Michigan Gets Poor Report Card in State Integrity Investigation

The scores are in and Michigan is failing, according to the Center for Public Integrity, who together with Global Integrity and Public Radio International, recently released findings from their State Integrity Investigation.

The State Integrity Investigation is an analysis of each state's laws and practices in relation to government transparency and accountability. The months-long investigation was conducted by experienced journalists, who graded and ranked each state government based on its risk of corruption.

Each state received a report card with letter grades in 14 categories such as campaign finance, public access to information, ethics laws, budget processing and more.

Michigan received an overall grade of "F", or 58 percent, and ranked 43 out of 50 states. Not one state received an A.

State Rep. Bill Rogers (R-Brighton) said that Michigan's grade was unacceptable.

"It's extremely embarrassing," he said.

The reporting and research of the investigation was conducted during the summer of 2011, with a formal cut-off date of September 15, 2011. Rogers said that he believes if the investigation was conducted again right now, the state would get a better grade because of things like Gov. Rick Snyder's use of government dashboards.

Dashboards are essentially information placed online to provide quick assessments of the government's performance in key areas including like economics, health, education and more. Snyder encouraged local governments to create their own dashboards by promising state funds to those that complied.

"I'd like to think if we took it today, then at least it would show that we're starting to trend up - that we are starting to put those things in place that we promised," Rogers said. "Not as quick as we'd like, but we are moving in that direction.

Rogers said the dashboards were a step in the right direction.

"Now we can all debate whether there's enough information there, but before we had zero," he said "Now, at least we're getting there and we can keep refining it. And I think those are major things working in that direction. And we need the meat behind that make sure if it is not done that state departments or individuals are not rewarded."

The Center for Public Integrity wrote in its report that the states ranking near the bottom lacked enforcement of accountability and ethics laws.

Rogers said that there are bills in place to support enforcement. He mentioned recently passed House Bill 5058, that prohibits a candidate committee from spending campaign funds to defend an elected or appointed official in a civil or criminal lawsuit. Rogers said the government has also overhauled its state pension and fund management.

The fact that Michigan does not currently have any financial disclosure requirements of its legislative and executive branch officials is something that was criticized by the Center for Public Integrity. Rogers said that he had no problem disclosing any of his financial information, but drew the line with this wife and kids.

"I thought that was very unreasonable," he said. "They did not run for office, they were not in office and I didn't feel that was necessary."

"We need to work on the way we are spending money as a government so that the people can see it and understand it," Rogers said. "It's not our money, it's your money. And we should prove that we are spending it diligently. If you want to take the time to look it up, you should be able to find it easily. That is the goal. We should be an A+ as far as I'm concerned."

For more information about the State Integrity Investigation and for a full list of state rankings, visit www.stateintegrity.org/about.