Census-Guided Infrastructure Funds in Michigan

Many federal infrastructure programs use census data to help allocate funds for these programs to states and local communities. These programs use census counts at the subnational level (such as state, county, city, or zip code) to help determine where the assistance funds should be sent. Infrastructure programs fund an array of activities and projects in urban and rural areas such as improving accessibility to transportation, broadband, and water systems. Many of these programs focus on geographic factors and population numbers.

Census data helps inform federal programs that provide crucial support at the community level — but only if we get the census count right. Miscounts — under- or overcounts — can lead to communities not receiving their fair share of infrastructure funding. And the amount of money from these programs can be very significant.

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) tracked the spending for five census-guided programs focused on infrastructure down to the county level in Michigan for fiscal year (FY) 2022. The goal of the research is to quantify how important census accuracy is to each community, to underscore the impact of the census by putting its effect in real dollars directed toward critical issues such as infrastructure.

Accurate census counts not only determine the size of the pie Michigan receives from the federal government but often impact the amounts distributed to local jurisdictions as well. Under- or overcounts in qualifying populations can result in some communities receiving less than their fair share, while others may receive more. A significant local miscount could even result in a double penalty for a community, first reducing the amount of money allocated to the entire state of Michigan for an assistance program, then allocating a smaller percentage of that reduced total to the miscounted community.

Our Approach

The Programs

We researched the local distribution of funds from the following five federal census-guided infrastructure programs in Michigan:

• Highway Planning and Construction
  • This is one of the largest transportation programs that funds states to plan and develop interstate transportation systems, including public roads and highways. The program also assists in replacing and rehabilitating structurally deficient bridges.¹
• Federal Transit Formula Grants
  • These Transportation Department grants offer federal assistance to urbanized areas to implement transportation planning and maintain and operate existing transportation systems such as trains, buses, ferries, train tracks, etc. Its overarching goal is to help innovate and operate regional transit systems.²
• Universal Service Fund – Schools and Libraries (E-Rate)
  • This Federal Communications Commission program provides affordable broadband access and telecommunication services to eligible schools and libraries. Discounts are available depending on the poverty level of the schools and whether the eligible entities are in an urban or rural area. Schools and libraries can request funding individually or as a consortium.³
• Water and Waste Disposal Systems for Rural Communities
  • These Department of Agriculture grants and/or long-term and low-interest loans support the acquisition, construction, and improvement of sewer, drinking water, solid waste, and stormwater infrastructure. Its goal is to improve the water and waste treatment systems specifically for eligible rural areas and tribal lands.⁴
• Capitalization Grants for Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF)
  • The Environmental Protection Agency provides long-term financing to states for the construction of wastewater treatment facilities and the implementation of water quality management systems. In addition to the Water and Waste Disposal Systems program, the overarching goal is to provide clean water to communities.⁵

The Regions

Our research identified spending totals in each of Michigan’s 83 counties, which we then grouped into seven state regions based on the regions used by the Michigan Department of Transportation.⁶

• Metro Region
  • This region includes Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties.
• Bay Region
  • This region includes Arenac, Bay, Clare, Genesee, Gladwin, Gratiot, Huron, Isabella, Lapeer, Midland, Saginaw, St. Clair, Sanilac, Shiawassee, and Tuscola counties.
• Grand Region
  • This region includes Allegan, Barry, Ionia, Kent, Lake, Mason, Mecosta, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oceana, Osceola, and Ottawa counties.
• University Region
  • This region includes Clinton, Eaton, Hillsdale, Ingham, Jackson, Lenawee, Livingston, Monroe, and Washtenaw counties.
• Southwest Region
  • This region includes Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, and Van Buren counties.
• North Region
  • This region includes Alcona, Alpena, Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Iosco, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Manistee, Missaukee, Montmorency, Ogemaw, Oscoda, Otsego, Presque Isle, Roscommon, and Wexford counties.
• Superior Region
  • This region includes Alger, Baraga, Chippewa, Delta, Dickinson, Gogebic, Houghton, Iron, Keweenaw, Luce, Mackinac, Marquette, Menominee, Ontonagon, and Schoolcraft counties.

Overview: Regional Allocations of Census-Guided Infrastructure Funds

Local allocations of the five census-guided infrastructure programs resulted in the distribution of approximately $2.05 billion in FY 2022 across Michigan. A miscount in the state could alter the funding totals, creating a ripple effect for program recipients and potentially leaving the state with insufficient resources to invest in essential infrastructure needs. And a financial shortfall due to census miscounts would not only impact a single year of funding: It would affect state allocations until the next decennial census.

