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

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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

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