MPPS

Michigan local governments making progress on best practices in budgeting

May 2026
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Debra Horner, Natalie Fitzpatrick, Stephanie Leiser, Margaret Walthall, Morgan McKimmy

This report presents the assessments of Michigan's local government leaders on local budgeting processes, including the prevalence of multi-year budgeting, capital improvement plans (CIPs), long-term financial planning, and views on the appropriate levels of data use, contingency planning, regular budget monitoring, and public transparency. The survey also asked a series of questions about the use of best practices in financial management according to the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), a leading non-profit organization that promotes professional management of governments. These findings are based on statewide surveys of local government leaders in the spring 2025 wave of the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS) with comparisons to the fall 2014 survey wave.

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Key findings

  • Most Michigan local governments (especially villages and townships) manage annual operating budgets under $1 million, while just 12% of jurisdictions (mostly counties) oversee budgets over $10 million.
  • The vast majority of local governments adopt operating budgets one year at a time: 93% adopt one-year operating budgets, and multi-year operating budgets are rare (5%).
  • Statewide, 41% of local governments report having a multi-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), typically spanning 4–5 years. Around three-quarters of jurisdictions with over 10,000 residents report having a CIP, versus one-quarter of jurisdictions with under 1,500 residents.
  • Relatively low percentages of local governments report using various types of long-term financial planning: master plans that include financial planning (29%), revenue forecasting (24%), strategic plans (23%), and formal long-term financial plans (15%). However, many local leaders say they'd like to adopt these tools.
  • The adoption of formal budgeting policies has expanded since 2014.
  • Local leaders generally believe their government's budgeting approach should be more priority-driven than incremental, and would support the expanded use of performance data, contingency planning, monitoring, and transparency.

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