After the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021, Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, created the Michigan Infrastructure Office to coordinate and implement the state’s infrastructure projects. The creation of this office highlights the state’s commitment to ensuring that infrastructure funds are being used efficiently and effectively.⁷

The Metro Region is the most populous in the state and received the most funding at $682.09 million. The Grand, University, and Bay Regions have populations of roughly 1.6, 1.4, and 1.3 million, respectively. Spending does not follow population alone, as the Bay Region received more than the University Region. The Southwest, North, and Superior Regions each have populations under 800,000, and each received notably less in infrastructure funding. While not entirely determinative, the need for infrastructure such as roads, water treatment, and broadband access increases with larger populations. Out of the five programs we tracked, Highway Planning and Construction made up the largest percentage of each region’s total funding.

Given that accurate census counts are critical to funding programs that support our communities, advocates in Michigan should encourage officials at the local and state levels to prioritize preparation for a successful 2030 decennial census. Officials can work with the Census Bureau to update residential addresses through the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) Program, which allows early participation by state, county, tribal, and city officials to ensure local address files are up-to-date and complete. As the decennial census approaches, advocates and community leaders can play a crucial role in educating the public about the process and its importance. Elected officials should allocate sufficient resources to conduct more targeted outreach to hard-to-count and historically undercounted populations, such as young children and Black Americans.⁸

Advocacy and local engagement can have significant impact on the census results both in terms of the completeness of the count and the process of what exactly gets counted. Until recently, the Census Bureau defined people with origins in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) within the White racial category. Since Michigan is home to a large Arab American population, local advocates have been pressing for changes in the race and ethnicity categories to ensure better representation of those communities in the census results.⁹The Census Bureau recently updated its standards and will include a Middle Eastern or North African classification on the 2030 Census. The Census Bureau will also combine its race and ethnicity questions for the next decennial census, which the agency hopes “will produce more accurate race/ethnicity data for our nation.”¹⁰

Metro Region

The Metro Region consists of three counties located in the southeastern part of the state. The region is Michigan’s most densely populated and highly urbanized area, encompassing the city of Detroit, along with its surrounding suburbs and towns. In addition to Detroit, the region includes cities such as Warren, Sterling Heights, and Dearborn. Approximately 55% of the road, non-motorized, and transit projects obligated in FY 2022 in Michigan belonged to the Metro Region.¹¹ Based on the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy FY 2022 annual report, 25% of the Capitalization Grants for Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) projects financed went to the Metro Region.¹² Given this region’s urban composition, we expect that a significant amount of activities and projects would be located here. This region received no funding from the Water and Waste Disposal Systems program since its counties’ populations well exceed 10,000, an eligibility criterion for the program.

Wayne County, which accounts for 45% of the regional population, received the highest funding in the region at approximately $355.14 million. Oakland County’s population is 72.3% of Wayne County’s, yet it received only 59.6% of Wayne County’s total funding. This is because Oakland County received considerably less from the Federal Transit Formula Grants and E-Rate programs.

Macomb County received the least funding in this region with $115.43 million. It is the only county out of the three that did not receive Federal Transit Formula Grants. Unlike Wayne and Oakland, its population of 874,235 does not exceed a million and receives substantially less for the E-Rate and CWSRF programs. These drops in funding for E-Rate or the CWSRF appear to be a large disparity but may simply reflect the area’s reduced need for this type of funding.

Concerns have been raised about the accuracy of the recent census population numbers in this region, specifically for Detroit. In 2022 and again in 2024, the City of Detroit sued the Census Bureau, claiming the bureau undercounted certain neighborhoods in the 2020 decennial census. In the lawsuits, the city argued two points: First, the bureau’s uniform methodology for counting housing units was flawed, and second, the methodology discriminates against Black and Hispanic residents.¹³ This undercount likely deprived the residents of Detroit millions of dollars of support from federal infrastructure programs.

Bay Region

The Bay Region in Michigan, also known as “the thumb,” covers a 15-county area in the east-central and southeastern part of the state, extending from the Saginaw Bay area along Lake Huron to the northern parts of the Detroit metropolitan area. The region is a mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities.

The largest cities in the region are Flint in Genesee County, Saginaw in Saginaw County, Midland in Midland County, and Bay City in Bay County. The region includes significant areas devoted to agriculture, particularly in the more rural counties like Tuscola, Sanilac, and Huron.

In FY 2022, the Bay Region received a total of $308.54 million from these five census-guided infrastructure programs. Genessee County has by far the largest population in the region, and is the only county funded by all five census-guided programs.

Within these 15 counties, 10 did not receive any funding under the Federal Transit Formula Grant, and nine did not receive any for the Water and Waste Disposal Systems and CWSRF programs. Arenac is the only county that did not receive any funding for the E-Rate program; it is the only county in the region receiving funds solely from the Highway Planning and Construction program.

