President Barack Obama’s new overtime rules are likely to have unintended consequences, some of which could actually lead to less take-home pay for workers.
The president recently enacted new overtime rules that will make anyone earning up to $47,476 a year eligible for overtime pay, up from the current threshold of $23,660 a year. While the new rule is being advertised as a way to increase wages, Mackinac Center Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio and adjunct scholar Jeremy Lott write in a Saturday op-ed for The Detroit News that the new rules may reduce workers’ flexibility on the job and could even lead to pay cuts.
By Jack McHugh
The House and Senate are on a summer and primary election season break. Therefore, this report contains several recently introduced bills of interest.
Note: There will be no Roll Roll Report on July 8. The next report will be July 15.
Senate Bill 563: Ban “sky lanterns”
By Ben DeGrow
This week the state released the long-awaited Michigan Education Finance Study, better known as an “adequacy study.” Twice delayed from its original March 31 deadline due to errors by different parties, the report authorized by December 2014 state legislation has been greeted with an underwhelming reaction.
The state has released its long-awaited, twice-delayed education funding adequacy study, which claimed the state’s average school district operating expenditure of $12,000 per pupil is not enough.
Augenblick, Palaich & Associates, the Denver-based firm paid $399,000 to produce the report, also suggested increasing education funding in the District of Columbia — which spends over $29,000 a year per student — so its findings about Michigan were not surprising. Ben DeGrow, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, spoke with the Detroit News this week to offer his perspective on the state-commissioned study:
A big part of my job is answering policy-related questions. Some can be handled quickly, some take longer. Others require an in-depth study. But there are some that I just can’t answer.
Here are a few that came up recently.
How many jobs are actually at wind farms in Michigan? Wind energy was pitched as the next big thing, but wind farms probably don’t require many workers once they are established.
By Derk Wilcox
The United States Postal Service puts out many beautiful stamps. One current “forever stamp” isn’t as nice to look at, but you should still consider using it the next time you decide to send some snail mail. It commemorates the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766.
Last year Michigan lawmakers wisely did away with what was once the most generous film incentive program in the nation. Mackinac Center research showed that despite giving film producers half a billion dollars from 2007 to 2013, there were no signs that the film industry in Michigan was actually growing. Essentially, the program amounted to a taxpayer handout to a select few movie production studios. And now there’s new research that suggests these programs aren’t benefiting other states’ economies either.
The other day, I attended a public hearing of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan in Northwest Detroit. The Mackinac Center’s analysts haven’t dug deeply into the RTA’s plans and assumptions surrounding its $4.6 billion millage request on November’s ballot. But the rhetoric from the RTA leadership in attendance was troubling — even before we look at the numbers.
By Jack McHugh
The House and Senate are on a summer break, so rather than votes this report contains some recently proposed constitutional amendments of interest. To become law these require a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate and approval by voters.
House Joint Resolution GG: Add “sex” to constitution’s ban on denying equal protection
Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a bill last week that would have made it illegal to repair vehicles using aftermarket auto parts, and that’s a win for consumers.
Mackinac Center policy analyst Jarrett Skorup spoke with MLive after the veto, explaining that many studies have found aftermarket parts — an auto part made by a different company than the original equipment manufacturer — are just as safe as their often more expensive counterparts.
Michigan State University professor David Arsen recently appeared on public radio to discuss the findings of his new research into the causes of school district financial distress.
Arsen’s research lays most of the blame for growing deficits and shrinking fund balances at the feet of state policymakers. In an accompanying article he co-authored with two other education professors and an economist, he argues that these policies exacerbate the declining enrollment trend experienced widely across Michigan and “reinforce a fierce downward spiral,” particularly in high-minority urban districts.
In a critique of our recently published study on the relationship between school spending and academic achievement, Bruce Baker, a professor at Rutgers University, raises technical concerns that lead him to question our empirical methodology and qualitative conclusions. The nature of his comments suggests that a select group of previous research, which stand in contrast to our research in both empirical approach and qualitative findings, are methodologically superior and show a positive relationship between spending per pupil and student achievement. We address both the general and technical concerns Baker raises and describe why our research improves over the earlier papers by Papke and Roy.
