Crain’s summed it up pretty well…
An increase in shared services by local governments, reform of Michigan’s revenue-sharing formula and increased health care co-pays for government workers are among priorities the state should consider. Those were conclusions reached by attendees Wednesday at an East Lansing meeting to discuss Michigan’s future. The “Michigan’s Defining Moment” session, sponsored by the Ann Arbor-based Center for Michigan, brought together public policy experts, government officials and business executives to debate possible reforms the governor and legislators could take up in the state’s budget crisis.
More than 100 people took part in the half-day reform summit, but the action doesn’t stop there:
Participants included a mix of Lansing insiders and citizens and local leaders from across the state. The event was open to the public and attended by both Crain’s and the Detroit Free Press. In more than three hours of expert presentation and town-hall dialogue, participants approved, by clear majority votes, the following reform schemes:
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.
Participants voted down two other ideas:
1. Giving the state schools superintendent the power to force consolidation of school districts in cases where savings of 5 percent or more can be demonstrated.
2. Imposing across-the-board pay cuts for public sector workers.
“The sense here is that Michigan recognizes a need to change, but is not moving fast enough or necessarily in the right direction,” wrote the Freep’s Ron Dzwonkowski. “This is a conversation worth having. But we’ve had so many in recent years … will it change anything? Some paticipants say this meeting may not, but the state’s shrinking economy is going to force a lot of issues, so let’s start making the best choices now for a “next Michigan” that state leaders have not adequately acknowledged.”
4 Comments
I think the time for talking about “reforms” may be over. At the end of the day, you have to talk about “reductions.” There’s a reason that the Issue Guide for your suggested reforms references “possible savings” for each reform. The reforms may make sense from an efficiency/effectiveness/equity standpoint, but they don’t necessarily generate short-term budget savings. (For example, the DB-to-DC switch actually creates short-term costs, with any savings materializing a couple decades from now.)
Balancing the state budget requires reducing specific line items in the budget (or raising additional revenue). And, with the magnitude of the budget problem the state currently faces, that means eliminating services, not “reforming” them. What do the people of this state want their state government to do and what don’t they want it to do?
The reform choices you listed are commendable, especially the collaboration between school districts. However, I noticed in the full report that “service sharing programs have produced mixed results according to the Am Assoc of School Administrators.” Please Note: This is to be expected from administrators who are often times highly paid and are protective of their jobs.
The state has dropped the ball on this also; there are White Papers from the 1990’s which speak to the service sharing, yet nothing has ever been done. Kudos to your people if you actually accomplish this!
The Urban Cooperation Act is legislation created by political compromise. It is designed so that any one person or entity can object and veto any merger or service sharing. This is designed so that any rapid progress is virtually impossible. All county, city, township, village charters are at the pleasure of the state government. If the state government could get its act together, much stronger legislation could be enacted.
Only two options were considered: budget cuts or tax revenue increases by tax increases. The governor and legislature does have the option of legislation of maintaining or reducing some tax rates, but obtaining tax revenue increases by economic growth. But the governor has done everything possible in this regard for the past six years.
They are wringing their hands, not knowing what further to do to get economic growth. Ohio took the road to economic growth in 2005.
Leadership in Lansing needs to do the obvious,reduce it’s size and pay. That would put all other entities and individuals on notice that real change for the beneifit of those(citizens) who fund everything comes first! Then priorities can be make and goals set that hold Lawmakers accountable for RESULTS.