Towns and cities across the country are preparing for major cuts in funding from state governments, but many say than means they should have more say in how to levy taxes and fewer state mandates on their spending, including public notices that provide significant income for rural newspapers.
"Nearly a third of local funding, on average, filters down from state budgets," Conor Dougherty of The Wall Street Journal reports. "But that cash often comes with strings attached—such as limits on how local governments raise taxes as well as mandates on which services local governments have to provide—that can limit how local governments respond to lower revenue." Cities in South Carolina and Michigan are lobbying for permission to raise taxes, while Eugene, Ore., is considering putting higher income taxes on the ballot to offset cuts in K-12 education spending.
"Folks are saying to us if the state can't do anything now, let's do something until they can," Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy told Dougherty. While governors and legislatures may be the ones deciding how to balance state budgets, the task of actually deciding what programs are actually cut often falls to local governments, Dougherty writes. "The next decade will be the decade of local and regional government," Robert O'Neill, executive director of the International City/County Management Association, a professional organization for local government managers, told Daugherty.
Fiscal 2012, which begins July 1 for most states, is expected to be among the worst for budget cuts. Revenues have still not returned to their 2008 peaks and stimulus funding will no longer be available. Local governments have been a big target for achieving those cuts "because local transfers are a hefty part of most states' budgets—a combined $467 billion, including some federal money that states pass along to the local level—and are often easier to cut because, unlike federal programs, local funding is usually dictated by the state," Dougherty writes. Those anticipated cuts have led the Michigan Municipal League to lobby the state to allow local governments more control over taxes. Dan Gilmartin, executive director of the group, explains "What we're saying is: 'Hey state, if you can't handle your own fiscal house, you've got to give us the ability to raise our own revenues." (Read more)
Michigan's charter townships also are again asking the legislature to eliminate a longstanding requirement to buy space in local newspapers to advertise such things as hearings, ordinances and financial statements, a request that has been echoed in other states and appears likely to become more prevalent. The Michigan bill would let publication on a website or local-government cable channel meet the requirements of state public-notice laws. The Michigan Press Association has sounded an alert (click on image for larger version) asking its members to make sure they are sending copies of their papers to MPA's clipping service so public notices can be posted on a website. Most state newspaper groups sponsor such sites. The Iowa Newspaper Association announced last month that 100 percent of the public notices in that state go online "at no cost to any government entity," cited a poll which found 71 percent of Iowans want the notices to be in newspapers, and said governments average spending 1/20th of 1 percent of their budgets to publish such notices.
"Nearly a third of local funding, on average, filters down from state budgets," Conor Dougherty of The Wall Street Journal reports. "But that cash often comes with strings attached—such as limits on how local governments raise taxes as well as mandates on which services local governments have to provide—that can limit how local governments respond to lower revenue." Cities in South Carolina and Michigan are lobbying for permission to raise taxes, while Eugene, Ore., is considering putting higher income taxes on the ballot to offset cuts in K-12 education spending.
"Folks are saying to us if the state can't do anything now, let's do something until they can," Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy told Dougherty. While governors and legislatures may be the ones deciding how to balance state budgets, the task of actually deciding what programs are actually cut often falls to local governments, Dougherty writes. "The next decade will be the decade of local and regional government," Robert O'Neill, executive director of the International City/County Management Association, a professional organization for local government managers, told Daugherty.
Fiscal 2012, which begins July 1 for most states, is expected to be among the worst for budget cuts. Revenues have still not returned to their 2008 peaks and stimulus funding will no longer be available. Local governments have been a big target for achieving those cuts "because local transfers are a hefty part of most states' budgets—a combined $467 billion, including some federal money that states pass along to the local level—and are often easier to cut because, unlike federal programs, local funding is usually dictated by the state," Dougherty writes. Those anticipated cuts have led the Michigan Municipal League to lobby the state to allow local governments more control over taxes. Dan Gilmartin, executive director of the group, explains "What we're saying is: 'Hey state, if you can't handle your own fiscal house, you've got to give us the ability to raise our own revenues." (Read more)
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