CLOSUP

News

Alice Kinney named 2026 Robert R. Robinson Memorial Scholarship recipient

Aug 21, 2026

Southwest Michigan native Alice Kinney (MPP '27) was awarded the 2026 Robert R. Robinson Memorial Scholarship from the Michigan Townships Association (MTA). Named for the longtime township advocate and former MTA executive director, the annual schola...

Alice Kinney named 2026 Robert R. Robinson Memorial Scholarship recipient

News

Leiser promotes new MPPS report: Michigan local governments highly confident in election integrity

Aug 17, 2026

In a commentary for The Conversation, Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy director Stephanie Leiser promotes the latest findings of the Michigan Public Policy Survey,(MPPS) which show that "local officials across Michigan are highly confident i...

CLOSUP Updates

New MPPS Report: Michigan local governments highly confident in election integrity, wary of disinformation

Aug 12, 2026

This report presents the opinions of Michigan's township and city leaders on issues related to election administration in their jurisdictions, including confidence in overall accurate election administration and expected problems their jurisdictions ...

Publication

How can Detroit attract more national retail chains?

Aug 10, 2026

Ford School professor and director of the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy Stephanie Leiser and PhD candidate Keion Harris outline ways in which Detroit can lure national retailers to the city. In a piece for The Conversation, they note, "De...

How can Detroit attract more national retail chains?

In the Media

Leiser on rural government crisis

Aug 7, 2026 Bridge Michigan

Rural Michigan are in crisis: Too many governments that too few want to lead. Rural townships and villages face increasing trouble finding residents to run for local offices, as growing workload and increased public vitriol are making public service ...

News

Michigan's local leaders remain confident in election security, accuracy despite claims of vulnerabilities

Jul 21, 2026

Local officials across Michigan have maintained high confidence in election security and accuracy over the past several years. A soon-to-be released survey from the University of Michigan shows city and township officials—including those who conduct ...

Michigan's local leaders remain confident in election security, accuracy despite claims of vulnerabilities

News

Majority of Michigan's local leaders see state moving in wrong direction, U-M survey finds

Jul 7, 2026

A majority of local government officials in Michigan say the state is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Michigan survey that reverses a three-year trend in improving attitudes about the state's overall direction. To be sure, the fi...

Majority of Michigan's local leaders see state moving in wrong direction, U-M survey finds

Publication

Michigan's local governments make progress on budgeting, but many lag on long-term planning

May 6, 2026

In a time of economic volatility, relatively few local governments in Michigan report they are doing long-term financial planning—though many say they'd like to be doing more. The findings come in the latest installment of the Michigan Public Policy ...

Michigan's local governments make progress on budgeting, but many lag on long-term planning

CLOSUP Updates

New MPPS Report: Michigan local governments making progress on best practices in budgeting

May 6, 2026

A new MPPS report presents assessments by Michigan's local government leaders of local budgeting processes, including the prevalence of multi-year budgeting, capital improvement plans (CIPs), and long-term financial planning, as well as views on the ...

News

CLOSUP marks 25 years at Lansing anniversary event

Apr 17, 2026

On April 15, 2026, the Ford School's Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) celebrated a quarter century of impact. Approximately 75 current and former CLOSUP directors, staff, students, collaborators, and state legislators gathered in La...

CLOSUP marks 25 years at anniversary event

State & Hill

25 years of CLOSUP

Apr 11, 2026

When the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission faced a tidal wave of public input—more than 30,000 comments—the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) and Ford School students stepped in. Their analysis helped the commiss...

CLOSUP Updates

New MPPS Policy Brief: Many Michigan local governments struggle to find residents willing to run for office or serve on boards

Apr 8, 2026

A new MPPS policy brief presents the opinions of Michigan's local government leaders on resident engagement in their communities. One significant area of concern is resident representation on local elected and appointed boards.

In the Media

Leiser discusses CLOSUP at 25 and the Michigan Public Policy Survey to Washtenaw County

Apr 7, 2026 WEMU

Director of the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) Stephanie Leiser discusses the Michigan Public Policy Survey that has implications for Michigan's local government leaders from well over a thousand counties, cities, villages and town...

Stephanie Leiser: Helping local goverments in Michigan become healthier and more resilient

CLOSUP Updates

New MPPS Policy Brief: Challenges to Michigan local government budgeting

Feb 4, 2026

A new MPPS policy brief presents the opinions of Michigan's local government leaders on a set of eight specific challenges that they might be facing in their jurisdiction's budgeting process, including technical or procedural financial management cha...

News

Concerns about elected officials’ budgeting expertise emerges from survey of Michigan community leaders

Feb 4, 2026

A majority of Michigan city and village officials say they are concerned about the lack of budgeting expertise among the elected officials in their communities as they deal with rising economic and political uncertainty and challenging state and fede...

Concerns about elected officials’ budgeting expertise emerges from survey of Michigan community leaders

In the Media

Local democracy is holding strong, but rural communities are falling behind - Leiser

Dec 20, 2025 The Conversation

According to our recent survey of officials in Michigan communities, local democracy is humming along and city hall is taking care of business. The federal government was shut down in October and November 2025, but cities and towns around the United ...

