| Here's a new one for local municipalities and governments, from the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun. A Gratiot County Commissioner has had a revelation: At least one Gratiot County commissioner may back away from putting up a proposal to increase millage to run county programs.The feedback Commissioner Mark Knowles gets is that constituents, whether an employee or employer, says essentially: no new taxes. Knowles told fellow members of the finance committee of the whole Tuesday that he now believes the board must make the budget work as it is, he said. But all is not well in Gratiot. The finance chair of the board has abandoned his "micro-targeting" of many little millages (death of thousand cuts), after receiving feedback on the practicality of the idea. Now he just wants two more mills. Finance chairman Roger Cook had something of a revelation but in a different context. He has strayed away from the notion to have targeted millages. In other words, a fraction of a mill would earmark animal control, and so on. Based on feedback he gets, Cook said he no longer believes targeted millages are practical and has come around to entertain levying up to 2 mills more annually.
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