Michigan Last in Public Disclosure; Hiatus at Free Michigan

Despite passing legislation in the House regarding public disclosure of financial information for state officials, the bill, HB 4381 has stalled in the Senate. And now, a new study from The Center for Public Integrity finds our state ranks last in public disclosure for public officials.
Considering how the recession has struck the state's newspapers, it's hardly news that this has happened. The media's ability to act as watchdog has eroded considerably.
In our case, we at Free Michigan do this for free, as so many bloggers do. And now, we are taking some time and heading to Texas to work with Texas Watchdog, an esteemed group that we feel represents the future of journalism. Non-partisan coverage of anything, be it a city, issue or statehouse, is crucial. Transparency, as we've noted previously, is a somewhat blurry notion. Texas Watchdog doggedly pursues it better than anyone without even a hint of an agenda other than the truth. This is the journalist spot in which to be.
Here in Michigan, we have some troubles that we hope will be addressed in the future; a supposedly major newspaper located blocks from the statehouse with no capital presence; thinly staffed Lansing bureaus for the two Detroit papers; and several small Lansing bureaus for other media outlets in the state. Free Michigan has been embraced, it appears, primarily by audiences on the right. We take our readers where we can get them, but there is no reason that all of us - right left, center - can't agree that an open government serves the people best. When a state is in a free fall, as Michigan is, we have to look first at the leadership. At the top, that means the governor, be that leader a Republican or a Democrat. In this case, it's a Democrat. When the attorney general's office is accused of overcharging for a public records request, we simply open the records the best we can. In this case, it has been a Republican in charge of that office. Keep us on your favorites list; We'll be back in a while and will be providing updates on our work in Texas while noting developments in watchdog journalism, so please keep your eye on this page in the coming weeks.

Urban Chambers of Commerce: Think Before You Give Them Your Money

Detroit is a well-documented city in the tank, with one of the highest poverty rates in the U.S. and severe problems with corruption. The two city newspapers do a good job of uncovering the fiscal malfeasance and the abuse of the public trust.
But there is a place that has never been mined, and we have to wonder why it’s hands off. The Detroit Regional Chamber talks a good game about bringing good things to town. We really enjoyed this little essay about how the chamber worked on Detroit’s behalf in the auto flap.
But when we look at the chamber’s finances, we see little to enjoy.
What do you make of a group that brings in $5.4 million and spent $3.1 million in payroll-related obligations?
So this group spent 57 percent of its income on paying its officers. We think that's too much going for fat catism and not enough actually going to help the city.
Chamber President Richard Blouse was paid a package worth $444,476, including a base salary of $389, 683 in 2006. So how is he doing?
And Detroit is not alone in its money grubbing chamber folks.
In Los Angeles the percentage of chamber revenue that goes to salaries, benefits, and payroll taxes is 44 percent. In Minneapolis it’s 46 percent. In Dallas, 60 percent.
What a racket. Next time you feel you want to attend some chamber event to help out, remember who you are helping out; the well-dressed folks with the big smiles and the fat wallets.

Detroit Regional Chamber 2006 990

State’s Campground Occupancy Rate for 2008: A Not-Too-Bad 54 Percent

Hotels shoot for an average occupancy rate of between 60 and 65 percent, although this year the rates are projected to be lower than average at around 59 percent.
Hotel operators are there to make money, of course, and most answer to.
State campgrounds, paid for by us, don’t seem to have such standards. Nor do they ever have to answer to us.
We have already heard that our state parks are a wreck and have no money although we doubt it and our research weakens such a statement.
An attached report finds that the average occupancy rate for 2008 at state campgrounds was 54 percent, which we don’t find all that appalling. In 2007, the rate was 55 percent. But there are some parks that perform and some that don’t. Indian Lake campground in the U.P. is on the lower end, with an average occupancy of 24 percent for last summer season. State leaders find it OK, though, to spend $875,000 on upgrades to the park starting in September. William Mitchell Park in Cadillac, occupancy rate 62 percent, is getting $2 million for some work.
These campgrounds are valuable tools and create a higher quality of life for us. In times of road commissions and transportation departments that can't figure out how to keep our roads in decent condition, anything that can elevate our lifestyle standard is welcome.