In a recent Detroit News op-ed I wrote about a practice called “release time,” where union officials are kept on government payrolls and allowed to do union work on the taxpayer’s time. This happens in many school districts across the state.
Detroit Public Schools provides release time for union officials, but the union reimburses most of these expenses, an important point that I did not clarify but should have. In a letter to the editor, Judge Stephen Rhodes called out this oversight and he is correct.
The New York Times has a good write-up on occupational licensing laws across the United States. Many of these laws are needless and make it more difficult for individuals to find gainful employment. But there is some bipartisan work being done to reform them. From the story:
When the Michigan Legislature passes a bill by wide margins, it is usually signed into law, regardless of how good the actual policy is. But a bill that would have discriminated against certain auto parts and added red tape for consumers and businesses was recently vetoed by Gov. Snyder.
Unlike Washington D.C., Michigan’s state government is constitutionally prohibited from spending more than it takes in each year and borrowing to make up the difference. Yet state taxpayers are still liable for large amounts of state debt, for purposes both practical and problematic.
By Jack McHugh
House Bill 5641, Authorize PPOs to let protected individual keep phone number: Passed 37 to 0 in the Senate
To allow an individual under a personal protection order to get control of a cell phone number from the person against whom the protection order is required. Courts would be authorized to order the phone company to make it so.
Michigan taxpayers are spending approximately $3 million a year to allow union officials time to work on union business rather than teach students.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Jarrett Skorup wrote about the privilege known as union release time in a recent op-ed published in The Detroit News. Taxpayers are on the hook not only for the often six-figure salaries of these union employees, but also for the replacement teachers who must be paid to take their place in the classroom.
By Jack McHugh
The Legislature has adjourned for a summer recess. Due to the number of bills considered in the final week, some votes will be reported next week's Roll Call Report.
House Bill 5383, Detroit Public Schools bailout: Passed 20 to 17 in the Senate
To concur with the House-passed version of the Detroit school district bailout bill (see description at bottom of this report), with two minor clarifications. The bill does not contain provisions previously passed by the Senate that would give a mayoral commission the power to ration charter schools in Detroit.
First, Uber transformed the way people think about transportation; now it may be doing the same to unions.
In an op-ed published by The Huffington Post, Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio explains Uber is working to create a model that could pull the antiquated union model into the 21st Century. In May, Uber and the International Association of Machinists District 15 announced the formation of the Independent Drivers Guild for New York City drivers to allow members meetings with management, create an appeals process for disciplinary action and offer benefit programs.
Four years after Michigan passed right-to-work, it’s time for the Michigan Education Association to allow teachers to exercise their freedom.
That is one of the reasons the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation is representing an Ann Arbor science teacher in his suit against the Michigan Education Association and its local the Ann Arbor Education Association, which is illegally preventing him from exercising his right not to belong to the union. MLive wrote about the case this week, explaining plaintiff Ronald Robinson is being billed for fees to a union he does not wish to be part of.
Uber has long suggested that the introduction of its service correlates with a decrease in drunk driving arrests. In Seattle, for example, DUI arrests dropped by 10 percent after Uber launched. But the company acknowledged that a more detailed analysis would be necessary to show causation.
By Ben DeGrow
The Michigan House narrowly passed a revised plan to aid the financially distressed and academically disastrous Detroit Public Schools, agreeing to send much more money to the reconstituted school district but drawing the line to defend parental choice. Former Gov. John Engler weighing in against a “morally wrong” Detroit Education Commission proposal may have helped make the difference.
Michigan will collect more taxes next year, but not as much as predicted a few months ago, leaving members of the Legislature looking at a sizable gap between what they want to spend and the money available to pay for it. The most constructive and efficient way to balance the budget is to eliminate the state’s corporate welfare programs and supporting bureaucracy.
As lawmakers in Lansing consider the best way to deal with the insolvent Detroit Public Schools, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Director of Education Policy Ben DeGrow has urged them to preserve and expand school choice.
In an op-ed published in The Detroit News, DeGrow explains why limiting charter schools in the city — as the Senate’s plan would effectively do — is the wrong answer for students and parents.
