More than 150 people have registered for next Wednesday’s Center for Michigan Government Collaboration and Accountability Action Group conference at Michigan State University.
This town-hall-styled reform gathering will go from 8 a.m. thru noon at the Kellogg Center.
Seven public policy experts will help lead discussion, debate, and citizen voting on 10 possible reform approaches not yet taken up by the governor and legislators in this budget crisis. Those 10 approaches are:
1. Increased school consolidation and service sharing.
2. Increased local government consolidation and service sharing.
3. Reform of Act 312 which governs police and fire contract negotiations.
4. Reform of the Urban Cooperation Act and bureaucratic hurdles to government cooperation
5. Requiring statewide benchmarking of public service delivery.
6. Rewriting rules governing revenue sharing to local governments.
7. Public employee pay and staffing levels.
8. Moving from pension to 401k-style benefit plans for public employees.
9. Public employee benefits co-pays.
10. Expanded public employee benefits pools.
The seven public policy experts who will illuminate the pros and cons of these choices are:
Please email us if you would like to reserve one of the few remaining seats. Registration will close at end of business today.
2 Comments
Dear Mr. Bebow,
The lineup of the ten (10) items to cover in the Town-Hall Meeting is really a REACTION to the problem that has been lingering for many years. We still need to think PROACTIVELY and address the answer of opening new businesses, mainly in MANUFACTURING. Manufacturing has been dropping off gradually from Michigan over the last 15 years and accelerated over the last few months due to the automotive industry. Few new manufacturing businesses are starting up, but they will replace only about 10% of those laid-off over the past year. The solution has always been said to go back to school and learn a new trade. How about those people that are between 55 to 65? They obviously will not consider this alternative. Nor will others that are college material. We still need to do what they have always been doing. Working in non-technical factories, building, etc. They do not have an interest perhaps in health care, alternative energy, film making, or going back to school. We need to do the following: 1. Remove the Small Business Tax, 2. Make cheap capital readily available for Small Businesses or Entrepeneurs to expand businesses (again especially manufacturing for NEW MONEY), 3. Inform Michigan people how to form a business FREE of charge (Incorporation, business plan, etc.), 4. Make MENTORS available for FREE to people that are interested in becoming Entrepeneurs, 5. ENCOURAGE new businesses by nurturing them and supporting them weekly, monthly, or whatever, 6. Build and repeat the phase, “Say Yes To Michigan!” just like we use to say, 7. Send out fliers to businesses that have manufacturing overseas to ENCOURAGE them to relocate back to Michigan.
THIS is called “Interest By The State Of Michigan” to help its citizens become a leading manufacturing state again! Thank you for your reading my material, your interest, and your time.
Sincerely,
Robert Gorsline
616-772-1332
THIS will
Mr. Gorsline, I have to differ with your prescription.
What do you think the average salary will be for those basic, square peg in square hole, brawn power manufacturing jobs you are willing to gut the state budget for? $10 an hour? $12?
Why should we mortage our future for those jobs? If we are going to make a bet, I say make it on attracting knowledge industry jobs.
You can visit http://www.michiganfuture.org to see a new report that shows all across America, jobs in low-education industries are shrinking and their compensation is getting smaller, while jobs in high-education industries are growing, as is compensation in those areas.
Even more interesting for the folks that you are interested in. Where young college grads are congregrating, the percentage of people living in poverty is less than in rural America where the grads are leaving (and where manufacturing seems to be mostly sustained at its lower equlibrium).
I know many people want to stop global trade. That’s just not going to happen. Given that reality, basic factory manufacturing is not going to be a way to a middle class job in our state.
We can’t return Michigan to the 1950s, not matter how hard we try. Instead, we need to focus on brain power — both in manufacturing and in knowledge industries. Let’s get over the past, and move into the future; that means investing in higher education and creating urban areas young people want to live in.