Campground image by Flickr user CaptPiper CC 2.0

Campground Vacancy Rates 2008

Public Notice Postings Online Are the Least of Our Concerns

The Lansing State Journal today opines on a bill that would permit local governments to post legal notices online if it chooses, rather than the more expensive and requisite public notice in a local publication. (can someone help me out with a number on that legislation?)
“Internet access to foreclosure notices, bankruptcy filings, meeting notices, bids for contracts and the like are great for people specifically looking for this information.
But that's a small, small slice of the public.
Honestly, who plops down in front a computer and says "I've got some time, why don't I check out Delhi Township's Web site and catch up on the latest zoning variances.”
People who want to know things, that’s who. The paper makes a good point in asserting that ideally, these notices would be posted both online and in print. Many of us no longer choose to pay for the print product put out by a number of publications because those pubs have opted out of the news business, for the most part. Some, in fact, don’t even have a statehouse presence.
We live online for much of our news. And that’s where the notices should be. And it is our responsibility to find them, if we want.
What is lamentable is the secrecy with which the myriad boards and panels of the state of Michigan meet.
How about the Michigan Civil Rights Commission meeting tomorrow (Monday)? This is the post you get.
If you want to find out, you call the agency and maybe they will tell you where that meeting is. But there appears to be little or no interest from the public and even less from the media, which was once a guardian of the public trust.
Other boards meet, do some weird things with public money, and no one knows that they were even meeting.
Did you know that on Aug. 19, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund board will meet at Lansing Community College in Lansing?
We’d love to think there will be a media presence. Several outlets have offices a few blocks from the site.

Knocking Over Shrinking Cities. And Please Pare Down the Support Ranks, Too.

The news industry is always catching up to itself, and more frequently editors are letting through stories that have been published before.
An April story by the New York Times addressed an initiative to “shrink” cities, or taking out blighted neighborhoods wholesale.
The Times’ piece no doubt sprung from this Flint Journal story in March.
This is what news has come to.
The story is based in Flint, which, as you well know, has been a pox on Michigan for a long time and is home to both one of the nation’s highest crime rates and most widespread poverty. It has gone from a population of 200,000 in 1965 to 110,000 today. We’ve often wondered why school districts and municipalities never seem to contract along with the local population.
“Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods. The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval. “Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.” “
This week, the issue is back in the news because a reporter at the Guardian in the U.K. decided to spice it up by adding in a reference to President Obama. Bingo! Big chatter in a slower news cycle.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country. Mr. Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes. Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,Baltimore and Memphis.”
This talk is good, though, and the idea of taking these properties, plowing them and hoping for a better option is a good one.
The Flint Journal’s blog does a good job of fielding the issue, as it was the first one there.

Flint sign image by Flickr user theworldthroughmyeyes, CC 2.0

Michigan Township's Solution to Bad Roads: Tax Selves, Then Repair

The condition of our roads in Michigan has been documented well, both here
and in other places. And the solutions proposed by out-of-touch bureaucrats who are eager to pass the buck do not help.
Finally, a group of residents in Scio Township has an answer – tax yourselves, as long as the majority is in favor. Note in the comments section that it is correctly pointed out that this is, indeed, double taxation. And there is little doubt that money that has been traditionally used for road repairs has been squandered.
Scio Township, located in the southeast region of the state, is a wealthy area and most of the people can afford to chip in a little to cover for the ineptitude in leadership. Many townships, villages and municipalities don’t have that luxury.
That leadership looks something like this.
We also see that township board supervisor E. Spaulding Clark ran with a campaign Web site that he called Leadership for Scio. But once he was re-elected, apparently he didn’t feel the need to tout such leadership; the site is dead. It’s just politics.
Scio Township, by the way, has an amazing Web site laudable for its transparency and ease of navigation.

