As previously reported,
A Michigan State professor who the university said committed plagiarism after the Mackinac Center raised questions about his work has been “released from university affiliation,” according to The State News.
Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek uncovered the problem after Sharif Shakrani wrote about school consolidation. Van Beek also noted that the study’s methodology was “seriously flawed.”
The Michigan Business Tax will soon be no more as Gov. Rick Snyder signed his tax reform package into law Wednesday. The bill replaces the Michigan Business Tax with a 6 percent corporate income tax. The state will also end its business tax credit regime, much of which created an unfair playing field for Michigan businesses.
If Michigan’s lawmakers really want to get out of the teachers union box and open up room for daring education reforms, they might want to check out what’s going on in Tennessee, where the Legislature has completely remade labor relations into something that hopefully can work for both teachers and students.
Property owners in the state may be in for an expensive surprise due to a federal government initiative they have probably never heard of, called the National Flood Insurance Program Map Modernization Initiative. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, in conjunction with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and county floodplain managers, are developing new floodplain maps.
An organization called Public Notice has assembled state fact sheets that outline budget and economic facts for all 50 states. Here's Michigan's:
Budget:
Economy:
Federal Government Spending:
Mike LaFaive addresses the latest complaints about cuts to Michigan’s film subsidy program and takes on the misinformation regarding its success in our Spotlight today.
Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester) is currently seeking cosponsors in the Michigan House of Representatives for a bill he will introduce that would enroll Michigan in a multistate Health Care Compact. If approved by Congress, this would put the state in charge of all health care regulations and programs for its people, among other things exempting Michigan from ObamaCare’s mandates, including the one that forces every American to have health insurance. It would also turn over to the state Michigan’s share of federal Medicare and Medicaid spending.
Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek told WEYI-TV25 that “long-term structural changes” are needed in public education to “save Michigan financially.”
He addressed staffing cuts and health insurance costs as two areas that need attention. Van Beek also discussed common school funding myths at a forum in Lansing recently.
Two Mackinac Center scholars were cited in a recent Detroit News story on gas prices.
Dr. Ted Bolema, an adjunct scholar with the Center and director of the MBA program at South University in Novi, said inflation, which could top 5 percent this year, is a concern: “Incomes aren’t keeping pace at this point.”
In today’s Mount Pleasant Morning Sun is a column by Eric Baerren, the editor of the Michigan Liberal website and before that news editor of the Morning Sun itself. In it, he argues that business tax cuts don’t “drive” job creation because a “business doesn't look at its tax bill and say, "Hey, a break, we can hire more people."
According to a report in the Lansing political newsletter MIRS, environmental groups are hopping mad that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality would give Wolverine Power a permit hearing regarding its application to build a coal-fired power plant near Rogers City.
Every week, MichiganVotes.org sends a report on interesting votes and bills in the Michigan Legislature, and includes how each legislator voted. To find out who your state senator is and how to contact him or her go here; for state representatives go here.
AnnArbor.com is reporting on a story that Michigan Capitol Confidential broke about 200 dependents of Ann Arbor Public Schools employees receiving improper health care benefits.
“How much is this happening all over the state,” asked Michael Van Beek, director of education policy. “It is just a flat out extra cost to taxpayers.
On Monday, former Michigan Carpenters President Ralph Mabry pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks. The actual value of the kickbacks was modest, about $10,000 in charitable donations mainly, and one might be tempted to dismiss this as penny-ante stuff. That would be a mistake; Mabry's vulnerability to small bribes is liable to have a big price tag for unionized Michigan carpenters.
Home-based day care operators in Michigan who were illegally shanghaied into a public-sector union and forced to pay “dues” could recoup their money if a federal lawsuit is successful, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
Thousands of day care owners and providers were forced into the union as part of deal between Gov. Jennifer Granholm, the UAW and AFSCME. The providers receive subsidy checks from the state if they care for children of low-income parents, and some $4 million in “dues” was taken from those checks. That practice, which the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation fought in court, ended in March.
Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press in a column today cites Mackinac Center research on how little public school teachers contribute to their own health care premiums.
Further Center research shows Michigan could save $5.7 billion annually if public-sector benefits were brought into balance with those in the private sector.
Reporter Tim Skubick in a recent blog post asks Gov. Rick Snyder to show some data on how many jobs will be created by the state’s new tax deal, which eliminates the Michigan Business Tax and replaces it with a 6 percent corporate income tax. He highlights the Mackinac Center’s estimate eliminating the MBT will create up to 120,900 jobs over time.
In his first State of the State address, Gov. Rick Snyder touted the concept of “economic gardening.” Economic gardening is a concept that envisions government assisting small businesses by providing various economic tools and incentives to encourage them to remain and expand in the state as opposed to attempting to lure larger out of state companies to locate in Michigan. While the concept of economic gardening may appeal to some, its implementation has a tough row to hoe as evidenced by the city of Detroit’s “garden permit.”
The Michigan Economic Development Corp. will no longer include estimates of indirect job creation in announcing its corporate welfare and other subsidy handouts.
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” James Hohman, fiscal policy analyst, told The Kalamazoo Gazette. “The numbers they report are fictitious and unverifiable.”
An Op-Ed in the Port Huron Times-Herald today by Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek addresses the creative accounting measures public schools will go to in order to make it appear they have cut spending.
Van Beek and Mike Reno, a former Rochester Community Schools board of education member, will address common school funding myths at an Issues & Ideas forum scheduled for noon today in Lansing. You can watch a live simulcast of the discussion here.
Despite relentless poor-mouthing by individual school districts in news articles, letters to residents and testimony before legislative committees, per-pupil public school spending set a new record in 2010.
Assuming that Michigan Education Association intends to follow through with its threat of waging teacher strikes to protest changes to the state’s emergency financial manager law, the anti-strike bill that cleared the House Education Committee last week will create work for the union’s legal team, but probably won’t be enough to talk the union out of calling strikes.
The Michigan Legislature should consider privatization in order to correct the state’s overspending crisis, a Center expert told the Lansing State Journal.
“There are all sorts of areas that the state should consider privatization,” Fiscal Policy Analyst James Hohman said. “You have to monitor everything to make sure you’re getting the value for the money. It’s not just a blanket privatization arrangement that will work for the state.”
The Mackinac Center is weighing its options regarding a bill for more than $5,600 for a Freedom of Information Act request filed with Michigan State University, Ken Braun, managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential, told the Lansing State Journal. Braun also said the Center will pay the bills to the University of Michigan and Wayne State University for similar FOIA requests, which are $215 and $540, respectively.