Despite Clare and Huron counties’ near-identical populations, the gap in funding for each county is over $5 million. Similarly, Gratiot and Sanilac Counties have similar populations and a funding difference of nearly $2.31 million. Possible reasons for these disparities include different local infrastructure needs or a different number of active projects in the county. Further research may be warranted to determine whether these counties are under- or over-resourced.

Grand Region

The Grand Region consists of 13 counties located in the western part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, bordering Lake Michigan. The region includes a mix of urban, suburban, and rural counties. The region includes both highly developed urban centers, like Kent County’s Grand Rapids (the second largest city in the state after Detroit) and more rural areas with more agricultural and natural spaces.

In addition to Grand Rapids, the region includes notable cities Wyoming and Kentwood in Kent County, Georgetown township in Ottawa County, and Muskegon in Muskegon County.

In FY 2022, the Grand Region received $313.07 million in census-guided funds from the five tracked infrastructure federal programs. Among the 13 counties, nine did not receive any funding from the Federal Transit Formula Grants or the Water and Waste Disposal Systems programs, and seven did not receive any funding from the CWSRF. Since the formula grants were intended for urban metropolitan areas, it is not surprising that more rural counties didn’t receive funds from the program. However, some of the same rural counties also did not receive funding for the Water and Waste Disposal Systems, a program that specifically serves rural communities. More research is needed to explain this finding.

Most counties in Michigan received funding from at least one of the two water infrastructure programs (CWSRF and Water and Waste Disposal Systems for Rural Communities), but this region contains six counties — Lake, Osceola, Mason, Mecosta, Barry, and Newaygo — that received neither. This could be due to limited funding from the program, or another factor may be at work.

Within this region, Kent County received the most infrastructure spending for the 2022 fiscal year with $117.79 million. It has 40% of the regional population and 38% of the region’s total funding from these programs.

Among the counties with populations over 100,000 — Allegan, Muskegon, Ottawa, and Kent — only Ottawa and Kent received funding from all five programs. Interestingly, if we look at total county funding, Ionia County is an outlier; its funding exceeded Allegan County’s by $1.82 million even though it has roughly only 55% of its population.

University Region

The University Regionconsists of nine counties located in the southern and central parts of Michigan’s lower peninsula. The region includes a mix of urban and suburban areas, as well as rural communities. The area includes the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Michigan State University in East Lansing, as well as the state capital, Lansing.

The three most populated counties in the region are Washtenaw, Ingham, and Livingston. Washtenaw has more than 350,000 residents, Ingham has around 280,000, and Livingston has almost 200,000. The largest cities in the region are Ann Arbor in Washtenaw County and Lansing in Ingham County, which are the fifth and sixth largest in the state, respectively. Collectively, the three counties are home to more than half of the region’s population. Three other counties — Jackson, Monroe, and Eaton — each have between 100,000 and about 150,000 residents, demonstrating the widely urbanized clusters in the region.

In FY 2022, the University Region received $276.01 million from the five tracked infrastructure programs. As the most populated county in the region, Washtenaw unsurprisingly received the largest share with $71.48 million, about 25% of the regional total. On the other hand, Hillsdale County, the smallest county in the region, received the least funding at $9.06 million. The county received no funding from Federal Transit Formula Grants, Water and Waste Disposal Systems, and the CWSRF.

Being predominantly urban, no counties received money from the Water and Waste Disposal Systems program except Jackson County.

This region generally saw total county spending increase as the population increased, except for three counties: Eaton County received about $300,000 more than Jackson County despite Jackson having nearly 50,000 more people. Similarly, Jackson received $2.31 million more than Livingston County despite Livingston having 36,376 more people. More research is needed to determine whether a miscount or other demographic disparities account for these differences.

Southwest Region

The Southwest Region consists of seven counties located in the southwestern corner of the state, bordering Indiana. This region includes a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas. Kalamazoo, Calhoun, and Berrien Counties are the most populated counties of the region. Kalamazoo County is the most urbanized county in the region, with more than a quarter of a million residents, while Berrien and Calhoun each have close to 150,000 residents.

Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. The region also has Battle Creek in Calhoun County, which ranked 32nd in the state by population. Battle Creek, known as the Cereal City for its history with companies like Kellogg’s, has a strong industrial base but has faced economic challenges in recent years.

The Southwest Region received $190.70 million in census-guided infrastructure assistance funds from the five tracked programs in FY 2022. Kalamazoo is the largest county with a population of 260,892 and received the most funding at $54.60 million. Its population is almost double that of Calhoun County, the third largest in this region. Yet Calhoun County received 80% of Kalamazoo’s total amount.

