a significant difference between townships and cities and villages in michigan is the general lack of authority in townships to perform maintenance and construction on roads. in most states, townships take care of local roads in their jurisdictions, but michigan law transferred responsibility for roads to county road commissions and, most recently, provides the option for county boards of commissioners to transfer road responsibility from road commissions to themselves. under very specific circumstances, larger townships may contract with road commissions to assume road maintenance responsibilities, but only one township has opted to accept road responsibilities to this degree. townships do not receive gas and weight tax distributions as cities, villages and counties do. it is the county’s statutory responsibility to keep roads in a safe condition, but township boards recognize that counties do not have sufficient resources to take care of all the road needs. as a result, townships collectively spent in excess of $160 million on roads in 2010, even though they are not required by law to do so.