DETROIT — Business Leaders for Michigan, the state’s business roundtable, applauded the roll-out of the Regional Prosperity Initiative, a program that promotes the efficient use of tax dollars by incentivizing private and public entities to deliver services on a regional basis.
“Adopting a regional approach to delivering services at the local level is a key objective of the Michigan Turnaround Plan,” said Doug Rothwell, president and CEO. “Many communities and agencies want to work together as this allows them to deliver services more efficiently and effectively — but boundaries get in the way. While the state’s leaders have done a great deal over the last few years to stabilize Michigan’s financial standing and remove statutory barriers to greater local government service sharing, the logical next step in the process is to incentivize all agencies in a given region to think more strategically and collaboratively about delivery of public services.”
Rothwell noted that his organization will be releasing a report this fall on the service sharing that is already underway in the state. “There are a number of great examples of service sharing in Michigan. These are important as we look for ways, where there are multiple public and private entities competing for the same public resources, to deliver important services such as worker training and adult education. These entities don’t typically share common boundaries or common visions. As a result, tax dollars aren’t being used as efficiently or effectively as they could be. This new program represents an important step at trying to address that problem.”
