Capitol Chaos – Special Edition – Wednesday, Sept. 30

This is a special edition of Capitol Chaos with the talking points members and staff are using right now at the Capitol to lobby legislators.

Support their lobbying efforts in Lansing. Use these messages in your phone calls, e-mails, and text messages to your legislators.

A regular Capitol Chaos will be out later this afternoon.

Make sure you get this information out to your membership.
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State Budget Messages

As they consider the K-12 budget for next year, all legislators must hear the following messages:

·         Reject the conference report, and budget the projected carryover from last fiscal year to help balance the coming year’s budget.

·         Pass new revenue to hold schools harmless, including updates to our antiquated tax structure.

·         Pass the K-12 budget by the Sept. 30 deadline. Schools and students have been waiting for a state budget since spring – don’t make them wait any longer.

·         Don’t play political football with our students by attaching other bills to the K-12 budget.

 

Background on the State Budget

In what has become an annual event in Michigan over the past decade, the Legislature is grappling with a massive state budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The state Senate passed a budget with more than a billion dollars in cuts to the general fund, plus a $218 per pupil ($410 million total) cut to K-12 public education.

Stop the Cuts!

·         The cuts decimate critical services—like police and fire protection, public health, and education—eliminating programs at both the state and local level. These are issues that will negatively impact our quality of life in this state and our economic future.

·         The drastic cuts to our education program leave our children unprepared to compete for 21st century jobs that Michigan needs. A solid, quality education is the answer to our future economic survival.

·         All budget cuts to education have long-term effects. For example, if we allow the cuts to early childhood education to stand, we will be dooming our children’s educational future. Research shows that investing in early childhood education means fewer dropouts.

·         Cuts to the Michigan Promise Scholarship leave more than 100,000 Michigan students without financial help for college. Again, the long-term effect of such a move dooms our economic future.

·         Lawmakers need to make the right decisions when it comes to finishing the 2009-10 budget. Instead of quick budget fixes, they need to make a long-term commitment to Michigan students, our citizens and our economic survival.

·         The proposed all-cuts budget is unacceptable. Only 28 percent of voters think it’s a good idea. The state budget should be balanced by relying both on cuts in state programs and efforts to raise revenue.

Fix the problem!

·         Declining state revenues and our own slow economic recovery will force the state into further cuts in the future. We must consider revenue-generating options if we are to survive.

·         We have a 20th century tax structure for a 21st century economy. We must update Michigan’s antiquated tax structure so the state can weather future economic crises.

·         Legislators must close corporate tax loopholes that don’t help Michigan’s economy and insure that our investments in tax incentives are effective in creating jobs.

·         We must build a graduated tax structure so that the tax rate would increase for those in the higher income brackets, but would lower the rate for up to 90 percent of Michigan taxpayers.

·         Michigan must ensure that revenue is generated in areas where our economy is strongest, such as services.

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School Reform Messages

Particularly in light of requirements under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), several school reform bills are being debated at the Capitol and could end up as part of the negotiations over the state budget or public employee health plan.

Senate Bills 636, 637, 638 – Neighborhood Charter Schools

 The bills have passed the Senate Education Committee and are pending before the full Senate. MEA opposes these bills.

·         These bills are a way to expand charter schools with even less accountability or oversight. These schools would receive state funding, but they would not have to adhere to the same rules and policies of traditional public schools.

·         Increasing the number of charter schools is the basis for this legislation. But, in a report to the Legislature, the Commission on Charter Schools found that the overall impact of charter schools on the public school system in Michigan is questionable.

·         In a study of 2,403 charter schools in 15 states, researchers at the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found students in more than 80 percent of charter schools either performed the same as—or worse than—students in traditional public schools on math tests.

·         We should be investing resources in our public schools, which are open to all students, instead of basing education reform on the unproven “success” of charter schools.

·         Collective bargaining agreements would no longer be in place when a local school is converted to a “neighborhood school.” Teacher tenure would no longer apply. That means a loss of job security and protection.

·         Certified, trained and qualified teachers could be replaced with anyone, since these bills allow the superintendent of public instruction to establish alternative routes to certification.

House Bills 4787, 4788, 4789 – School Reform/Takeover

 

These bills allow so-called “failing schools” to be targeted for special help. Schools with chronically low student achievement would be placed under the oversight of a state reform/design officer and operated as a “redesigned school” with modified staffing rules that could be negotiated with employees.

The district could authorize special charter schools, or “turnaround schools,” that would provide students with an alternative education option.

Rep. Tim Melton (D-Auburn Hills) is the primary sponsor of the legislation. The bills have passed the House and have been referred to the Senate.

MEA supports this package of bills as passed by the House.

·         The bills make positive contributions to improving the education of children and working conditions of employees.

·         Control over the school is given to someone with experience and the authority to reform the school.

·         The bills protect the rights of employees to bargain changes in working conditions. It also expands bargaining rights to include the ability to bargain over the privatization of support services, the terms of a leave of absence to teach in a charter school, and the first day of school.

·         Creation of a turnaround charter school is the last resort, not the automatic first option. Extensive oversight of the charter schools is provided.

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Mandatory Health Care Plan Messages–House Bill 5345

MEA strongly opposes HB 5345, which proposes a mandatory state-run health plan for all public employees, including school employees. Any public employer – like school districts, universities, community colleges, counties, cities, townships and other local governmental entities – could only offer insurance from a limited number of plans chosen by the state. The so-called Michigan Health Benefits Program is currently being considered by the Public Employee Health Care Reform Committee, a special committee set up solely to consider this legislation by House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford).

·         Other states that have tried such a scheme have left taxpayers on the hook to bail out the health care plans.

1.     North Carolina taxpayers will have to pay $250
million to bail out the state’s plan. In two years, that number will rise to $678 million because of cost overruns and little oversight.

2.     In New Jersey, a state commission approved a 25 percent increase in health insurance premiums for public school employees.

3.     The West Virginia plan is so over budget that the state is proposing to cut off all retirees from any health insurance coverage in order to balance its books.

·         Michigan will have to shift the cost of any unfunded liabilities to school districts, universities, community colleges, cities, townships and other local governmental entities. Who will be billed for the $28 billion MPSERS liability?

·         The plan places the state between patients and their doctors. A politically appointed Control Board will determine which doctors are acceptable and what treatments are necessary.

·         House Bill 5345 is an unnecessary major expansion of state government that takes away local control. Considering the failure of the state government to pay for and run existing programs, there is no way it can effectively administer a massive health care plan.

·         Under this plan, savings are estimated to be $900 million, but proponents offer no evidence to substantiate this claim. Expert testimony by actuaries at the Health Care Reform Committee hearings has questioned the likelihood of such savings.

·         In order to realize any savings, health benefits will be gutted and greater costs will be shifted to employees in the plan.    

·         This is not a solution for those who currently aren’t covered by a health insurance plan. They are not eligible for insurance under this bill.