A new report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress estimates that Michigan’s public schools spend about $470 million annually to provide automatic higher pay for teachers who obtain master’s degrees. Nationally, taxpayers supply $15 billion a year for this perk.
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Senate Bill 1040, Senate vote on House pension reform proposal: Failed 16 to 22 in the Senate
To not concur with a House-passed version of the school pension reform bill, which sends the bill to a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences. The main dispute is over the Senate-passed provision to “close” the school pension system to new hires, and instead give them a 401(k) account (as has been done for new state employees hired since 1997). The House instead proposes keeping a somewhat less generous "defined benefit" pension system for new employees.
Michigan school districts and newspapers are busy reading the Mackinac Center's 'Michigan Public High School Context and Performance Report Card," released only yesterday.
MLive reported on the Kalamazoo area's several high-performing districts with lower-income students, and reported simultaneously the surprising result that many Michigan urban high schools outperform their suburban neighbors, according to the study.
Though its students score abysmally on state reading and math tests, and though classroom management appears to be severely lacking, the Highland Park City school district still may be the best available alternative for some Detroit-area students.
State data showing what districts students are choosing to leave and where they are going reveals that many students from Detroit are choosing Highland Park.
Battle Creek Public Schools, in the last month, has approved cuts to several extracurricular activities in an effort to salvage the district’s financial situation. Subject to the cut were lower-participation sports including tennis, golf and bowling, which, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer, amount to $36,000. Other programs cut included camp programs for first, third and fourth-graders, which Battle Creek decided last week to suspend in order to save another $180,000. Parents may very well be concerned about the loss of these programs. Fortunately, there are more material steps Battle Creek can take which would save these programs, such as implementing a pay-to-play mechanism for extracurricular activities or outsourcing essential services to the market.
Last week Virginia Governor and Republican Governors Association Chairman Bob McDonnell sent a remarkable letter to President Obama revealing a stunning absence of answers to critical questions surrounding the implementation of a federal health care law that in just 18 months will impact every family and business in the country.
Reversing the position it took in May, the Freeland School Board has voted to allow some students from other districts to attend its schools through the state schools-of-choice program. Just not very many.
Freeland's decision appears to be an attempt to game state policy in order to pad its budget. The district is allowing an extraordinarily limited number of students from outside districts to attend its schools in order to access additional state funding. This has implications for how the state aims to use additional per-pupil funding to encourage districts to make policy changes.
Policymakers are still concerned that closing the Michigan school pension system to new members will cost the state in one of two ways: Either it will require additional cash to meet a new front-loaded payment schedule for “catching up” on the system’s unfunded liabilities (the so-called “transition costs”); or, if this is not done, it will damage the state’s credit rating.
This morning, Gov. Snyder claimed at the Michigan Agriculture Exposition at Michigan State University that agriculture is one of Michigan's "Big 3" industries, along with the automotive industry and tourism. The Detroit Free Press cited Mackinac Center research that these analyses are flawed because they include cereal factories, wholesalers, retailers such as grocery stores, and restaurants in measuring the economic impact.
According to MLive reporter Dave Murray, “Key state Senate Republicans say they’re close to a compromise on teacher pension reforms that would move educators into a 401(k)-style plan while saving school districts about $300 million.”
The House and Senate are negotiating a compromise bill to overhaul the current school employee pension system, which is over $22 billion underfunded. The most significant part of the discussion is whether or not to shift new employees into 401(k) accounts or leave them in the current defined-benefit plan, the likes of which are bankrupting cities and states across the country.
Fox News reported on the large pay increases the heads of the nation’s two largest teachers unions received last year after Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the story last week.
Michael Van Beek, director of education policy, told Fox News that the dollar amounts the union bosses receive isn’t as problematic as the process.
Less than nine weeks after Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Joyce Parker as emergency manager for the Highland Park School District, Parker finds herself a defendant in a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU lawsuit notes that a paucity of Highland Park students have met the state’s proficiency benchmark in reading, and alleges that the district failed to provide adequate assistance to students who were not reading at grade level. Just 35 percent of fourth-grade students and 25 percent of seventh-graders scored "proficient" on state standardized tests.
