Media attention continues to focus on school districts around Michigan that agreed to new teachers union contracts in order to circumvent the state’s new right-to-work law.
“They have locked in teachers and other school employees from being able to exercise these rights for several years,” Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek told The Daily Caller. “Any deal that’s over three years is pretty well abnormal, especially since the trend with collective bargaining has been toward shorter and shorter contracts, and three years is really seen as quite a long time.”
Rep. Eileen Kowall, R-White Lake, introduced her Main Street Fairness bill in the Michigan Legislature in February. Also that month, U.S. Sen. Michael Enzi, R-WY, introduced the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013.
Both bills are bad news for Michigan specifically, and the United States in general.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio will participate in the Spring 2013 Griffin Policy Forum at Central Michigan University at 7 p.m. on April 8 in the Park Library Auditorium.
The topic will be “The Future of Labor Unions in Michigan.” Also scheduled to participate are former Lt. Gov. John Cherry, AFT-Michigan President David Hecker and Michigan Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rich Studley. John Lindstrom, publisher of Gongwer News Service, will moderate. Admission is free and the public is invited to a reception in the Park Library Baber Room from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
The House and Senate are on a two-week spring break, so rather than votes this report instead contains several recently introduced bills of interest.
Senate Bill 210: Increase charity sales tax exemption
Introduced by Sen. Michael Green (R), to exempt from sales tax up to $25,000 in annual retail sales made by a nonprofit organization for fundraising purposes, rather than $5,000 under current law. At least 10 similar bills raising the $5,000 cap have been introduced since 2002. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
A lawsuit filed by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation on behalf of three teachers in Taylor over a 10-year contract that will force them to financially support their union was cited in The Wall Street Journal Monday.
The column, written by Stephen Moore, is about Michigan’s new right-to-work law and the lengths unions are going to in order to prevent workers from exercising their freedoms under the new law.
Mackinac Center research was cited in the Livingston Daily Press & Argus about the possible repeal of the state’s prevailing wage law today.
The story cites this 2007 study by Paul Kersey, former director of labor policy, which shows the law increases the cost of publicly funded construction projects by 10 to 15 percent.
Michigan school districts are required by law to make performance a "significant factor in determining compensation" for teachers.
This is uncharted territory for nearly all schools, since historically they've paid teachers based only on years on the job and academic credentials. Some public schools in India, on the other hand, have paid teachers based on performance for years, and a new study finds large and positive impacts for Indian elementary school students.
Elkhart County in northern Indiana, which borders Michigan to the south of Cass County, increased its employment 6.9 percent in the third quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That growth is more than any other large county in the country for that quarter, and it far outpaces the national average for employment growth of just 1.6 percent.
When a company wants to go public and offer shares of common stock, it must fill out an S-1 form, a background document used by investors for research before an initial public offering (IPO) is filed. Because they have a direct financial interest in the performance of a company, individuals and groups that invest are smart to look closely at this document before pledging their money.
Michigan’s right-to-work law takes effect today, meaning that unions cannot get employees fired if they choose not to financially support the union.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio discussed the issue on WWJ AM950 in Detroit and participated in a live web chat with the Lansing State Journal today at 11 a.m.
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.” The album is a watershed for music lovers and audiophiles as well as prompting several critical reassessments throughout the past four decades.
While the album’s themes of insanity, fame, loneliness and death remain as universal as they did four decades ago, Side Two opener “Money” has proven somewhat problematic for free-market critics such as your writer.
School districts and universities signing last-minute contract extension that circumvent Michigan’s new right-to-work law aren’t breaking any laws, but they are denying workers their freedom, Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek told The Macomb Daily.
Michael Van Beek, director of education policy, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 this morning discussing school funding.
Van Beek recently analyzed claims by a Michigan State University professor that school funding fell almost 25 percent between 2002 and 2011 and found that to be incorrect. Van Beek found that the professor excluded billions of dollars in tax revenue that go to intermediate school districts and funding from the federal government and local school millages. Overall school funding, when adjusted for inflation, increased 22 percent between 1995 and 2011, according to Van Beek’s research.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio will take part in a live chat about right-to-work Thursday at 11 a.m. with the Lansing State Journal.
A Kent County Board of Commissioners subcommittee is recommending that the Kent County Land Bank be prohibited from purchasing tax-foreclosed property prior to tax auction.
If Kent County commissioners approve this recommendation, they will be taking a step toward both encouraging private-sector development and saving taxpayers money.
Research Associate Jarrett Skorup was a guest on “Let it Rip” on FOX2 in Detroit Sunday, where he discussed the millions of taxpayer dollars that are being taken from Michigan residents and given to Hollywood producers and other politically connected corporations.
On Thursday, a bill to expand the statewide Education Achievement Authority passed the Michigan House, 57-53. This proposal, sponsored by Rep. Lisa Lyons, R-Alto, has drawn the ire of Michigan's educational establishment, as well as most Michigan Democrats.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
House Bill 4369, Codify “education achievement authority” for failed schools: Passed 57 to 53 in the House
To codify in statute the powers and structure of a state “education achievement authority” (already created by means of an administrative “interlocal agreement”), which is an office in the Department of Education tasked with managing, overseeing or contracting-out the operations of public schools deemed to have failed academically.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ debut album, “Please Please Me.” Six years and 12 studio albums (United Kingdom figures) of mostly original material later, the group never again recorded as a unit after Aug. 20, 1969.
It’s now been 45 years since the Fab Four hung up their collective spurs, but the band’s legacy lives on through the careers of two surviving members, the advent of classic rock and oldies radio formats, Internet downloads, boxed sets, remastered reissues and used record, cassette and compact disc emporiums, estate sales, eBay and rummage sales. All this points out both the prescience and hindsight of the Beatles aptly titled 1964 album, “Beatles for Sale.”
The Michigan Film Office has chosen to give $20 million from the pockets of taxpayers to a movie franchise that has made more than $2 billion.
The Detroit Free Press reports that “Transformers 4” will get the subsidy to shoot its next installment in Michigan.
Public schools and universities that sign contract extensions aimed at circumventing Michigan’s new right-to-work law risk losing funding, according to The Detroit News.
“If the universities didn’t get anything in return, then this was just a favor to the unions,” Derk Wilcox, senior attorney for the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, told The News.
Government establishment interests are pulling out all the stops to promote an optional state Obamacare Medicaid expansion, not just in Michigan but around the country.
The lobbying of hospitals and other health care special interests has already been reported, but it’s not the only source.
It is unwise to give government money to people to demolish or "fix up" property they don't own just because they don't like the way it looks. Doing so practically invites projects that are hastily conceived and ill informed.
And yet, that is exactly what the state of Michigan did with some of the $97 million it received in a foreclosure lawsuit settlement. Approximately $25 million was given out to local government agencies and nonprofits for "blight elimination" activities, with $10 million of this going to Detroit and $15 million to agencies throughout the state.
Responding to Stephen Decatur’s dictum, “My country right or wrong,” G.K. Chesterton offered this corrective: “My country, right or wrong is like saying, my mother, drunk or sober.” For those Michigan natives who staunchly apply Decatur’s adage to the Motor City, Charlie LeDuff’s latest, “Detroit: An American Autopsy,” reminds them that Mother Detroit has been on a bender for nearly 50 years.
James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, writes in The Detroit News today that Kevyn Orr, recently appointed emergency financial manager for Detroit, must first fix the city’s fiscal mismanagement practices in order to help it avoid insolvency.
