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Take the money — but get to work on reform; Freep-August 10, 2010
Topic Started: Aug 11 2010, 03:42 PM (240 Views)
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Take the money — but get to work on reform
By Stephen Henderson
Free Press Editorial Page Editor

It's hold-your-breath time in Lansing, as lawmakers and Gov. Jennifer Granholm wait anxiously to see whether the U.S. House will approve another bailout of sorts — a $26 billion bill that includes about $318 million for Michigan public schools. The federal help is intended to prevent tens of thousands of teachers nationally and an equal number of other state and local government workers from being laid off.

Michigan schools need the money, no question. Without it, they'll be not just laying off teachers, but also cutting programs and boosting class sizes. In other words, the kids will suffer the consequences.

But let's also be honest about what this means. We're taking money from the federal government to fill a hole in our state budget. That'll make this year's budget process easier, but next year's tougher because there won’t be another bailout.

Even more important, we're taking this money to retain teachers (an estimated 4,200) who are still not, on average, contributing near what they should be to their benefits packages.

Back in April, I wrote a column ( you can see it here) about how, as of that date, more than half the health plans offered to teachers in the state (about 300 of them) required no premium contribution. Nothing.

And on average, teachers contribute just 4% to their health premiums, while folks like you and I know we haven't seen benefits that generous in years.

We pay about $2 billion a year on teacher health care in Michigan ($1,250 per student), a number that has jumped nearly 45% since 2000. These stats all come from the Makinac Center for Public Policy, which has been keeping track of teacher compensation and benefits and putting the information online. You can see all of their work at www.mackinac.org.

What all this shows is that we're backing ourselves into a corner from which there's no real escape. School districts across the state are either unwilling (or unable, through the negotiating process) to bring teacher health care costs under control. Meanwhile, the state's allocation for education funding stays flat or decreases.

So come budget time, there's this mad scramble for more revenue to make up the difference. We get money from the feds, or pilfer it from some other source, to avoid dealing with the problem itself, which is the high, rising cost of teacher health plans.

Now it's true that lots of teachers have begun shouldering more of the burden of their health costs; just five years ago, you probably would have seen 75% or more of their health plans with zero premium contributions.

But we've still got a long way to go, and we're moving too slowly. It's ridiculous that we talk about eliminating teachers or programs or ballooning class sizes (all things that have a direct impact on children) rather than confronting the need to have teachers just meet the same burdens most other people have.

When House Speaker Andy Dillon introduced a proposal to pool all teacher benefits to lower costs, he got savaged by folks who weren't thinking about how broken the current system is. Later, some lawmakers began talking about a flat minimum contribution (maybe 15%-20%) for teacher health plans; that got shouted down, too — again by people who aren't thinking about the big picture.

This year, we have no choice but to take the federal money; we need the House to pass it, as the Senate did last week, and we need the state to distribute it as quickly as they can. You can't summarily change teacher health plans overnight; that's a long-term proposition.

But Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R, Rochester) is right that this is just kicking the can down the road. It's putting off the real issue, in favor of an easy fix.

And I'm convinced that fix has to come from Lansing, in the form of some statewide measure to control costs and get teachers to contribute more. Local school districts just don't have the power (or, in some cases, the wherewithal) to get this done.

As soon as the check clears from the feds, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Bishop and Dillon need to buckle down to start producing some of these reforms.


Read more: Stephen Henderson: Take the money — but get to work on reform | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100810/COL33/100810038/Take-the-money-but-get-to-work-on-reform&template=fullarticle#ixzz0wKODhJyV
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