The House and Senate are in the midst of a summer break, so rather than votes, this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 1110 and House Bill 5579: Require gross negligence for suits against emergency room physicians
Introduced by Sen. Roger Kahn (R) and Rep. Kenneth Horn (R), respectively, to restrict medical malpractice lawsuits against emergency room physicians to cases of gross negligence. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
MLive today published a story about a Mackinac Center blog post by Jarrett Skorup, content manager for Michigan Capitol Confidential, explaining why municipalities and school districts with appointed emergency managers are better off than facing bankruptcy proceedings.
A remarkable letter to President Obama from Virginia Governor and Republican Governors Association Chairman Bob McDonnell reveals the extent to which Obamacare’s massive intrusion into 18 percent of the U.S. economy is being executed, on the fly, by bureaucrats in so far over their heads they can’t even see the surface anymore.
New regulations that require pharmaceutical companies to report expected shortages for certain kinds of drugs six months before the shortages occur will not help solve the problem, according to a Mackinac Center expert. John Graham, director of health studies at the Pacific Research Institute and an adjunct scholar with the Center, explains the problem in a Detroit Free Press commentary today. He takes a closer look and offers solutions in this recent study.
Michigan’s recently beefed-up "emergency manager" law gives broad powers to a state appointee if a local government or school district fails its citizens financially in one of 18 explicit ways.
Assuming a referendum passes a legal challenge and makes it to the ballot, citizens will vote in November on whether to keep or overturn this law.
The Washington-based Heritage Foundation has published a brief “Top 5 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare.” Here are its headlines, which are arranged in reverse order:
5. To stop adding to the U.S. deficit and debt.
4. To help stop Taxmageddon.
3. To preserve freedom, including religious freedom, for all Americans.
2. To keep health care decisions where they belong—with patients and their doctors.
1. To make way for real, patient-centered, market-based health care reform.
With boxes of signatures submitted to the Secretary of State over the last few days, it appears there could be as many as seven different proposals on the ballot this fall. Many of them would benefit narrow constituencies at the expense of taxpayers; perhaps the most egregious is a self-serving measure that would embed a one-sided government union scheme into the state constitution.
According to a report by Bloomberg News, the former head of structured finance at Standard and Poors says big investors no longer believe the credit judgments issued by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch because of the inflated ratings the agencies gave to sub-prime debt in the run-up to the 2008 financial meltdown:
A scheme by the Service Employees International Union to enshrine its dues skim from home-based caregivers in the Michigan Constitution has caught the attention of statewide media.
Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, told WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids that the ballot proposal does nothing to help the state’s most vulnerable residents find home care. MLive pointed out that the Center has explicitly shown that many of the people suffering from the forced unionization are simply family members caring for loved ones. The Detroit Free Press reported that the Center has exposed how the SEIU has skimmed more than $30 million in “dues” from the Medicaid checks meant to help developmentally disabled adults. MLive reported that the Center has "long criticized" the stealth unionization.
Jarrett Skorup, content manager for Michigan Capitol Confidential, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing this morning, talking about his recent article on reforming school employee pensions in Michigan. For more information on this topic, see here, here and here.
This 2008 study by Paul Kersey, former director of labor policy with the Mackinac Center, is cited in an exhaustive investigation by Fox Business News about the spending habits of powerful unions, often using mandatory dues money for lavish trips and high salaries instead of for collective bargaining.
The Michigan Legislature has entered a summer recess. Many bills were passed in the legislative sessions just before the break.
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Senate Bill 1041: Subject legislator communications to FOIA
Introduced by Sen. Gretchen Whitmer (D), to expand government document disclosure requirements required under the Freedom of Information Act to include legislators and legislative offices. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
Syndicated columnist and author Jonah Goldberg will be featured at “An Evening with the Mackinac Center” tonight at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa. Goldberg will be discussing his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.” Registration is closed, but you can watch a simulcast of the event, beginning at 7 p.m., here.
