At a recent rally where school employees called for an increase in state taxes, a representative of the Warren Education Association claimed that school revenues were in such disrepair that some students had to go without desks. A spokesperson from Warren Consolidated Schools denied this claim, but even if it were true, a few very minor policy changes well short of tax hikes would be all that is necessary to pay for many new desks.
The Michigan Department of Education improperly calculated the average public school teacher salary in the state for the last six years, reporting figures significantly lower than what is correct. Corrected figures for the past two years were recently released.
If you blinked you might've missed it. It could've slipped under readers' radar last week due to news coverage of the tragedy occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, the new immigration law in Arizona, the season finale of "Survivor" or the series conclusion of "Lost." But the Fourth Annual International Conference on Climate Change, held in Chicago May 16-18 and sponsored by The Heartland Institute, provided three days of news-intensive stories that should've taken precedence over nearly every other story of last week's news cycle.
Residents of the Great Lakes State can identify with the frustration of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who said on Monday "Let's be clear: Every day that this oil sits is one more day that more of our marsh dies." The oil spill in the Gulf is an environmental tragedy made worse by federal regulators' inaction. Two recent decisions demonstrate how the environmental regulatory process can do more harm than good in protecting natural resources.
Grand Rapids Press reporter Chris Knape continues to dig into the questions raised by the Mackinac Center about a potential $10 million subsidy for a film studio infrastructure project called Hangar42. At the heart of controversy is the fact that a former Lear Inc. facility in Walker, which had been listed for sale at $9.8 million last fall, is now claimed to be worth $40 million by an investor seeking a 25 percent "film and digital media infrastructure project" subsidy from the state. Gov. Jennifer Granholm touted the project in her annual State of the State address last January.
Michigan public school teachers are the highest paid in the country when compared to state wealth, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
The information comes from an analysis by Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek using data from the National Education Association.
A columnist for Michigan Business Review says the Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s complaints about critics who point out the agency's failures is a "highly unusual move."
"I sense that they're in survival mode, just as the MEDC was in the final year of the Engler administration," Morey Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive told the columnist.
Grand Rapids-area media have picked up on the story of unanswered questions involving the Michigan Film Office, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and a movie studio that Mackinac Center analysts uncovered.
Fox-17, WOOD-TV and The Grand Rapids Press had coverage Thursday about Hangar42 Studios after the Center sent out this news release.
After awarding $9 million in tax credits to a convicted felon and a report that showed it only helped create 18,000 jobs in 11 years, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. today issued a statement saying it is "deeply concerned" over "unwarranted criticism," according to annarbor.com.
Today marks the 223rd anniversary of the beginning of the Constitutional Convention. Wesley Reynolds, a Mackinac Center operations intern, writes about on his blog, "Landmarks of Liberty."
The Michigan Education Association teachers union held protests around the state Monday behind a rallying cry of "Enough is Enough" and claiming there are "constant" cuts to education funding, according to WILX, even though the numbers are not on their side.
An editorial in today's Jackson Citizen Patriot advocates a position that Mackinac Center analysts have known for years — school privatization saves money.
The editorial refers to the Center's 2009 school privatization survey, which found that nearly 45 percent of public school districts in Michigan contract for one or more of the three main noncore services — custodial, food and janitorial.
In following up on questions raised by an ongoing Mackinac Center investigation, Grand Rapids Press reporter Chris Knape added two facts to the pattern of information so far known about the proposed Hangar42 film subsidy deal.
First, suspicions that the sale of the Hangar42 property would be in the form of a land contract were confirmed. This is significant, because it would mean that an $10 million "film infrastructure investment" subsidy might be granted with no actual money being spent by the "investors."
(Editor's note: A version of this article appeared in the May 18, 2010, Port Huron Times Herald.)
An ongoing ad campaign from the Michigan Education Association claims that "politicians love to treat school employees like punching bags" and ignore the sacrifices of school employees whose "salaries and benefits continue to be cut." In the Port Huron Area School District, about 70 percent of the $106 million operating budget goes towards paying employees covered by current collective bargaining agreements for teachers and a few other employee groups. Yet few people know what is in these or other school labor contracts.
