By Jack McHugh
As the Legislature completes its last week of summer break, the Roll Call Report begins a series that reviews key votes of the 2017-2018 session.
Senate Bill 40, Expand state subsidies for particular companies on state line: Passed 24 to 13 in the Senate on February 9, 2017
By Ben DeGrow
In Michigan, it's far from easy to get a new public charter school off the ground.
Charters help students learn more on average, and parents continue to seek out these tuition-free options. Yet the number of charter schools plateaued five years ago at around 300, shortly after the Michigan Legislature lifted the statewide charter cap in late 2011.
It is often said that people need to pay higher taxes if they want quality government services. The connection doesn’t work quite that way, however, and the state’s pension mess demonstrates the point.
Ideally, when a government employee earns pension benefits, his or her employer sets aside money into the retirement system where it is invested, grows and pays for the employee’s pension when he or she retires. Setting aside the right amount of money puts the costs of today’s government onto today’s taxpayers. Underfunding the pension system pushes the costs onto tomorrow’s taxpayers.
By Kahryn Riley
The latest available data from the Michigan Department of Corrections indicates that Michigan courts delivered 47,347 felony convictions in 2016. Because some people received more than one conviction, the total number of people with new felonies is slightly smaller, but tens of thousands of Michigan citizens who did not have a felony record at the end of last year will have one by the end of this year. We should carefully examine our policies to ensure that we’re prepared to meet the challenges posed by this growing demographic.
The Michigan School Finance Research Collaborative — a group of school interests that want more money for schools — released a poll indicating that Michigan voters also want more school funding. Without listing where the money would come from, the poll tells politicians little about popular budget priorities.
Volunteer-led fire departments are just as effective as paid departments and provide significant cost savings to communities. Local governments should reassess the need for a paid firefighting force and consider replacing it with a volunteer force. Chase Slasinski, a fiscal policy intern at the Mackinac Center, expands on the benefits of a volunteer fire department in an op-ed published in the Lansing State Journal:
On the campaign trail, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer pledged to unleash the Michigan Economic Development Corporation if she became governor. There are a number of ways the state could expand its business subsidy regimen, but few that make sense.
By Jack McHugh
The Legislature remains in recess with regular sessions resuming Sept. 5. Rather than votes this report contains some interesting or noteworthy recent bill introductions.
Senate Bill 1065: Senate Bill 1065: Give taxpayer subsidies to “large event” organizers
The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that public employees no longer must pay union fees as a condition of employment. The court reasoned that mandatory payments constituted compelled speech and association, which violate the First Amendment. School employees, state workers, police officers, firefighters and any secretaries, nurses, janitors, and others who work for a government entity can choose whether to join or pay fees to a union.
By Ben DeGrow
Oakland County's Berkley School District is giving its high schoolers more time to sleep in, reports The Detroit News. While some may say the district is just encouraging teenaged laziness, the evidence suggests the new schedule is likely to help students learn more.
Most games are zero-sum, meaning there is a winner and a loser: Someone goes home with the prize, while someone else goes home empty-handed. President Donald Trump appears to see trade as a game of this nature. But unlike football, there are no winners in a game of tariffs, and Michigan may be among the biggest losers of all. Despite attempting to promote the national economic welfare, Trump’s tariffs will instead harm Michigan’s economy and the United States as a whole.
A West Michigan school superintendent is winning widespread praise, deservedly so, for spending his summer painting school walls to save the district money. Interestingly, if he were paid directly for this work, state licensing laws would make his effort illegal.
August 15, 2018
Dear Lawmakers and Candidates for Office:
If you lost a contested primary election in which 1,400 votes had been cast in total, but 400 of those that likely favored you had first been tossed out, would you be angry? Of course you would. The creative vote count may amount to election rigging and what statisticians might generously call “selection bias.”
By Kahryn Riley
It’s past time for Michigan to pass some legislation to address the problem of funding its county courts. If lawmakers do nothing, counties will have to scramble to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep their local courthouses open.
Michigan’s county courts recoup their operating expenses by passing their expenses on to convicted criminal defendants in a user fee model. This model is problematic because it’s a poor business practice (courts recoup only a fraction of what they charge) that is also probably unconstitutional. Moreover, it’s about to get thrown out, because the statute that authorizes courts to fund themselves this way will expire in 2020. Without something else to replace it, counties will have to find a way to meet the considerable expense of operating the courts – or risk being subjected to lawsuits.
This week’s big political race in Michigan played out as expected. Marquee candidates Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, each won their respective party’s nomination to be governor. Many of the policy choices advanced by each — it will not surprise the reader — are not championed by the other.
By Jack McHugh
The Legislature remains on a summer and primary season break, with a tentative session scheduled for Aug. 15, and regular sessions resuming Sept. 5. Rather than votes, this report contains some interesting or noteworthy recent bill introductions.
Senate Bill 1061: Require state to allow some cremated remains depositions in state parks
When you flip a light switch on, you expect an instant result. If everybody flipped a light switch on simultaneously, they would all expect instant results. A key factor that helps to determine whether people get the light they expect is if the electric generation sources that create the power for those many switches are “dispatchable” or not.
Bureaucrats can rely on new laws to crush innovative learning options. But they can rely on new interpretations of existing rules to do the same thing, bypassing laws that elected officials have approved. Such is the case with a new set of rules the Michigan Department of Education has released for financial auditing.
In cities around Michigan – including those in severe financial trouble – taxpayers are paying large amounts of money in overtime and extra pay. In some cases, cities pay two or three times a typical salary for just one person to do a job.
Some recent stories from Michigan Capitol Confidential highlight the problem:
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the McClatchy Tribune in August of 2018.
Thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, if government unions across the country want to keep collecting dues, they may need to get their members to opt back in to do so.
By Kahryn Riley
August marks the beginning of the back-to-school bustle and the return of lawmakers from their summer recess. Although only a few session days remain, three important proposals for criminal justice would, if passed, create significant and long-lasting improvements for many Michiganders.
By Jack McHugh
The Legislature remains on a summer campaign break with no sessions scheduled until after the Aug. 7 primary election. Rather than votes this report contains some interesting or noteworthy recent bill introductions.
Senate Bill 1051: Require governor create annual state “strategic plan”
Introduced by Sen. Dave Hildenbrand (R), to require the governor to submit an annual “strategic plan” for the state alongside the annual executive budget recommendation. This would have to include, “the mission, vision, goals, strategies, and performance measures for each state department, including measures of the department's inputs, outputs, and output measures.” Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
By Kahryn Riley
Law school professors teach that the legal system relies on judicial neutrality and binding precedent to ensure that cases get resolved objectively and consistently. But, they regularly caution, the reality is that sometimes an outcome can be influenced by what the judge ate for breakfast that morning.
When the state of Michigan closed its defined-benefit pension plan to new employees in 1997, it still needed to pay for the benefits that existing employees had earned. Unfortunately, the state went from having saved enough money to pay all promised benefits to a $6 billion underfunding gap. New data from the state shows that it is finally starting to catch up.
When it comes to government power, less is more. A recent California court case over who should be responsible for financial claims related to climate change demonstrates this reality.
In September 2017, seven California cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, filed lawsuits against five energy producers – Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP. They demanded that the companies “take responsibility” for the harms they claim will occur as a result of climate change, specifically, flooding and property damage.
