• Fife Lake, a quiet lake village near Traverse City, survived a dissolution vote this month
• It was one of four villages facing such votes this year; so far, none have passed
• Increased financial stress and resident frustration with taxes are leading to the votes

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FIFE LAKE — Kyle Gilmour’s stomach was “in knots” as he zipped on his scooter to his polling place. The 42-year-old was born and raised in the village of Fife Lake. He grew up knowing most of the about 450 people in the tight-knit community in southern Grand Traverse County, and as an adult, he served on several committees and volunteered to help keep the village beach clean.

The proposal failed, with 85 village residents voting to disincorporate, and 93 voting no. To pass, a disincorporation vote must get two-thirds of votes.

A growing number of Michigan’s 252 villages face the same existential question. Between 2005 and 2005, roughly one village every three years voted on whether to disincorporate and become fully part of its surrounding township. This year alone, there will be four.

Sand Lake, in Kent County, voted down a ballot proposal in May, before Fife Lake’s vote on Aug. 4. Lake Orion in Oakland County and Baroda in southeast Michigan’s Berrien County will face similar proposals in November.

So far, no Michigan village in history has voted to wipe itself off the map. But village leaders across the state told Bridge Michigan that the increase in dissolution votes — brought to the ballot by villager petitioners — should be a warning sign in Lansing. They say the votes are a symptom of growing frustration, financial struggles among the state’s smallest governments and the sometimes poor or nonexistent training of leaders thrust into low-paid, increasingly complicated jobs.

Despite increasing turmoil in some villages, the bulk of laws governing Michigan’s smallest government units haven’t changed in over a century. Villages began being incorporated in Michigan before statehood (Monroe was first, in 1827). Most are 100 to 150 years old, and their legal status is still regulated by the General Law Village Act of 1895, passed when Grover Cleveland was president.

Villages can collect taxes, have elections for their government officials, and are responsible for maintenance of their own streets and parks. Some have their own water and sewer systems. 

Costs for services in many of Michigan’s local governments have gone up faster than tax revenue. That problem is worst among Michigan’s rural villages and townships, said Chelsea Wuth, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. 

“Day-to-day operations, let alone curveballs like tornadoes and ice storms, leave rural leaders with hardly enough resources to meet normal functions,” Wuth said.

No money to ‘keep things going’

Michigan makes it hard for local governments to disappear. That includes villages, even though they have less autonomy and fewer mandated responsibilities than other municipalities.

With an estimated average population of about 1,000, villages maintain their own streets and parks and sometimes provide other services such as snow plowing and trash pickup.

A 2025 University of Michigan survey of local officials found small, rural local governments are struggling with increased fiscal stress. Hit worst: Michigan’s villages, where just 39% of village leaders said their communities were in good financial health, compared to 61% just two years earlier.

Fife Lake is not in debt, but its revenues from local property taxes and state apportionments aren’t enough to repair its streets.

“The amount of tax money that the village brings in just doesn’t seem to be enough to keep things going,” Marilyn Hayes, a village board member for 17 years who collected signatures for the dissolution vote, said in an email to Bridge Michigan. “Costs … have gone up tremendously over the years.”

“They don’t have the tax base to easily generate the amount of revenue just to cover the road expenses,” said resident Paul McCool. “We could dissolve as a village or wait until we go bankrupt. “

Unlike Michigan city residents, village residents pay village taxes as well as township taxes. Because most services now provided by the village would be taken over by Fife Lake Township and Grand Traverse County, McCool predicted Fife Lake could hobble along similar to as it is now even if it had disincorporated, while residents would save the average $1,100 they now pay annually in village taxes.

Still, speaking before Tuesday’s election, McCool predicted the dissolution vote would fail.

“Nostalgia is tugging at people,” he said. “And there are uncertainties —  we don’t know what it will look like if we disincorporate, because no one’s been down that road before.”

‘Nobody knows what will happen’

Sand Lake came close to finding out this year: a majority of villagers voted to disincorporate (55%), but not the two-thirds needed for it to pass.

If and when a Michigan village does meet that high threshold, some responsibilities of the former village would be forced on the township, and others to the county. How it would work, and whether a village would be better served, is unclear.

