MEA Votes

For too long, politicians in Lansing have been sacrificing our children's education and future with harmful cuts while leaving plenty of loopholes and ineffective tax loophole programs in place. MEA has been continually calling for an end to these wasteful programs and an independent study just released shows which are effective are which are not.

From MEA's release -

School employees have given almost $1 billion over the past three years in salary and health insurance concessions. You pay hundreds – if not thousands – out of pocket every year for basic instruction supplies. You fund your continuing education and training to keep your skills sharp for your students. You work with increasing class sizes and decreasing resources. The vast majority of you pay into your retirement system and pay out of pocket for your health benefits.

Apparently, your bosses – or at least their statewide organizations – don’t care.

Yesterday, the “SOS: Save our Students, Schools, State” campaign, a group of school management organizations, released its reform agenda. While MEA agrees with their central premise that our school funding system is broken and needs to be overhauled, that’s where our agreement ends. SOS has apparently chosen to ignore the sacrifices made by its own employees by insisting that even more be taken out of your hides.

Do you ever feel like you’re reliving the same budget crisis over and over and over again.

Well...you are.

In honor of Groundhog Day, please enjoy this trip down memory lane – seems not much has changed in the past three years...

On Friday, Gov. Granholm apparently signed up for the “Take It Out On The Public Employees Club,” joining its ranks alongside Sen. Bishop and Speaker Dillon. Her assault on public employee retirement is another chapter in what is becoming a very long and boring book – especially for Michigan voters who are sick of budget games and gimmicks.

Imagine this: your boss hands you a contract to sign, and that contract will dictate the next couple years of your career, if you still have one. And did we mention that contract was blank? Would you still sign it??

Chances are you wouldn't. It wouldn't make sense, particularly if you have a family depending on your paycheck to keep a roof overhead, the lights turned on and food on the table. In times like these, there are few Michigan families who aren't in that position.

This past weekend, state legislators finalized and passed measures that enable Michigan to compete in the federal Race to the Top competition, putting the state in the running for up to $400 million in extra federal funds. It's money that could better equip our educators and prepare our children for the future. Unfortunately, the legislation also included some provisions that will hurt educators and students in the process.

We've already heard how Speaker of the House Andy Dillon's plan to consolidate benefits for over 400,000 public employees, including those working in education, would cost our state over $500 million in the first year alone. The results from a new survey released yesterday shows that over a 59 percent majority opposed the legislation when first asked, and after hearing arguments both in favor of and against the proposal, opposition grew to 71 percent.

Last week there was a large rally in Lansing. Parents, teachers, students and everyday citizens came from across the state to send one message to our legislative leaders - Save Our Schools. It's a message that shouldn't need to be shouted from the rooftops and Capitol grounds, but given the drastic cuts made by the Legislature, apparently it can't be said often enough.

Remember hearing about how Speaker of the House Andy Dillon had introduced a plan that he claimed would save the state millions by pooling benefits for groups like teachers and educational staff, police and firefighters? Well, he was wrong then, and a new study by an independent national research firm shows exactly how wrong he was.

Michiganders are mad, and rightly so.