City of Detroit Unable to Reign in Pension Fund Trustees: New Report on Abuse

Trustees for the two city of Detroit pension funds have globe-trotted to the tune of $380,000 in the past year, the Detroit Free Press reports today.
The trustees “often traveling in packs, with virtually no limitation on where they went or how often they traveled.
Trustee Ronald Gracia spent the most time on the road -- billing the General Retirement System for $105,000 in travel, including three trips to Singapore and $18,600 on travel to Hong Kong, according to records provided by the pension funds,” the Freep reports. To gather records for the story, the newspaper was forced to sue the two retirement systems, which charged over $3,000 for the sought after records.
“The Free Press sought additional travel and other documents in late 2008 but was told those records would cost more than $41,000.
In its suit, the Free Press said the fees violate the law and are "unconscionable. As such, they constitute a constructive denial of the Detroit Free Press' FOIA requests."
Pension fund lawyers have described the Free Press' case as "entirely frivolous." They agreed in May to turn over some records as part of the litigation.”
Most of the trustees and their lawyer did not return calls to the Freep, but one, Garcia, did defend himself in an email, stating that his further education in ways to invest pension money required his travel.
The pension funds and their administration have been questioned before, most recently in May as the Freep tried to obtain records.
In 2003, two audits were scheduled of the $2.2 billion fund after the discovery that board trustees had racked up $586.269 in travel costs between 1999 and 2002. Third Circuit Court Judge John Gillis Jr., barred board members from taking some scheduled trips -- to destinations including Arizona, California and Florida -- for pension business.
Also that year, “the pension board sued Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and [city CFO Sean] Werdlow, alleging Werdlow was interfering with trustees' ability to perform pension board duties by demanding accountability for time spent conducting pension business on city time,” according to a story in Crain’s Detroit Business.
In 2004, Werdlow tried to impose some kind of oversight on the trustees but nothing came of it. Werdlow today is at Siebert Brandford Shank, a securities brokerage. Would have loved to seen his comment in the Freep story, which does a fine job detailing the unfettered abuse of the public trust in a city with a deficit of over $300 million.

Michigan Lawmaker Pensions Transfer Nicely to Beltway: Up 32 Percent in 6 years

This is what happens when you poke around Legistorm, a site that posts the financials of our elected officials in Washington.
Rep. Vern Ehlers last year made $38,683 on his state of Michigan pension – another $2,007 on his pension from Kent County, and another $4,785 from a state of California pension (we believe that comes from a teaching gig he had at UC Berkeley).
His pension from the state of Michigan in 2007 was $37,195. So we apparently gave him a raise. In 2002, it was $29, 296. He’s gotten a 32 percent raise in seven years. In Kent County, it went from $1,911 to $2,007 over that period, a paltry 5 percent raise.
Rep. Dale Kildee reported $23,740 last year on his Michigan Legislative pension. In 2002, it was $18, 763 - the jump is 26 percent.
For Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, she made $53,498 for her legislative pension compared to $42,280 in 2003, also a 26 percent bump.
Rep. Candice Miller reports that her spouse draws a salary from both the state of Michigan and Macomb County, as well as a pension from the state of Michigan.
The qualifications are difficult to find even in this age of transparency. From a financial audit of the legislative retirement system in 2001, we found this:
“A member may retire and receive retirement benefits based on age and service after: (1) attaining age 50, if age and years of credited service combined are equal to or greater than 70; or (2) attaining age
55 with 5 or more years of credited service if elected, qualified, and seated not less than (a) 3 full or partial terms in the House of Representatives, (b) 2 full or partial terms in the Senate, or (c) 1 term in the House of Representatives and 1 term in the Senate. For those legislators who first became members on or before
January 1, 1995, the retirement benefit is calculated by multiplying 20% of a member's highest salary earned for the first 5 years of service, plus 4% of the member's highest salary for each of the next 11 years of service, plus 1% of the member's highest salary for each additional year.
For those legislators who first became members after January 1, 1995, the retirement benefit is calculated by multiplying 3% of the highest salary for each year of service.”
And this speaks to those massive increases in benefit pay:
“For those legislators who first became members on or before January 1, 1995, the annual retirement benefit payable to a retiree or a retiree's survivor is increased by 4% compounded annually. The
adjustment is effective each January 1. For those legislators who first became members after January 1, 1995, the annual retirement benefit payable to a retiree or a retiree's survivor is increased by 4%, but is not compounded annually. The adjustment is effective each January 1.”
This is stuff that voters should know and, if appropriately incensed, make noise about. It’s been covered before, and no one has mustered enough outrage to change things. One more reason bureaucrats dislike transparency.

