http://www.crcmich.org en-us elupher@crcmich.org (Eric Lupher) http://crcmich.org/rss/fedaid.html A new report from Citizens Research Council analyzes federal payments for retirement and disability, grant awards, procurement contracts, salaries and wages, and other direct payments made to governmental and non-governmental entities, as well as federal grants and payments to state and local governments. The analysis identifies federal agencies from which payments are made, types of payments, specific federal programs that disproportionately benefited Michigan and federal programs that should be scrutinized to determine whether benefits to Michigan can be increased. Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EST http://crcmich.org/rss/roads020408.html A new study by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan finds Michigan's state highway funding formula fails to take into account highway use in distributing dollars to counties, instead using mileage. As a result, highway funding is skewed toward lesser traveled rural roads at the expense of heavily traveled urban routes.. The report, *Improving the Efficiency of Michigan's Highway Revenue Sharing Formula*, notes that, while mileage was once the only reasonable way of allocating highway dollars, it is now possible to use vehicle miles traveled as one part of the formula. Doing so could more equitably and efficiently allocate Michigan highway revenues, which are growing very slowly. Mon, 4 Feb 2008 01:15:00 EST http://crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/budgetcrisis.html In an effort to keep followers of CRC's work informed on the latest news on Michigan structural budget deficits, CRC has updated the slide show on the CRC website. Available in MicroSoft PowerPoint and Adobe PDF, this document reflects ongoing CRC research to identify the causes of the structural budget problems and future problems using economic projections done by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:35:00 EST http://crcmich.org/rss/memo1084.html The State of Michigan has relatively fewer state and local employees than other states, but tends to compensate the state employees better than most other states according to a new report released by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. . 12 Dec 2007 10:00:00 EST