by Neil Munro
June 1, 2008

Michigan is facing tough times. Much of the pain is self-inflicted. So we ought to be open to making changes in the way this state operates.

Mainly, we need money-saving change that amounts to more than temporary sacrifice. Let’s get rid of some costly governmental baggage we only think we need.

Why should we have to pay taxes to support so many local governments — cities, villages and townships — especially in our large metropolitan areas where they exist cheek by jowl?

What do they do for the citizens that a properly empowered county, for example, couldn’t do as well — or better — and for less money?

Ample evidence of this needless governmental proliferation is Oakland County. Within its boundaries are 61 cities, villages and townships. Even the more populous Wayne County has 17 fewer.

The inevitable inefficiency stares us in the face, to one degree or another, almost no matter where we live in this state. Why haven’t we complained, or even done something about it by now?

The anecdotal evidence is that we are much attached to the “pride of place” our various named communities provide. Who would want to lose Bloomfield Hills as the name of one’s place of residence? And we seem to imagine that the elimination of its governmental functions would leave us with only “Oakland County” as an answer to the question of where we live.

But there is reason to believe that would not be the case. Bloomfield Hills would remain the name of a geographic place, even with no government of its own.

The nation’s two most economically successful large cities — New York and Los Angeles — contain within their boundaries many localities whose names are equally well known, but which have no governmental functions at all.

For example, Hollywood is not a city, despite being known around the world. It is a Los Angeles neighborhood. In New York, anyone who cares to know knows where Greenwich Village and Harlem are, along with dozens of other named neighborhoods.

The fact is that geographic places have to have names, official or not, so that we can talk about them. In Oakland County there already are localities with names, but where no extra tax dollars are spent governing them; Gingellville and Drayton Plains, for example.

Our state road map actually lists many named locations that never have had governments. Among them in Oakland County are Clyde and Rose Center. There’s a reason for that. They are places where people want to live, their lack of individual governments notwithstanding.

Intriguing contemporary evidence of our pride of place is found in a recommendation by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. It promotes money-saving collaboration among local cities, villages and townships, just as Oakland County itself does.

To help ensure acceptance of such arrangements by their residents, participating governments are urged to retain their own names on the trucks and other equipment involved in any joint projects! That’s how much pride of place residents are thought to have, and how concerned they are about losing their local civic identity.

But to the extent they go it alone, they spend a lot of their own money needlessly. Compare the original Oakland County townships of Troy and Royal Oak. Troy Township now mainly is one city, and property owners there pay a bit more than nine tax mills to support it. By contrast, the former Royal Oak Township is occupied by all or most of nine separate cities, with nine city halls, plus a small parcel that remains a governed township! And their homeowners and businesses pay about twice as much in local taxes as those in Troy, for the privilege of supporting all those governments.

The suspicion is that many residents would trade their small cities and tiny governments for one bigger one if they knew how much they would save. That would be doubly true if they realized the new and lower property taxes also would increase the market value of their property.

State financial aid to local governments has been reduced during our current economic downturn. Now Gov. Jennifer Granholm has proposed to replace it. She also would reward cost-saving collaboration among them.

But they’ve been getting by without those tax dollars. Now is the time to encourage permanent money-saving consolidation, not to continue to fund an anachronistic and unnecessary cluster of small and inescapably inefficient local governments; especially when we can enjoy pride of place without them.

Michigan competes with other states for job-creating investment. Investors look for localities with low tax burdens.

In that light, it is worth noting that our friendly rival, Florida, doesn’t even have townships, yet prospers. Furthermore, if Oakland were there, taxpayers would have to support only that state’s mandated single county-wide school district, not the 28 we have!

Neil Munro is the retired editor of the Oakland Press in Pontiac.