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Thomas Ivacko: The latest Michigan Public Policy Survey at the Ford School surveyed
local government leaders all across the State of Michigan. We asked a series of questions
about Michigan’s new Emergency Manager Law, it’s known as Public Act 4 of 2011.
Public Act 4 has some pretty controversial aspects to it. It gives significantly more
power to Emergency Managers, than was available under the previous act.
One of the key findings is that less than half of local government leaders overall,
about 38%, support Public Act 4; 30% oppose it; and the rest are somewhere in between,
they either aren’t taking a stand or they are just not quite sure yet how they feel
about the law.
We looked at a variety of factors behind the support and opposition. We expected to find
that partisanship, whether local officials are Republicans, independents, or Democrats,
would be a driving factor in their support or opposition to the law. And what we found
is that is a factor, but it’s not nearly as strong a factor as whether these local
officials think the law is going to be effective at helping to protect or restore fiscal health
of local governments.
One of the surprising things is when we look at local leaders from the most fiscally distressed
communities in Michigan, support more than doubles, 82% of these leaders support Public
Act 4. It’s a relatively small number of jurisdictions, so we want to be a bit cautious
in interpreting these figures, but it’s a significant jump.