Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek participated in a school choice forum Wednesday night where Grosse Pointe residents expressed concerns about students from neighboring Detroit being able to access their schools under Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposal to expand school choice, according to the Grosse Pointe Patch.
Excerpts from Steve Malanga's article "The Compensation Monster Devouring Cities" in City Journal:
Some cities face crises because, as their populations shrank, their officials failed to downsize the government workforce. Detroit, a city of 1.9 million in the 1950s, registered only 713,777 residents in the 2010 census. But the city and its school system eliminated jobs only slowly over the decades of population implosion, leaving Detroit with crippling legacy expenditures. The city currently has nearly 13,000 employees but is providing pension benefits to 22,000 retirees, a jaw-dropping ratio of retirees to current workers. The annual pension bill for the city’s retired police officers and firefighters alone is $150 million — as much as it costs to pay the salaries of 65 percent of the police and fire departments’ active workers.
Much of the philosophical underpinnings for environmental regulation in the United States and around the world are found in a predominant view that mistrusts private property rights and free markets. Many environmental groups prefer government ownership of land and water, believing that government will do a better job protecting natural resources and the environment than will private landowners. An example of this in Michigan was the introduction of legislation that would have transfer ownership of water from private property owners and given it to state government. Although the legislation did not pass, it was supported by environmental groups that were enamored with the idea of privately owned water being placed in the “public trust.”
An editorial in today’s Detroit News cites research by Mike LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative that shows the negative effects of increased cigarette taxes.
The editorial also cites liquor taxes, which LaFaive has addressed here and here.
The governor has recently been presented with a package of four bills that overhaul teacher tenure. One of the bills has not been commented on as much as it probably should have. For once, though, the surprise is a pretty good one.
House Bill 4628 amends the Public Employment Relations Act to prohibit collective bargaining over some key education personnel issues, such as teacher placement, evaluation procedures, layoffs and merit pay. These changes are critical because they should prevent union officials from “vetoing” the Legislature through the collective bargaining process.
Congress and the president are at odds about how to stop the federal government’s spending addiction. The national unemployment rates hovers at 9.2 percent, and it is widely recognized that the $800 billion-plus federal economic stimulus program was a giant failure. However none of these realities has dissuaded Sen. Debbie Stabenow from proposing another $2 billion dollar federal program. According the MIRS news service, the senator from Michigan is touting a new bill aimed at promoting batteries.
A Business Insider article "Michigan's Switch To 401(k)-Style Public Pensions Saved $4.3 Billion" is based on a recent Mackinac Center report. The article cites the Center's findings that the state has cut state employee pension liabilities in half by changing from a defined-benefit to a defined-contribution pension plan. The analysis suggests extending this switch to teachers would save even more taxpayer money, as the their pension system currently has $25 billion in unfunded liability, the Business Insider reports.
Online charter schools are a promising new innovation that’s providing an expanded range of educational opportunities for a growing number K-12 students. Unfortunately, many states, including Michigan, restrict those benefits by capping the number of students who can take advantage of these “virtual” schools.
The Detroit News reports that in the latest round of standardized testing, 11th graders enrolled in most of
The human rights group Amnesty International recently released a report titled "Determined to Live in Dignity: Iranian Trade Unionists’ Struggle for Rights." The report highlights the cruel environment in which Iran’s independent trade unions operate; an environment that provides a distinct contrast to Michigan’s labor climate. This contrast should wake up Michigan unions and give them a better sense of perspective.
Paul Kersey, labor policy director, was a guest on “The Greg Marshall Show” today on WMKT. He discussed several labor-related issues, including a new Freedom to Work movement in Michigan, project labor agreements, the National Labor Relations Board and Michigan’s Public Employment Relations Act.
A recent editorial in the Livingston Daily Press & Argus quotes Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, on a controversial court ruling that the paper calls “a serious setback for the Freedom of Information Act.”
The Center issued a press release last week on the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling.
It should be seen as a positive that a Jackson company will lose a year of tax-free status for not meeting a minimum staffing requirement under the terms of a taxpayer subsidy provided by the Michigan Economic Development Corp., a Mackinac Center analyst told The Jackson Citizen Patriot.
Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek will participate in a forum to discuss Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to increase school choice statewide, according to the Detroit Free Press.
“I think there are a lot of details to work out,” Van Beek told the Free Press, adding that schools should improve if they have to compete for students. “Anything that expands options is a good thing.”
The Flint Journal is reporting on a story that Michigan Capitol Confidential first carried on June 20 about problems with new buses Flint’s Mass Transit Authority is attempting to obtain.
The city wanted to buy two $1.1 million buses using a federal subsidy, but the company that was going to manufacture the buses went out of business and will not be able to repay a $1.6 million subsidy it received from Michigan taxpayers through the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week. Because the legislature did not meet this week, rather than roll call vote results this report presents a sampling of recently proposed state laws.
Today, Michigan Freedom to Work announced its drive for a state law that would ensure that workers throughout the state have the freedom to decide whether or not to join and pay dues to a union. The campaign for a right-to-work law will face stiff opposition from union officials with deep pockets, but has the support of a wide range of Michiganders, including many union members.
Yesterday, the Michigan House passed SB 165, which prohibits local governments and state agencies from using "project labor agreements" to effectively reserve construction work for union companies. The bill now goes to Gov. Rick Snyder, who is expected to sign it.
In a commentary published at AnnArbor.com, the daughter of a Saline Public Schools teacher decries the district’s decision to involuntarily transfer her mother away from an art-teaching job she’s held for 15 years and into a new position in front of a fifth grade classroom. The daughter writes:
We have a few more reasons to celebrate with passion and verve this holiday weekend. Michigan is a little bit freer, because the Snyder administration, the Legislature and other policymakers have adopted measures or taken steps long recommended by the Mackinac Center.
Cities in Europe have waged a war against the automobile according to an article appearing in The New York Times. Urban areas in Europe such as Vienna, Munich and Copenhagen have closed many of their streets to cars and motorists in London and Stockholm are forced to pay hefty congestion fees if they want to drive downtown. Cites in Europe are making auto travel in urban areas impractical by severely restricting the number of parking spaces. Could this happen in America?
Political careerists who serve the system, rather than the people, threaten our future liberty and prosperity, according to an Op-Ed in The Port Huron Times-Herald by Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh.
McHugh and James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, also wrote about the problem in this commentary.
A new Michigan Environmental Council study titled “Public Health Impacts of Old Coal-Fired Power Plants in Michigan” claims that coal-fired power plants put in operation between 1949 and 1968 are causing health problems in the state. Authors of the study claim that 10 percent of the coal-fired plants that are the oldest in the country account for 25 percent of the (power) generation and 43 percent of the public health threat. The study focuses on PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) particles emitted from coal combustion that are about 1/100th the width of a human hair.
Managing a large retail chain like Wal-Mart or Meijer is a complicated business. A tiny part of it involves the coordination required for chain-wide promotional pricing campaigns on particular products. One can imagine that memos to store managers would sometimes be part of the routine, along with countless other details.
Thankfully, the serious issues challenging Michigan have apparently been solved, because two legislators have found time to introduce the following two-bill package to regulate “portable electronic device” extended warranty plans:
Introduced by Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, R-Lowell Township, on June 21, 2011, to establish and impose a new state regulatory regime on “insurance” sold to cover portable electronic devices, which among other things would cover extended warranty and service plan offers.