Small Town FOIA Woes: Humor and Vitriol

In the world of transparency, there are blunders and then there are massive blunders. And just the same, there are gadflies, and then there are people with just too much time on their hands. In Augusta Township, outside of Ypsilanti, the two have met with interesting results over the last few months,
The Augusta Township board of trustees last December voted to file a suit against resident Jim McDonald. The apparent reason? McDonald filed just too damn many FOIA requests and acted weird when he came around to retrieve the records to boot.
According to a report in the Ypsilanti Courier, a judge signed an injunction barring McDonald from using the Freedom of Information Act at township offices along with assessing a fine of $5,000 to help the township with the nearly $12,000 in legal costs. McDonald agreed to the injunction and fine in May.
The legal fees were needless, of course.
Now, officials are considering returning the $5,000 to McDonald.
And we see that tonight, June 9, the trustees are scheduled to vote on a FOIA coordinator.
Seems McDonald has had some trouble up there at town hall before.
The story states that McDonald filed a suit against the township when he became frustrated at the bureaucratic hoops he was made to jump through by Township Clerk Kathy Giszczak. The township countersued and won.
Trustees blamed Giszczak for a lot of the trouble.
“[Trustees] Hafler, Jackson and King all contend that Giszczak is to blame for McDonald's being unable to get information and driving him to the point of frustration where he banged on metal desks and cabinets. They each said they also have problems getting information from the clerk.”
And as if this isn't all enough, the whole place seems pretty unhappy with this public servant, her being the subject of a recall in 2005.
We’ve been to smallish townships that have no idea what an open record is – Meridian Township outside Lansing, for example, will outright refuse to hand over information that is clearly public. Lacking any real support in this state, the only remedy is court action. That erases the news value if one is writing for deadline. And it's needlessly pricey in case you run into a judge who also doesn’t know or care about the public’s right to know.
These small-town squabbles over public records and who said what and did what to whom make for great local news. It’s surprising that no other media outlet has been around to cover it a little more extensively. Then again, maybe not.

Regional Hospital Exec Pay Jumps Over 50 % Amidst Layoffs, Cutbacks

Some excellent investigative reporting by a reporter at the Jackson Citizen Patriot finds that CEO salaries at area hospitals rose 52 percent over the past five years.
The revelation should irritate hospital workers who face pay freezes, as well as layoffs . And let's not forget about that all-time favorite, buyouts.
Such excesses and disregard of employees give an opening to union groups, who almost look like a face of common sense when taken in context.
This excellent work, by a guy named Brad Flory, also comes with a supporting blog entry.
This is the kind of reporting that induces changes and puts the news back in newspapers. The Citizen Patriot, which may or may not have good relation with the local Allegiance Health hospital, shows guts in running a story that takes a hard look at the finances.
These tax form 990s can tell you a lot of things. Below is the 2006 form for Ingham Medical Center. See anyone you know in there?
Let’s toss in one more exec’s pay – Randall Oostra was paid $872,438 in 2007, according to tax records for the Emma L. Bixby Medical Center in Adrian. The form states he is paid in his relation and as president and COO of the parent company, Pro Medica Health Systems.
And yes, they, too, have decided to eliminate positions.

Allegiance Health image by Flickr user photobysg, CC 2.0

Ingham Medical Center Tax Form

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Taxes & Accounting Business & Law tax form 990 ingham medical cente

Look Up Graduation Rates, Funding for Your Favorite College Athletic Program

Our cousin to the south, Ohio, is blundering along this economic downturn in almost as dire a fashion as Michigan. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is about as inspiring as our Gov. Granholm, speaking of “new economy platforms” and other notions bureaucrats mutter about when they can’t figure out what to do. What a mess he's made of that state. And we say him because he is captain of the ship. This is the price of assuming leadership.
Still, Ohio has plenty to recommend, and we like the place. Some of it's newspapers are among the best in the U.S.
Lacking a formidable think tank with investigative abilities in the state, Ohio newspapers have done an excellent job of forcing transparency in government, most recently with the Columbus Dispatch taking on college athletics by sending open records requests to 119 schools. The requests asked for “airplane flight manifests for football-team travel to road games; lists of people designated to receive athletes' complimentary admission to football games; football players' summer-employment documents; and reports of NCAA violations.”
One school completely ignored the request. Who do you think that was? Michigan State University, creating the potential for another open records-related court case and costly litigation that taxpayers will have to cover.
Also noted is the openness of Eastern Michigan University, which responded promptly and provided records with no names redacted.
At any rate, the Dispatch has provided a terrific tool for check college athletic programs in terms of graduation rates, academic performance scores, athletic spending, NCAA violations, and how they scored in terms of openness when asked for public records.
MSU graduates 60 percent of its basketball players and 39 percent of its football players, compared to 74 percent of its overall student body. Michigan fails its basketball players prolifically, graduating 31 percent – the lowest in the Big Ten - as opposed to 88 percent of the general student population. There is plenty more information available in the database – have fun looking up your favorite school.

MDOT Chief Compares Hike in Gas Tax to...Chewing Gum?

