Gov. Jennifer Granholm lamented in a quote the other day that it may be too late for state lawmakers to pass a statewide retiremement incentive for government workers including public school teachers.
“They should have gotten that retirement bill done last week,” Granholm says. “Frankly they should have gotten it done a month ago.”
Granholm’s reference to “they” speaks volumes. Does SHE not have a role in “getting it done”? Does she think she can just unilaterally concoct a bill and expect it to sail through the legislature untouched? If so, how naive.
The inevitable failure of this exercise to adopt a plan that might provide some relief to Michigan K-12 public schools speaks volumes about Lansing’s collective inability to get anything done. This case is particularly disturbing.
Here you have all three players, the governor, Senate and House, all agreeing there is an opportunity here. Yet each wants to get it done on their own terms with no compromise. The end result? We’ve seen it before. Nothing gets done.
How disturbing is this? In a case where the three parties agree conceptually, they cannot deliver a solution for the benefit of the people they serve. What about the majority of other issues upon which they cannot conceptually agree?
Herein lies the problem of dogmatic devotion to political ideology. When such devotion leads to the utter inability to deliver workable solutions to the people you represent, guess what? Your political ideology has failed everyone. Therefore as a policy maker YOU are a failure.
“Spare me the labor pains. Show me the child.”
I work in sales. I’ve worked for some pretty tough sales managers in my day. One particularly difficult manager had a message during sales forecast and results reviews. He’d tell sales reps who blithered through a litany of excuses why the results were not where they should be, “Spare me the labor pains. Show me the child.”
His message? You are paid to deliver results. Period. Find a way to get it done and if you can’t, well, find a way to get it done.
Policy makers are elected to deliver results. Results are the name of the game. The citizens of Michigan are clamoring for results, yet we are getting none. But political ideology? Oh, we’ve got plenty of that!
An effective policy-maker finds a way to get things done. If you cannot get things done but take refuge in spouting political ideology, quit pretending to be a policy-maker and go become a talking head. Perhaps that would be more fulfilling for you. I think both CNN and Fox are always looking for more.
For the people of the state of Michigan, the broken record routine in Lansing is undeniably unfulfilling – and frankly unacceptable.
3 responses to “Memo to Lansing: Results Matter More than Ideology”
I need more information. What is happening in the House? What is happening in the Senate?
Hi Dick,
Lots of moving parts and players to this one. I enjoy reading the Senate and House Fiscal Agency reports on the bills. The versions of the bills vary dramatically related to such bill variables as the actual incentive (frequent reference to the retirement “multiplier”, the percentage amount which calculates the dollar value of the pension received by the retiree) as well as the participation rate (the number of employees who would act upon the incentive) and on to remaining employee contributions (the percentage required to be paid by the active employees).
Most objective readers would agree that the Sentate’s bill is much less attractive to employees than the House version. The Senate bill goes a long way toward true reform of the retirement system. Regardless of your politics, it is undeniable that the MPSERS system is probably the greatest source of economic strain on Michigan K-12 public school budgets. It’s a real problem.
Here is the House Fiscal Agency’s analysis of the House passed bill.
And here is the Senate Fiscal Agency’s analysis of the Senate version of the bill.
Hope this helps. Again, my point is there should be a way to get this done, but it’s not looking good right now.
Brendan
Here are some great articles to further provide background on this issue:
This one from the Lansing State Journal gets to the heart of the issue, which is retiree health care benefits. The positioning seems to be that in their negotiations, the MEA is trying to parlay the potential of increased contributions by employees (teachers) into guaranteed lifetime health care benefits. While not necesarily an unreasonable bargaining position, a closer view of the issue is that it will not bring about long-term cost reduction/containment, but rather increased cost.
This op/ed from the Detroit Free Press’ Stephen Henderson is also well worth a read. He takes a more pragmatic view. It’s a plain and simple fact that retirement costs are slowly but surely destroying K-12 school district budgets. A look at the progression in budget elements in the GPPSS during the Proposal A era makes this painfully evident. In inflation adjusted dollars retirement costs on a per teacher basis have increased by over 76%. No other cost increase is remotely close to that.
If we put this all together, here is the problem. Those calling for tax increases to address the School Aid Fund budget challenge simply HAVE to look at cost trends like this and ask, where does this end? As a moderate I ask myself this very question. But take it from the other side – the “cuts only” crowd. Where does THAT path end? Will we continue to cut school budgets to support ever spiraling retirement costs?
Neither path will work. That’s why I am so keen on this issue. If we’re serious about both taxing and spending reform, this is a keystone issue, bell-weather issue, watershed issue – name your cliche.
Lansing has GOT to figure this one out and right now is as good an opportunity as has ever existed.