Local democracy is holding strong, but rural communities are falling behind - Leiser

Publication

Fiscal stress rising among Michigan communities, particularly in small, rural towns, U-M survey finds

Dec 17, 2025

Fewer than half of Michigan's smaller and more rural communities report good fiscal health, reflecting a trend of rising financial stress among local governments across the state and growing concerns about having enough money to keep up with increase...

Fiscal stress rising among Michigan communities, particularly in small, rural towns, U-M survey finds

CLOSUP Updates

New MPPS Report: Smaller and more rural Michigan local governments are struggling with increased fiscal stress

Dec 17, 2025

A new MPPS report presents Michigan local government leaders' assessments of their jurisdictions' fiscal conditions and the actions they plan to take in the coming year, given their financial situations.

To shore up American democracy, look to city hall

News, State & Hill

Students build career-ready grant writing skills in Aid & Development Workshop series

Dec 8, 2025

Mastering technical and theoretical content is just the beginning for public policy students.Paulo Quequezana Barrientos (MPP ‘26), and 18 of his colleagues recently completed the annual Aid & Development Workshop series, designed to complement their...

Students build career-ready grant writing skills in Aid & Development Workshop series

Policy Matters

To shore up American democracy, look to city hall

Nov 20, 2025

Recent years have seen increasing concerns over the state of democracy in the US, with a majority of Americans believing it to be under threat. Using data from an annual survey, Stephanie Leiser, Debra Horner, and Natalie Fitzpatrick find that local ...

Publication

Local officials in Michigan report plummeting engagement with residents despite myriad methods

Oct 28, 2025

From voicemail to email, social media to snail mail—even bulletin boards in public places—there’s no lack of newfangled and old-school ways for local leaders to reach residents in their communities. Still, officials across Michigan report alarming de...

Local officials in Michigan report plummeting engagement with residents despite myriad methods

Publication

Many local Michigan officials say services threatened by faltering local government funding system

Sep 24, 2025

Michigan’s local officials are growing more pessimistic about their ability to maintain—let alone expand—services under the current local government funding system, according to a University of Michigan study. That’s the main takeaway from the latest...

Many local Michigan officials say services threatened by faltering local government funding system

In the Media

Leiser: possibility of state shutdown is difficult to predict

Sep 19, 2025 Midland Daily News

The likelihood of a shutdown is difficult to predict, said Stephanie Leiser, who leads the Michigan Local Government Fiscal Health Project at the University of Michigan’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy and has worked as a tax policy analys...

Leiser: possibility of state shutdown is difficult to predict

Publication

Michigan's local leaders express lingering pessimism, entrenched partisanship about state's direction

Jul 22, 2025

Despite improvement since the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of Michigan local officials say the state is on the wrong track. These findings are from the latest installment of the Michigan Public Policy Survey conducted by the University of Michig...

Michigan's local leaders express lingering pessimism, entrenched partisanship about state's direction

CLOSUP Updates

New MPPS Report: Michigan local government and law enforcement leaders’ nuanced views on police accountability issues

Jul 8, 2025

A new MPPS report presents the views of Michigan’s local government leaders, local chiefs of police, county sheriffs, and county prosecutors regarding accountability in law enforcement, including opinions on a nationwide officer misconduct database, ...

Local Officials: Residents trust police more where there are policies to improve relations

Publication

Michigan's local leaders support database tracking police misconduct, far fewer favor public access to it

Jul 8, 2025

Michigan's local leaders strongly support a law enforcement database for keeping track of officer misconduct, though far fewer are in favor of that database being accessible to the public. That's a key finding from the latest installment of the Michi...

CLOSUP Updates

Report: more localities implementing policies to improve relationships between communities and police

Jun 2, 2025 State Affairs

Michigan communities have increasingly adopted techniques to improve relations between their residents and local police, a study from the University of Michigan’s Center for Local, State and Urban Policy found, but have seen less movement on making t...

CLOSUP Updates

Navigating the Complexities of Trust in US Policing: A Holistic Approach to Community Engagement, De-escalation, and Independent Oversight

May 23, 2025 Forward Pathway

Your sharp-tongued editor is here to tackle the thorny issue of public trust in U.S. law enforcement, or, as it’s increasingly known, the public distrust in U.S. law enforcement. Because, oh, brilliant, it seems that after years of national conversat...

News

Local Officials: Residents trust police more where there are policies to improve relations

May 22, 2025

More Michigan communities are adopting policies to improve police-community relations, and local officials see increased trust among residents for law enforcement officers where certain practices were in place. The latest Michigan Public Policy Surve...

News

U-M develops free tool to empower municipalities, modernize financial reporting

May 19, 2025

Free webinar June 4 will demo the Excel to iXBRL Conversion toolA free, open-source tool designed by the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy is now available to help local governments make financial data more accessible. Developed ...

U-M develops free tool to empower municipalities, modernize financial reporting