MDOT Chief Kirk Steudle needs a little media coaching. It might make him understand that making a plea this week to the state legislature for more money to fix roads is ok, but he should refrain from telling us what we can and can't afford.
And we thought things we going so well for MDOT.
From the story by Associated Press, "State Department of Transportation Director Kirk Steudle on Tuesday estimated motorists would pay an extra 16 cents per week - "a stick of gum" - for every penny increase in the 19-cents-a-gallon gas tax.
"This will break everybody's back? Really? A half-pack of gum is going to break everybody's back? Let's put this in perspective," Steudle told the House and Senate Transportation committees.
Steudle in 2007 was paid $140,000 a year, according to the Lansing State Journal’s state salary data base.
It reminds us of the Detroit Three CEOs who flew on private planes to DC to beg for a bailout. Speaking of flying: In document 2 below, we see that MDOT has quite a taste for plane trips around the state. Good way to miss a few potholes. The department’s defense will be that this state is so big and in the name of expedience, the planes are necessary. Perhaps that's true. Most of these trips are to places that you and I have to take hours to drive to if we want to be there. But we aren't doing important state business. Some of us just have work up there, or are vacationing. You pay, you decide.
On the heels of his marquee appearance at the statehouse, Steudle is also making an appearance in Flint Friday to let them know the situation.

Private Plane Trips SOM Emps

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Law & Government Business & Law private plane mdot

Michigan 10th in Nation in Violent Crime; Another Crime is It's Lack of Transparency

Michigan ranks 10th in violent crimes in the U.S., a dubious place to be considering that the state is also up there in terms of high taxes, stratospheric insurance rates and has led the league in unemployment for some time. Some might say our roads are kinda in need of a fix as well, but now we’re nitpicking.
If crime is as high as statistics indicate, it would be enlightening if we were to have some transparency in terms of crime reporting and accountability among our law enforcement agencies. There are a number of states that put crime statistics online, giving some power to residents and even encouraging them to get involved with their communities.
One site, Crime Reports, is available in 45 states and allows interested parties to view the locations of crimes in their neighborhood. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, all have agencies participating. Not Michigan.
Crime Mapping provides crime figures for certain areas in 11 states, including Ohio and Illinois. Not Michigan.
Every Block features profiles, including crimes, for a number of cities including Washington D.C., Miami and Los Angeles. But not our largest city, and today the third highest ranked city for crime in the nation, Detroit (see below).
Law enforcement transparency is not talked about as much as it should be; these are folks charged with keeping us safe and as long as we are, who wants to rock the boat. We recall a journalism instructor at Michigan State University who, as an assignment, had her students ask local law enforcement agencies for a look at their daily reports. These are open records, of course; one of the most ponderous tasks this writer had as a cops reporter in Dallas was to pore through a stack of the previous day’s police reports to make sure no local celebrity had gotten in any trouble or died.
But the students seeking the reports from the Lansing Police Department were told they had to file a Freedom of Information Request before gaining access to the reports. Such a requirement in effect thwarts the intent of access, or diminishes or halts the news value of such access, it could be argued. It would take a court hearing in front of a sympathetic judge to gain ready access, a timely and costly effort that the city has resources for – after all, it’s your time and your money – but few others do.
A strong press from a willing media would no doubt do the trick in recalcitrant cities. But we’re not sure such things exist at this point.

City Crime Rankings, 2008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Law Research michigan detroit

U.S. Lawmaker Expenses Kept as Obscure, Hard to Decipher, as Possible

We’ve said before that the idea of transparency is much more appealing than actually committing to it.
The Wall Street Journal today writes that lawmakers in Washington are doing their best to ensure their expenditures are kept, at the least, difficult to obtain.
The story states, “Summaries of…lawmaker expenses are available to the public in print, either by mail or in volumes that can be viewed in basement rooms on Capitol Hill. The House's quarterly reports -- which run over 3,000 pages apiece, across multiple volumes -- are stored in a cupboard in a windowless office near a shoeshine stand.”
“The Senate's semiannual reports, which use type about half the size of the print in a daily newspaper, are in a building nearby. Expense entries for both chambers can be difficult to decipher, with entries and explanations sometimes cutting off midword.”
No big surprise is it?
The story also makes us aware of a site that does some of the desired tracking for us, a place called Legistorm.
We signed up immediately and are gorging ourselves on the feast of records. Little things give us the incentive to keep going. For example, a staffer of Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, name of Bradford Dayspring, listed a purchase of the stock of L-1 Identity Solutions in 2007. L-1 that year earned over $100 million in government contracts with only about 8% of those contracts up for a fully competitive bid. Hardly a smoking gun in Beltway terms, but just interesting. And we can hardly blame the guy for making a good buy - anyone would do it and there is nothing wrong with seeing an opening. Still, these are the things that fuel further looks, especially if related to an elected official.