“The first time it happens will set a precedent,” said Fife Lake President Tawni Deike, who opposed the dissolution vote. “Nobody really knows what will happen.”

That uncertainty may have played a role in Tuesday’s vote. Leading to the election, Fife Lake Facebook groups were filled with residents suggesting the problems they have now may be better than the problems they’d face after dissolution.

“If you don’t know, vote no,” one Facebook poster wrote.

Those on both sides of the Fife Lake dissolution vote acknowledged the financial struggles of the village, but were also quick to extol the virtues of the community, which has maintained a small-town feel 30 minutes from the bustle of Traverse City. There are several old-fashioned resorts featuring small lakeside cabins, three restaurants, a barbershop, a bar and a hair salon. Homes are packed close to each other along the lake. Side streets are narrow and bumpy.

There is no manufacturing in the community, and the biggest nearby employer, the Puglsey Correctional Facility, closed a decade ago.

The village operates a lakeside park with a beach that is maintained by a combination of volunteers and a part-time village employee.

Many who spoke to Bridge either grew up in the village or have lived there for decades.

“I can go into any restaurant and say hi to a friend,” said Gilmour. “That’s rare these days.”

While Gilmour is happy the village survived Tuesday’s vote, he knows the financial struggles faced by Fife Lake and villages like it scattered across Michigan remain.

“I’m excited that we’re going to get another chance to make this village what it needs to be, but it’s a wake-up call,” he said. “It’s opened our eyes to a lot of things we need to do.”

State offers help

Finding the time, resources and manpower to do those things is the next challenge for the Up North community.

With a tax base that is unlikely to grow, village leaders say they know they need to find grant funding to maintain services like road repairs. To do that, they need training to learn how to successfully apply for grants.

In many small, rural governments, leaders are retirees who have time for public service. Deike, who took over as village president early this year, is a high school math teacher with limited free time to devote to her public service job that pays about $5,000 a year.

“I wish there were more trainings that were minimal costs and minimal travel,” Deike said. “A lot of these trainings are in the week and I’m an educator and I can’t take that much time off.”

“The average person can’t write a grant and know what they’re looking for,” Gilmour said. “If the governor was having a beer with me on the boat, I’d say give villages access to grant writers to take advantage of what is out of there.”

Michigan used to have a program for that. From 2022 through 2025, the state doled out $1.8 million in Rural Readiness Grants, which brought consultants to communities to teach capacity-building and grant-writing. A state analysis found the program brought in about $13 in investment and grants for every tax dollar spent.

That program was eliminated in the 2025-26 state budget, and was not restored in the budget that will go into effect in October.

The Office of Rural Prosperity told Bridge that while those grants are gone, the office facilitates “peer-learning circles” that include grant-writing discussions, and a “five-to-seven session virtual series this fall that will be recorded and available to network members on funding navigation.”

“It’s easy to take for granted that local elected and appointed leaders in rural Michigan have time, funding, and access to training,” said Sarah Lucas, director of the Office of Rural Prosperity. “Far too often, they don’t. Instead, small communities — most of whom operate with very limited budgets — often have to learn on the fly while making important decisions about incredibly complex issues.”

Village residents in Lake Orion and Baroda are gearing up for their own dissolution battles.

In 900-resident Baroda, controversy and confusion over the dissolution vote has sparked a recall petition against the township clerk.

“Village voters will now face the November question without a plan explaining what would happen to streets, alleys, sidewalks, drainage systems, public safety, employees, ordinances, property, debt, or the allocation of costs,” Baroda resident Brad Mattner told Bridge in an email.

In Lake Orion, population 2,800, frustration over the cost of water and sewer system repairs has led to questions about the financial stability of the village.

There’s even disagreement over who gets to vote on the dissolution — just village residents, or also voters in Orion Township who might have to take on Lake Orion debts if the village is disincorporated.

“It’s comical that even the experts don’t have the answers,” said Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett.

Meanwhile in Fife Lake, Gilmour was in a village bar when word spread that the disincorporation vote had failed. He’d heard rumors another dissolution petition was being circulated to try to get the question placed on the November ballot. That fight and the bumpy roads and the search for grant money could wait — for one night, he could celebrate.

“I’m just glad those four beers weren’t my last in the village,” he said.

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