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Detroit Mayor, Mich Gov. At Odds Over Shared Revenue

Detroit and the Michigan state government are at odds over shared revenue that the city claims it lost.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has no plans to hand over state revenue requested by Detroit Mayor Dave Bing as a means of fixing the city's financial troubles, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Bing has pushed the state to give the city $220 million in what he claimed was promised shared revenue as one way to address the fiscal crisis. Snyder rebuffed that request, saying that the state has already done all it can to assist the city, including passing a law that allowed the city to continue instituting taxes that should have ceased because of recent population losses, according to the Free Press. The 2010 Census found that Detroit's population dropped by 25 percent since 2000.

Detroit's grievance against the state for lost revenue has a complicated history, according to the Free Press. The paper reports that in 1998, then-Gov. John Engler and the state legislature revamped the formula for revenue sharing at the request of suburban and rural communities, who said that the old formula favored Detroit, according to the newspaper. The city was supposed to be protected from the loss of funding until 2007, receiving annual payments of $332 million. However, in 2003, the state experienced its own financial hardships, forcing payments to be reduced, which city officials claim resulted in $220 in lost revenue by 2007. 

In a statement, Snyder said he doesn't want to appoint an emergency manager for the city, as has been discussed. (Bing also does not want an emergency manager, as stated in a separate statement.) Snyder does expect a request for a review of the city's finances, though, but that is not necessarily a first step toward an emergency manager, the Free Press reports. 

Dylan Scott is a GOVERNING staff writer.
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