FAQ | beaverislandtownship

Frequently Asked Questions

Beaver Island Township Consolidation

Frequently Asked Questions DRAFT

[January 22, 2018]

As the circulators of the petitions to hold a township consolidation election, we are committed to continue informing the Beaver Island community about consolidation now that a vote has been scheduled for May 8, 2018.

This document addresses questions that have been asked about township consolidation and provides fact-based answers. It is intended to inform the community’s conversation about consolidation and the deliberations of voters. It does not address the pros and cons of consolidation or various opinions about why consolidation should or should not be approved. We hope that those kinds of questions will be addressed during upcoming community discussions. This FAQ will be updated as we learn about additional relevant questions. If you have other questions, please e-mail them to lefevream@hotmail.com and we will try to address them.

John Fiegen & Angel Welke

Background

The Charlevoix County Board of Commissioners scheduled a May 8, 2018 election in Peaine and St. James Townships to determine if voters in both townships want to consolidate into one township.

If both townships approve consolidation, then a single township, called Beaver Island Township, would take effect on November 20, 2018, under state law.

The consolidated township would be a general law township, like Peaine and St. James, with a board of five elected officials, including a supervisor, clerk, and treasurer. They would have four-year terms.
The board would have the same authority and responsibilities as the existing townships’ boards.
The assets and liabilities of the two townships would belong to Beaver Island Township.
The new township board would adopt a set of resolutions to consolidate existing ordinances, resolutions, rules, commissions, boards, authorities, and all other arrangements of Peaine and St. James Townships.

The consolidated township’s extra voted millages (those approved by voters, in addition to the 1.0 mill allotted to all Michigan townships by state law), which are contained in the ballot proposal, would apply to property on the Island.

The Consolidation Ballot Proposal

This is the language approved by the Charlevoix County Board for the May 8 election:

Shall the townships of Peaine and St. James be consolidated as the township of Beaver Island, with the following extra voted millages and expiration dates:

Fire, 1.0 mill, 12/31/2018
Health Center, 2.0 mills, 12/31/2018
Transfer Station, 1.8 mills, 12/31/2019
Roads, 1.4 mills, 12/31/2019
Townships’ Airport, .85 mill, 12/31/2019
Emergency Medical Services, 3 mills, 12/31/2019
Historical Society, .1 mill, 12/31/2019
Township Operation, 3.6 mills, 12/31/2018

( ) Yes ( ) No;

Questions Addressed

The following questions are addressed in the material below:

What would happen if consolidation were approved on May 8?
What would the temporary coordinating committee do?
How would voters elect the new township board?
Would voters in an existing township be able to dominate elections for the new township board?
What would happen to township property taxes?
What would happen to existing employees of Peaine and St. James Townships?
What would the one-time costs of consolidation be?
Would consolidation save money?

Q. What would happen if consolidation were approved on May 8?

Three things would happen:

The new township would take effect November 20, 2018, under Michigan law.
A temporary coordinating committee would be established to prepare the transition to the new township. Under state law, the committee is required to be made up of at least the supervisor, clerk, and treasurer of each affected township.
Voters would select the new township’s officials at the August primary and November general elections.

Q. What would the temporary coordinating committee do?

State law assigns several transition tasks to the coordinating committee:

Prepare and adopt an interim budget for the consolidated township for the four months from November 20, 2018 until March 31, 2019, when the consolidated township board’s first annual budget would take effect.
Before July 1, 2018 establish salaries for the officers of the consolidated township board from November 20, 2018 until the fiscal year that begins no sooner than a year later, April 1, 2020. After that, the township board would set township officer salaries in the traditional way.
Recommend individuals for appointment by the consolidated township board to the commissions and boards of the consolidated township.
Make recommendations concerning the coordination, consolidation, repeal, and reenactment of ordinances, resolutions, rules, and regulations of the former townships.

Q. How would voters select the new township board?

Voters would select the consolidated township’s board at the August 2018 primary and the November 2018 general elections.

Under state law, candidates who want to run for board positions would have two ways to get on these ballots. They could run as independent candidates, submitting nominating petitions before the state’s July deadline to be placed on the November ballot. Or they could run as write-in candidates in the Republican or Democrat primaries in the August election.

