What can I learn from the Reports and Charts?

Munetrix™ has been loaded with data for most of Michigan's 1,800+ municipal governments for the years 2006 – 2010. Additionally, the tool has been developed to permit the storage of budgeted and forecast data for forward-looking analysis for years 2011 and beyond. Municipal governments who have purchased license agreements can update forecast and budget data for forward-looking, top-down planning.

The data and reports that are available vary depending on the filter selected. For example, you can filter the 1,800 municipal governments by:

• State
• Region
• County
• Specific Municipal Government
• Annual Data
• Peer Groups

Stress Meter

One of the first pictures to be painted is the "Stress Meter." This graph provides an overview of the Indicator Scores. In this example the data has been filtered to show only the communities in the seven Michigan counties represented by SEMCOG (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments). This graph is referred to as a "Broad Brush" picture. The graph allows us to:

• Identify the fiscal risk factor for local governments,
• Display the fiscal risk factor trend over time, and
• Identify those local units that are falling into harms way.

The lower the number the more fiscally sound a local unit is determined to be. There are three categories of scores grouped by color; shades of green, blue and red. The picture displays a trend, looking from left to right, of local units moving from dark green to light green, then transitioning to blue, and an increasing number of reds.

What can I learn from Peer Groups?

One of the features of Munetrix is the ability to create a list of peer group municipalities, referred to as favorites, with which to compare data. For example: 

Public Safety Costs per Resident

The Public Safety Cost per Resident comparison displays Police, Fire and District Court costs. In addition, the International City Managers Association (ICMA) benchmark data is included.

What can I learn from the State Indicator data?

Legislation has charged the Michigan Department of Treasury with measuring and identifying local units that may be in fiscal distress (Public Act 72). To make certain the process of identifying fiscal distress was based on a transparent and vetted methodology, the State charged Michigan State University Institute for Public Policy and Social Research with the task of developing a scoring system. A paper was published in 2002 based on their research and conclusions. One of the primary author’s of this paper was Robert Kleine, the state's former State Treasurer. The algorithms and terminology used in the Munetrix tool are based on this paper.

Graphing each indicator over time - each of the indicator factors can be displayed as a graph over time.

Fiscal Indicator Score Card - this report is the detailed score sheet for one local unit of government for one year. The top of the report displays the local unit's fiscal score (0 - 10). The fiscal score is the sum of each of the nine factors identified in the right-most column of the report. These reports are stored as an Adobe PDF file on the Michigan Department of Treasury website or available quickly from the Munetrix database.

 

NOTE about Peer Groups: A Municipal Government must purchase a license agreement in order to edit data and create a list of Favorites (Click here to learn more about purchasing a license for your community).

What can I learn from a Single Municipality?

Munetrix generates seven different charts showing fiscal trends over time for a selected community. For example:

Financial Forecast - this graph displays the impact of General Fund Revenues and General Fund Expenses on the General Fund Balance. The graph uses data provided by the Michigan State Indicator Scoring database. By definition, the General Fund Expenses excludes Transfers Out. As all communities are calculated the same, this definition does not create a problem for calculating the Indicator Score. When comparing the effect on the Fund Balance however, discrepancies can be seen. For this reason, Munetrix permits the display of the Financial Forecast graph with and without Transfers Out.

 

What can I learn from Annual Data?

For a specific municipality and year, Munetrix can generate detailed charts showing how that municipality is allocating its resources and performing against the nine indicator factors. For example:

How a community allocates its money - this graph displays the community's expenditures in 10 expense categories compared to the "best-practice" benchmarks for each category. The total cost in each category for the fiscal year selected is divided by the community's population for that fiscal year. An unusually high or low expenditure in any one category is not necessarily inappropriate. Additional research may need to be done to explain the discrepancy.

 

What can I learn from Regional Data?

The state of Michigan is divided into 14 regional planning and development entities. Munetrix groups data by these entities for regional reporting comparisons. For example:

Spending per Capita - The Spending per Capita graph compares the size of local government as measured by Total Expenditures and Cost per Capita respectively. The graph can be displayed for Counties, Townships, Cities and Villages.

 

Public safety costs per resident – a current topic of discussion is the collaboration and consolidation of municipal services. The Public Safety Cost report displays each community’s cost of service for police and fire.