It’s Feb. 1, 1898. A year earlier, Michigan had achieved its modern arrangement of 83 counties with the return of Isle Royal to Keweenaw County. Ransom Olds had formed Olds Motor Works. William McKinley is president. Hazen S. Pingree is governor of Michigan. That February day, a group of men gathered in the Senate chamber of the State Capitol. They were members of county boards of supervisors, the precursors to today’s county commissioners. They moved to form a five-member committee to study the creation of a permanent organization, the State Association of Supervisors of Michigan — then adjourned for dinner. And so began the history of what today is the Michigan Association of Counties. Some things haven’t changed since then. Michigan still has 83 counties, from Monroe to Keweenaw, St. Joseph to Chippewa. We still have our scenic coastlines, our forests and our reputation for making things. The challenges of county government, though, those are quite different in the 21^st century, and remind us of the wisdom of our forefathers who created an organization, “which shall be perpetual,” they wrote, so citizens elected to lead their counties could gather to learn from and aid each other. In the coming year, MAC will be celebrating this 120th anniversary with special reports and other events. Stay tuned to micounties.org for updates.

Michigan’s 83 counties, the state’s front-line public service agencies, enter 2018 seeking significant changes to state revenue practices to enhance fiscal responsibility across the state. Keying off remarks made by Gov. Rick Snyder during his State of the State Address on Jan. 23, Michigan Association of Counties Executive Director Stephan Currie said, “This is the year, with Michigan’s economy showing such health, to address the consequences of decisions and trends dating back a decade. Counties, which rely heavily on property taxes to deliver key services, have not recovered from the Great Recession as the state has. Nor will they for many years under existing state policies. Reform is the order of the day in Lansing.” To that end, MAC, which represents Michigan’s 83 counties, released its 2018 State Priorities on Jan. 24, which include:

• Reforming Michigan’s System of Financing Local Government by addressing the artificial restrictions on property values imposed by Proposal A in the 1990s and bolstering the state’s commitment to counties by increasing revenue sharing funds. “The state was able to forgo more than $1 billion in revenue sharing payments to counties during the budgetary crisis of the mid-‘00s to tide it over during the crisis. Now that the state is in a healthy position again, it’s proper to turn the focus to the ongoing crisis in local service delivery,” Currie said.
• Reforming the Michigan Tax Tribunal by closing the “Dark Stores” loophole that has led to Big Box retailers receiving huge property tax breaks that add even more of a burden on homeowners and mom-and-pop businesses to fund local services.
• Reforming state law on “tax captures” by unelected development districts by blocking the diversion of funds from special millages approved by local voters for specific services, such as law enforcement or aid for veterans. “When voters tax themselves for a specific purpose, all those funds should go to that purpose,” Currie noted.

“We look forward to working with leaders in the House and Senate, and Gov. Snyder, to advance these reforms,” Currie said.

Legislation to properly fund upgrades to the 911 emergency communication system is under attack at the Capitol. Commissioners need to call their representative TODAY in support of Senate Bill 400 by Sen. Rick Jones. The bill would raise funds to improve the 911 system to Next Generation 911, thereby making the system more responsive to our citizens. The bill is expected to be reviewed next Tuesday by the House Communications and Technology Committee, but commissioners need to call today to let House members know that the legislation must go through. Click here for a list of representatives and their phone numbers. For more  information on this issue, contact MAC’s Meghann Keit at keit@micounties.org or 989-225-8049.

The Legislature’s decision to focus bills to adopt the recommendations of Gov. Rick Snyder’s task force on the pension-OPEB crisis leaves Michigan’s 83 counties without adequate new tools they need to address funding of retirement benefits, MAC’s executive director said. Stephan W. Currie, who has served on both of Snyder’s task forces on this issue, said in response to the Legislature’s actions early Thursday morning, “We still need a variety of new tools to address commitments.” “Adoption of the task force recommendations” Currie added, “is a bare minimum effort on collecting data on the problem. The other side of the coin here is, of course, revenue. Heading into Wednesday, we saw good prospects on separate, but related, legislation that would have created a secure fund for county revenue sharing and set a schedule for increased payments. Those advances now appear to be stuck.” MAC supported the task force recommendations and, thus, supports the new versions of the bills, but Currie said that most of the work remains unfinished. “This fell far short of the mark,” he said. “But we will continue to work with our members and the state to, first, collect the best data on the problem and convince state lawmakers of the need to equip county governments with the tools and revenue they need to handle these benefits.”

The refusal by the Michigan Supreme Court to accept the appeal of a property tax case by the Big Box retailer Menard’s is recognition of the problems created by the “Dark Stores” theory of property valuation, the Michigan Association of Counties (MAC) said today in reaction to the court’s order.

In May 2016, a unanimous panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals, in Menard, Inc. vs. City of Escanaba, expressly rejected the Tax Tribunal’s reliance on the “Dark Stores” method. Not only did the court find that the Tax Tribunal made a mistake of law, it also found that the tribunal didn’t properly perform its duty in evaluating evidence for determining value.

MAC’s Stephan Currie speaks with Frank Beckmann about Dark Stores issue.

The Supreme Court’s decision means the Court of Appeals ruling stands as precedent and must be followed. That court had ordered the Tax Tribunal to again review the case, taking additional evidence on proper valuation in doing so.

“This is a most promising development,” said Stephan Currie, MAC’s executive director. “The Tax Tribunal has to return to this matter and operate under the orders given by the Court of Appeals to properly assess the value of commercial property.” In this particular case, the tribunal had ruled the Menard property was worth 60 percent less than what Escanaba had determined via standard valuation practices.

MAC was one of several organizations filing amicus briefs in support of the city of Escanaba’s position in the case.

Under the Dark Stores method, the Tax Tribunal has reduced so many valuations of Big Box properties that local revenues to provide public services have been reduced by at least $100 million since 2013. This process is shifting more of the burden onto homeowners to fund the basic public services all Michigan communities and businesses utilize each day.

For more information on MAC, visit www.micounties.org.