From MichiganVotes.org:
2010 House Bill 6180 (Create "uncompleted subdivision" renaissance tax break zones)
See also House Bill 6181, which creates a state revolving loan fund to bail out the local governments that aren't collecting the special assessment revenue they were counting on to pay the debt on the infrastructure projects. The bill is cosponsored by Reps. McDowell, Denby, Rogers, Marleau, Walsh and Daley.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report to newspapers and TV stations showing how just the state legislators in each publication's service area voted on the most important and interesting bills and amendments of the past seven days. The version shown here instead contains a link to the complete roll call tally in either the House or Senate. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment today announced the denial of the permit to install applied for by Wolverine Power Supply to build a new 600 megawatt coal fired power plant near Rogers City. DNRE claims to have based its decision on a finding by the Michigan Public Service Commission that the company failed to demonstrate the plant was needed to meet future supply needs. Michigan residents should demand that the same standard regarding the need for new power be applied to all new proposed power generation including wind power. Of course that will not happen from Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration, which is a cheerleader for alternative energy even though it will raise the cost of energy bills for consumer and businesses in the state.
Revenue from Michigan's sales tax is expected to be down just 1 percent this year, which is one more reason why talk among legislators about expanding it to services is a bad idea, Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman writes in this Oakland Press Op-Ed.
On
May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed perhaps the greatest privatization act
in American history into law, opening 270 million acres of western lands for
private and family settlement, and dispensing to American citizens 10 percent
of the entire area of the United
States. From 1871 to 1951, 1,505,405
homestead patents were processed, and the Homestead Act provided land in
the American West until its repeal in 1976. Although distinctly a political act
of war, the Homestead Act encouraged the American dream of personal
responsibility and right to property independent of government for over 100 years.
Ever since the American War for Independence,
the distribution of unsettled frontier lands was a question as ambiguous as it
was controversial. Early American boundaries in the frontier arbitrarily
reflected odd natural landmarks, which often led to overlapping claims and
border disputes between property owners. More structural organization was
achieved with the passage of the Land Ordinance of 1785, dividing the frontier
into 6-mile square blocks of land called townships, which further subdivided
into 36 segments 1 mile (640 acres) each. These very scientific surveys were
conducted using astronomical pinpoints, revolutionizing the frontier method for
land surveying. After survey divisions were made, the government began selling
the 1-mile plots of unsettled land for $1 per acre, an outrageous price
considering inflation adjustments and the fact that uncultivated frontier land
was often arduous to prepare for farming.
Last week, Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman introduced the American Power Act, (Full text, section-by-section summary) the latest version of federal cap-and-trade legislation. A White House statement said the legislation "will put America on the path to a clean energy economy that will create American jobs building the solar panels, wind blades and the car batteries of the future."
Analysis and commentary by Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek figured prominently into media coverage of teacher salaries and health care recently.
His work on the Michigan School District Health Insurance database was cited in The Bay City Times in a story about Bay City Public Schools administrators agreeing to contribute to the cost of their own health insurance premiums. Teachers in the district contribute nothing toward that cost. The same is true for teachers in the East Lansing schools, according to a commentary in the Lansing State Journal. Teachers in both districts are in contract negotiations. Current contracts for those and every other district in Michigan can be found here.
More than any other state, Michiganders identify with the Great Lakes. They are essential to the state's tourism industry and provide extensive recreational opportunities to boaters, fisherman, and those who stroll the many miles of pristine beaches. It seems hard to believe that anyone would want to put the Great Lakes at risk for the unproven development of off-shore wind energy.
Teacher salaries in Michigan rank first in the nation when compared against relative state wealth, The Bay City Times reported. This despite claims by the Michigan Education Association that school personnel have made $1 billion in concessions over the past three years.
Personnel costs, primarily for salaries, insurance and retirement benefits, eat up 85 percent of the Port Huron Area School District's budget, according to this contract analysis by Mike Van Beek, education policy director, that appeared in today's Port Huron Times Herald.
The Macomb Daily reported recently that teachers in Utica Community Schools agreed to $6 million in employee concessions. On the surface, this appears to be a major step towards helping the district balance its budget. In fact, these concessions won't help all that much.
