Lieutenant Governor John Cherry (the presumed Democratic front-runner in the 2010 gubernatorial race) announced this week he’ll have a plan by the end of the year to restructure what he calls a 1950s-era state government.
Why wait until the end of the year? If serious about refashioning government for the 21st Century, Cherry can move swiftly now by enacting well-documented, bipartisan, money-saving reform approaches that have bounced around Lansing for years. Three examples:
Center for Michigan Government Collaboration & Accountability Action Group (this month) — A wide cross-section of Center for Michigan members strongly supported a numerous key reform approaches in a Lansing conference earlier in May. Click here for quick guide to 10 reform ideas Lansing has not yet addressed. Approaches endorsed by conference participants:
1. Intensified school consolidation and service sharing.
2. Intensified local government consolidation and service sharing.
3. Reform of Act 312, which provides for binding arbitration in contract negotiations with public safety officers.
4. Reform of the Urban Cooperation Act to remove wage and benefit barriers to collaboration across governmental units.
5. Launching a statewide public sector benchmarking program.
6. Requiring local schools and government participation in a statewide public sector benchmarking program as a condition of state funding.
7. Rewrite the state revenue sharing formula for local governments to better incentivize collaboration, reward best practices, and fund specific services.
8. Increase state and local government health care co-pays for workers.
9. Tighten state and local government pension rules and/or move to 401K-style benefit plans. Participants were split on whether to do this for all current workers. A clear majority recommended it only for new employees.
10. Create a large health insurance pool for public sector workers.
In a blistering column this morning, Detroit News business scribe Daniel Howes illustrated the frustration of business leaders who are tired of waiting for reforms… “The longer Public Michigan waits to reform the structure of government, to rationalize departments, to commonize retirement systems of public and school employees, to push consolidation of police and fire service among neighboring communities, the tougher the future will be. Ask GM.”
