“The immediate next Michigan is a shrinking place,” the Freep’s Ron Dzwonkowski wrote this week. “We didn’t get out in front of it, so now we must react to it… The circumstances are indisputable. Government in this state was built for ‘the last Michigan,’ not the immediate next one or the one we hope will emerge from the wreckage.”
In this era of fiscal crisis, how do we assure Michigan’s public sector provides the most bang for our shrinking bucks? What are the essential roles of the public sector when there isn’t enough money to fund the way we’ve always done things?
Join local government experts and more than 100 engaged citizens and local business, nonprofit, education leaders who’ve already signed up for the Michigan’s Defining Moment Government Efficiency & Accountability Action Group on May 13 from 8 a.m. to noon at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing. Seats are filling up fast — email us today to reserve your spot.
The purpose of the event is to debate and refine a variety of efficiency reform ideas that are often bandied about the State Capitol but have not been acted upon. In the end, we seek to inspire work groups of committed citizens who will heighten the debate and push for legislative changes, and continue to develop new ideas and new ways of providing and paying for the kinds of high-quality public services needed to attract and retain talented workers and employers.
We will publish the full agenda for the Action Group meeting in next week’s Fresh Thoughts newsletter.
For inspiration along these lines, consider the work of Genesee County Treasurer Dan Kildee, whose county-wide landbank and efforts to condense many broken Flint neighborhoods into fewer vibrant ones was featured in this week in the New York Times…
Planned shrinkage became a workable concept in Michigan a few years ago, when the state changed its laws regarding properties foreclosed for delinquent taxes. Before, these buildings and land tended to become mired in legal limbo, contributing to blight. Now they quickly become the domain of county land banks, giving communities a powerful tool for change…On many streets, the weekly garbage pickup finds only one bag of trash. If those stops could be eliminated, Mr. Kildee said, the city could save $100,000 a year — one of many savings that shrinkage could bring… Mr. Kildee was born in Flint in 1958. The house he lived in as a child has just been foreclosed on by the county, so he stopped to look. It is a little blue house with white trim, sad and derelict. So are two houses across the street… “If it’s going to look abandoned, let it be clean and green,” he said. “Create the new Flint forest — something people will choose to live near, rather than something that symbolizes failure.”
2 Comments
As it may seem inconceivable, the Government does not act like a business, yet it tries to manipulate businesses through changing the laws. Government is basically made up of lawyers struggling and trying to understand what they can to help businesses using tax payer money. Laws are made, but loopholes or mistakes are made. Then they rapidly back track and REACT to putting out the fire and change the law. But again it is a bandaid approach.
My suggestion would be to have Business Men/Women run for office to take up making business laws. THEN the laws would be more logical and be more PROACTIVE with a higher chance of success!!!!
I agree with the previous comment. As a retired business executive, I now serve on a number of community and non-profit boards related to public education, higher education, health care, and work force development. My observations are that most elected and appointed government officals are trained as lawyers with strong critical thinking skills but very weak in problem solving skills (which this state and communities need). The skillsets of leaders from engineering, science, and business are well developed in problem solving, innovation, budget prioritization and management, and results driven. We have the wrong kinds of people in charge of government.