Welcome to MunetrixTM
In essence, Munetrix is designed to:
- help a municipality identify signs of fiscal trouble through the use of industry approved metrics,
- provide tools to identify what is causing the problem, and
- provide forward planning tools to calculate the affect of proposed solutions.
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 get an overall picture of:
- the soundness of local governments,
- the trend of stability over time, and
- to quickly identify local units that are most in need of help.
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. As you may have guessed, the picture displays a trend looking from left to right of local units moving from dark green to light green, the light-greens transitioning to blue, and an increasing number of reds.
Fiscal Distress Individual Indicator Analysis
The State of Michigan Indicator system is a digital system in that it returns a 1 or 0 for each of the nine factors in reference to their respective trigger. Behind the scenes, however, is actually a nice set of ratios that can be used to compare the fiscal performance of municipal governments. One of the factors, General Fund Operating Deficit, is best viewed in a graph plotting the actual ratio over time. Munetrix stores the municipal government data in a hierarchy in this order; State --> Regional Planning Office --> County --> Local Unit. This hierarchy permits users to view data at a high level and progressively drill down to specific local units. The example below has been grouped by county and filtered at the region level to show the average for all communities in the seven counties represented by the regional planning office; in this case SEMCOG.
Best-practice Benchmarking
In addition to the Fiscal Distress Indicator scoring system, Munetrix also stores government expenses grouped in ten major categories of spending. By comparing the spending habits of municipal governments to industry best-practice benchmarks, one can get a picture of a community's public service priorities. One of the features of the Munetrix software tool is the ability to create a list of municipalities, called favorites, with which to compare data. The graph below is showing the comparatives for a collection of cities similar to the City of Port Huron, Michigan.
It should be pointed out that the names of the cities have been masked. Although the data collected is public information, the collection and analysis of the data in many cases needs further explanation. These restricted graphs are available to users of the system who have purchased licenses.
User Comments
"This is a great tool! I will be using it. So many times our board asks, 'How is the other county doing?' This will be an easy tool for us to use."
Kristin Judge
Washtenaw County Commissioner
District 7
“For local units that have accepted the fact there is a new normal, this tool offers a good starting point for them to understand the nuances associated with revenues and expenses, and highlights the different ways money is allocated amongst various units of government. Its forward looking capabilities also gives the finance staff the opportunity to conduct scenario analysis. All-in-all, Munetrix forces us to consider multi-year operating budgets, which as you know, I feel is essential.”
Bob Daddow
Deputy County Executive
Oakland County
"Munetrix is a vital resource for anyone involved in public fiscal policy with today's economic challenges".
Chuck Moss
Michigan State Representative
40th District
"It is such an elegant tool whose time has come. Thanks!"
Julie Walters, J.D., Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
Oakland University