In this region, Branch and St. Joseph Counties are the only two that received no funding from Federal Transit Formula Grants and Water and Waste Disposal Systems. Cass County is the only one that did not receive funds from either of the two water infrastructure programs.

Like the University Region, this region generally saw the total county spending increase as the population increased. There were only two out of the seven counties where this was not the case. Calhoun County received a much higher amount of funding — almost $10 million more — than Berrien County despite having nearly 20,000 fewer people. The two counties’ funding distribution by program is similar, except for differences in Water and Waste Disposal Systems and the CWSRF.

North Region

The North Region consists of 21 counties in the northern portion of Michigan’s lower peninsula, extending from the shores of Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. The region is primarily rural and remote, with small towns, seasonal populations, and limited urban development. Its economy is largely driven by tourism, agriculture, and forestry.

Grand Traverse County is the most populated county in the region, with almost 100,000 residents. Most of the other counties have between about 10,000 and 35,000 residents.

In FY 2022, the region received $158.38 million from the five census-guided federal infrastructure funds. Given its rural composition, no counties in this region received assistance from the Federal Transit Formula Grants program. All counties received funding from the Highway Planning and Construction program, which does not have a minimum population requirement.

Out of 21 counties, only Manistee, Benzie, and Cheboygan Counties received funding under Water and Waste Disposal Systems. Grand Traverse is the standalone county that received funding from the CWSRF. The $304,134 it received likely supported a sewer rehabilitation project in Traverse City, the only one in this region funded by the program.¹⁴

In this region, no county has a population exceeding 100,000, and seven counties received more funding than those with larger populations. Most notably, Cheboygan County, with a population of 25,964, received the most funding in the region with $22.94 million. The second-most funded county, Grand Traverse, is the most populous in the region with 96,298 people and received $14.96 million. Cheboygan County received $15.87 million from the Water and Waste Disposal System, whereas Grand Traverse received none. Although Grand Traverse, unlike Cheboygan, did receive some assistance from the CWSRF, Cheboygan’s larger amount from the Water and Waste Disposal System program potentially indicates a greater need.

Most counties in this region received funding from only two programs: Highway Planning and Construction and E-Rate, including Montmorency, Alcona, Crawford, Missaukee, Ogemaw, Kalkaska, Roscommon, Alpena, Antrim, Charlevoix, Iosco, Otsego, Emmet, and Wexford. The main reason they do not receive funding from the Federal Transit Formula Grant is that this region is largely rural, and that program is only eligible for urban areas. As for the two water infrastructure programs, further research is necessary to explain the lack of funding.

Oscoda, the region’s least populous county, joins Leelanau and Presque Isle as one of the few that receive funding exclusively from the Highway Planning and Construction program.

Superior Region

The Superior Region, also known as the Upper Peninsula, consists of 15 counties located in Michigan’s northern peninsula and separated from the rest of the state by the Straits of Mackinac. The region is rural and remote, with small towns and few urban centers. Economic activities focus on tourism, mining, forestry, and some manufacturing.

Marquette is the most populated county in the region, with around 65,000 residents. Houghton, Delta, and Chippewa counties each have populations of around 36,000 residents. The region includes several of the least populated counties in the state, including six counties with fewer than 10,000 residents each: Alger, Baraga, Schoolcraft, Luce, Ontonagon, and Keweenaw.

In FY 2022, the Superior Region received $118.12 million from these five census-guided infrastructure funds. None of the counties’ populations exceeded 70,000, and none received funding from the Federal Transit Formula Grants program. This is largely due to the rural composition of the counties in this region and the program’s eligibility restrictions to only serve urban areas. Additionally, only five counties received funding under the Water and Waste Disposal Systems and seven from the CWSRF.

Most counties received funding for the E-Rate program, except for Keweenaw and Mackinac counties. This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as local schools or libraries not applying for funding, or school district boundaries affecting eligibility for certain recipients.

Keweenaw County is the smallest county in Michigan by population and received the smallest amount of assistance in the region, at $2.01 million. Its funding in this category is solely from the Highway Planning and Construction program.

In the region, several counties with smaller populations received more funding than counties with larger populations. For example, Ontonagon County received roughly $207,000 more than Baraga County, even though Ontonagon has 2,362 fewer people. Mackinac County received almost $685,000 more than Dickinson County, despite having less than half of Dickinson’s population. These county spending disparities are highly sensitive to how much funding they receive from Highway Planning and Construction, but they also reflect the different needs of each county. Further research is needed to explain the spending distribution since population is evidently not the only indicator in determining funding.