Unfortunately, because the county was required to schedule the consolidation election for May 8, according to the state election calendar, it will take place after the state-set petition-filing deadline for candidates for the August Republican and Democrat primaries, which is April 24. We asked the county to consider changing the filing deadline, if it has the authority to do so that potential candidates could also use this method to get on the primary ballot, but the research and a decision about this will not be made until the results of the May 8 election are known.

In future years, this scheduling problem would not occur.

Q. Would voters in an existing township be able to dominate elections for the new township board?

Probably not, since Peaine and St. James Townships have almost exactly the same number of registered voters—about 300 in each—and roughly the same rate of voter turnout in elections.

For an example of how elections for a consolidated township might work in the future, we looked at the November 2016 election results for the Beaver Island school board, which is elected community-wide. The top four candidates drew about half of their support from each township—not predominantly from whichever township they live in.

Q. What would happen to township property taxes?

Under state law, the consolidation proposal must identify any extra voted millages for the consolidated township, specifying their purpose, millage rate, and expiration date. The millages would take effect December 1 2018.

The voter approved millage rate doesn’t set the tax bill for property owners. It sets the maximum millage rate that the township board can levy against the taxable value of property. In some cases, the Peaine and St. James boards have levied less than the full amount possible on extra voted millages, depending on how much revenue was needed for their annual budgets.

When we drafted the consolidation proposal for petition signatures back in September, we had three goals concerning extra voted millages:

All existing voter approved millage purposes would be continued. The consolidation proposal contains the same eight millage purposes that voters in Peaine and St James Townships have already approved. Seven of these have been adopted by both townships: fire, health center, transfer station, roads, airport, emergency medical services, and township operations. The eighth voted millage is in St. James for the Beaver Island Historical Society. (Peaine uses its general fund money to pay its share of the historical society budget.) For three of these millages—fire, health center, and emergency medical services—Peaine and St James Townships have voted the same millage rate, so that millage rate is contained in the consolidation proposal. For the five millages for which Peaine and St. James have different millage rates, the consolidation proposal blends the townships’ rates into a single rate. [See chart below.]

The total amount of extra voted millages for the consolidated township would be no higher than the current total amount in either Peaine or St. James Township. The total of the eight voted millages in the consolidation proposal is 13.75 mills, setting a ceiling on possible township property taxes that does not exceed the existing voted total in Peaine or St. James Townships. The ceilings on voted millages on the consolidation proposal would pertain to December 2018 “winter” property tax bills. Starting in 2019, voters would decide what renewal millages or new millages would be in effect.

All voted millages would expire at the end of 2018 or 2019. This ensures that no millage exists longer than voters have already approved. It also means that starting in 2019, the consolidated township board would have to seek voter approval to renew (or change) voted millages in the consolidation proposal. At the end of 2018, for instance, about half of the extra voted mills in the proposal would expire: general operations, fire, and health center, which total 7.4 mills. Voters in 2019 would have the opportunity to decide how much extra millage to have to support for those purposes.

Of course, the consolidated township board could decide to increase or decrease the amount it levies on the voted millages. The Peaine and St. James Township boards can currently make those same decisions about how much to levy on the voted millages.

Q. What would happen to existing employees of Peaine and St. James Townships?

State law protects township employees during a consolidation: “an employee of a township whose duties are transferred to a consolidated township shall be given a comparable position of employment with the consolidated township and shall maintain his or her seniority status and all other benefit rights of the position held in the township before consolidation.”

Q. What would the one-time costs of consolidation be?

We assume there would be necessary one-time costs to have an attorney draft various consolidation documents and an accountant put together a single financial framework. There might be a need to upgrade software the townships are using. We are not sure how much this would cost or if other expenditures may be needed.

Q. Would consolidation save money?

Some people hope that consolidation might lead to a reduction in the cost of local government on the island. That would depend on the budget decisions made by the future township elected officials and on what voters decide about future voted millages.

Potential savings could include the total salaries of township elected officials, since the consolidated township would have five paid board members while the two townships have a total of 10. However, the salaries of consolidated township officials could possibly be higher than those of the current township officials, since the consolidated officials would be serving the entire Island community, not just a portion of it. This would be determined by township officials starting in 2020, just as Peaine and St. James Township officials currently set their salaries in consultation with the community. [Before 2020, the temporary coordinating committee would set the salaries, as described in the answer to an earlier question.] Other financial saving might come from addressing any duplication of facilities or equipment, or by consolidating some duplicate operating costs such as for attorneys. These decisions would be up to the new township board, based on community input, but would not be determined in the consolidation ballot proposal.