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Detroit Regional Chamber Applauds Governor’s Reform Proposal Regarding State Employees

Lansing, MICH, January 29, 2010 — The Detroit Regional Chamber today applauded a new reform proposal from Gov. Jennifer Granholm to save the state money and streamline services.

At the Rotary Club of Lansing lunchtime speech, and in an email to state employees today, Granholm rolled out changes to public employee retirement plans and benefits in an effort to save money in the 2010-11 budget. According to MIRS Newsletter, the governor’s proposal totals $450 million in reforms and savings.

Among other things, her proposal includes items that the Chamber supports:
- Requiring newly hired teachers and other school workers to participate in both a defined benefit and defined contribution plan;
- Changing state employee health care coverage, with employees contributing three percent to their retirement plans;
- Eliminating subsidized vision and dental care services for both state employees and school workers;
- Asking veteran state and school employees to retire;
- Asking all new public workers to pay more for health care;
- Reforms to P.A. 312 (binding arbitration for police and fire);
- Aligning Michigan’s criminal sentencing guidelines with those of other states;
- Ending lifetime health care benefits for state lawmakers; and
- Establishing a two-year budget cycle, with each budget done before July 1 (which would require a change to the state Constitution).

“The Chamber is pleased to see many of the reforms we’ve already been supporting included in today’s announcement and the recent proposal from Senate Majority Leader Bishop,” said Sarah Hubbard, senior vice president of government relations at the Chamber. “We look forward to working with the Legislature and the governor to enact cost-saving reforms that will move Michigan forward.”

In September, statewide business and trade organizations –including the Detroit Regional Chamber – released a list of 19 suggested reforms that the Legislature should undertake in an effort to combat chronic structural budget deficits.

“We understand that none of the reforms will be easy — there will be initial resistance. But this can’t be put off any longer – further delay to fixing Michigan’s underlying chronic structural deficit only exacerbates the size of the state’s spending to revenue gap, especially with no federal stimulus money to help,” Hubbard said.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 11:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.