Lincoln Park Part of Trend to Special Taxes

As the News-Herald reports, Lincoln Park is considering a special tax for lighting in the city.  That comes on the heels of an added fee for garbage collection.

This is part of a trend in Michigan.
As municipal governments wrestle with tight budgets, more and more they are turning to special taxes to supplement the regular property taxes that normally would pay for those services.  For example, many cities now will propose a special millage for police or fire.  That's because people will probably vote to support police officers on the street.

This is partly driven by plunging city revenues caused by a defective system of municipal funding, but that will be the subject of another post.