Patterson: Worst is not over for Oakland County

Revenue for local government is on a downward track and likely won't return to 2007 levels until sometime between 2020 and 2025, according to Oakland County officials who sponsored a symposium on local government finance Monday morning.

More than 200 mayors, supervisors, finance managers and other local government officials filled the Oakland County Commissioners auditorium to hear a presentation by county officials on projecting what their revenues are going to be and planning their costs accordingly.

"My office is convinced that the economic decline that we're experiencing is not even close to bottoming out," County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said.

David Hieber, Oakland County's manager of equalization, showed an example of one commercial property in the county that sold for $220,000 in 2004, but only $145,000 this September. And many other property owners are contesting their assessments.

"We have about $3 billion in taxable value being contested at the Michigan Tax Tribunal," Hieber said. "Our fiscal services department has set up an accounts payable for tax tribunal cases."

Most local governments don't do that.

http://freep.com/article/20091208/NE...Oakland-County
Sounds like they are beginning to make the case for more municipal consolidations.