The rift between public and private sector workers in Michigan widened a bit this week with a proposal by Michigan House Republicans for a five percent across the board pay cut for State of Michigan workers.
In the midst of the budget meltdown two years ago, the Granholm Administration cut a deal which provides state workers with a one percent pay raise this year and a three percent pay raise next year. A simple state worker pay freeze could save upwards of $25 million per year and bringing state workers’ rich benefit plans in line with those available in the private sector could save more than a quarter-billion a year, as the Center outlined in $1.5 billion in possible budget reforms.
So it is troubling that the Granholm Administration would immediately dismiss the GOP proposal out of hand by saying state workers had already made sacrifices. That response is akin to the GOP response in recent years to Granholm’s anger over proposals to cut taxes without clear GOP outlines of where the cuts would be made. Granholm rightfully fought that kind of cart-before-the-horse thinking, but she’s wrong to dismiss GOP budget-cutting ideas without offering counter-proposals to close a huge structural budget deficit that is on pace to grow to $10 billion over the next decade.
It’s likely to be another extraordinarily difficult budget fight in Lansing this year. Outright dismissals of reform ideas by either party are part of the problem.
In another sign of growing pressure on public workers, former state schools superintendent Tom Watkins is trumpeting the idea of merit pay for teachers…
“The concept behind merit pay for educators is a simple one: good teachers should be paid more, mediocre teachers should be given a chance to improve, and underperforming teachers should find a new line of work,” Watkins wrote in the Freep this week.
