paved, into a gravel road — at least [...]
A bill that would offer incentives for early retirement for all state employees and require those that remain to pay three percent of their salary toward their own healthcare ran into trouble on Wednesday when the state House aborted a vote that would have rejected the plan. The Detroit Free Press reports:
With property values and taxes still falling after the foreclosure crisis and the bursting of the real estate bubble and with steep cuts in state revenue sharing continuing to take a toll, many cities and municipalities are having to further slash important services to balance their budgets. The Detroit News reports:
More details are coming out on a deal reached by the Granholm administration and the leadership of both houses of the state legislature yesterday. The deal includes a plan to reform retirement plans for state employees and offer early retirement, akin to a plan passed last year for public school employees. AP reports that if [...]
Between the steep cuts in state revenue sharing and a declining property tax base due to the foreclosure crisis and the collapse of home values, local governments are even more revenue-starved than the state government is. The Detroit News reports that many municipalities in metro Detroit are asking voters to approve tax increases this fall [...]
With the failure of the unemployment extension bill — aka the jobs bill or the extenders bill — late last week, at least in its current form, Michigan may be forced to cut another $500 million from the budget. Along with extending unemployment benefits, the bill also would have given billions more in Medicaid funding [...]
The Detroit City Council faces a similar situation to other cities around the state — deep cuts in state revenue sharing last year and probably next year as well, but compounded by a huge budget deficit as well — and is having to make cuts to the one area of the budget that had always [...]
The state Senate passed a budget bill that would again cut revenue sharing for local communities, the bulk of which goes to police and fire protection. The vote was 21-17 to cut revenue sharing by 4 percent in FY 2011, which begins in October, on top of the 11 percent cut in this year’s budget. [...]
Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop delivered the GOP’s response to Gov. Granholm’s State of the State speech Wednesday night, and where Granholm’s speech made virtually no mention of taxes or state revenues, Bishop left no doubt that the Republican leadership in Congress still adamantly refuses to even consider any measures to stabilize state government revenue. [...]
In her weekly radio address, Gov. Jennifer Granholm argued that the cuts in local revenue sharing in the state’s most recent budget are negatively impacting fire and police protection around the state and jeopardizing public safety as a result. “Police officers and fire fighters are being laid off or open positions are left unfilled,” Granholm [...]
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