Just how stupid can our State get?

[unclefrank]

http://www.freep.com/article/2010031...or-scam-artist

[Hermod]

Grifters and con men prey on the desperate and greedy. Michigan in desperate for new business. I don't think that anyone in the state government was stupid, just trying to grab an opportunity for the people..

[Packman41]

Naw, they are stu..., let's say uninformed.

This is what happens when the traditional lenders do their homework and decide that a deal does not make sense. So they resort to the lender of last resort - the government. What does not fly in the open marketplace finds a home with the "desperate" government.

No fact checking, no reading of the outlandish claims on the web site, no proper underwriting of the deal. Just shovel out the tax credits and hope it works. They could not even do a proper job vetting who would show up at the photo op with the governor to keep her from getting embarrassed.

Who in the government has the proper credentials to evaluate these investment proposals? Some "blue-ribbon" committee? Nobody, and this is the natural result. No different than Monica Conyers watching investments on the Detroit Pension Boards. And look where that got us.

[Jimaz]

They said he wasn't able to take the credits anyway so that's not a loss. What was lost was "months of negotiating a tax credit with this fellow." Those months could have been used on something productive instead.

[Det_ard]

But how dare we try to rescind the scheduled 3% raise for state employees. Just because the state is at 14+% unemployment, most taxpayers have taken 5%, 10% or even 100% paycuts, school funding is being cut back leading to elimination of programs and increased class sizes, we dare not make state employees chip in a bit.

[gumby]

But how dare we try to rescind the scheduled 3% raise for state employees. Just because the state is at 14+% unemployment, most taxpayers have taken 5%, 10% or even 100% paycuts, school funding is being cut back leading to elimination of programs and increased class sizes, we dare not make state employees chip in a bit.

State Workers have more than chipped in. We have given much over the past few years.

Michigan's state employee workforce shrank by 11,000, or 18.1 percent, between 2001-2008. In 2001, 62,057 people worked for the state; by 2008, that number dwindled to 50,799. The state workforce was at its peak 1980, with around 70,000 employees.
Altogether, the state employees' cuts have saved Michigan $3.7 billion, with savings of $3.3 billion in wages, $143 million in pension costs and $300 million in health costs.

Also lets not forget that...

State employees earn less than their private sector counterparts, on average, in each of eight different categories of comparable educational attainment.
State employees with bachelor's degrees earn about 72 cents for every dollar a private sector worker with a bachelor's degree earns.
State workers with master's degrees earn 62 cents to the dollar.State employees saw a 2.4 percent cut in wages in 2008-2009, and health benefits co-pays also went up, with the monthly cost for family coverage more than doubling. The increase meant state employees paid higher-than-average costs.

This is all from this study http://www.uawlocal6000.org/images/articles/report.pdf

So don't say we have not chipped in.

Edit:
Also those of us who hired in after 1997 don't receive a pension. Michigan is one of a handful of states that do not have a defined retirement for new hires. I've got a 401K that is in the crapper just like everyone else.

Plus beginining next month we are going to have to start banked leave time. Meaning we will be working a full 40 hours and only be getting paid for 38. And last year we had to take 6 furlough days.

[Det_ard]

State Workers have more than chipped in. We have given much over the past few years.

While you may feel you've given up a lot, in comparison to other you haven't.

This is all from this study http://www.uawlocal6000.org/images/articles/report.pdf

OK, I read through that. The table with banked hours, raises and furloughs is misleading. So is the selective reporting about benefits. A valid study would have mentioned the total benefit costs, not just that health insurance payroll deductions have gone up. The first part of the report focuses on a reduction in the number of employees and counts that as if they were pay concessions. All in all, a selectively written report that the UAW is happy to host on their site, naturally.

Edit:
Also those of us who hired in after 1997 don't receive a pension. Michigan is one of a handful of states that do not have a defined retirement for new hires. I've got a 401K that is in the crapper just like everyone else.

Plus beginining next month we are going to have to start banked leave time. Meaning we will be working a full 40 hours and only be getting paid for 38. And last year we had to take 6 furlough days.

Regarding the 401k, welcome to the real world. Banked leave time doesn't just disappear, you can use it like annual leave time. You take time off and get paid for it out of banked leave time. That's a pay delay, not a pay cut. If you have some left when you stop working it gets paid out to your 401k. Furlough days are days you don't work so you also don't get paid. Cuts your income but you work less. Would you rather have a 50% pay cut like the new hires at GM? Or a 75% cut like my commissioned sales rep brother-in-law?

In sum, I think many state workers think they have it bad, but they're insulated from the real world. I know people who were making $17/hour in 1990 or 1995 and now they're luck to get $15 for the same job. Don't try to tell me that government workers are making less than they were 20 years ago.

All the while state employees have been getting 2% - 4% raises and their benefits are still better and more expensive to the taxpayers. Now they want a 3% raise off the backs of people in the hardest hit state in the union in the middle of the Great Recession. That's just pure greed. Enjoy your raise while our kids see music, art and sports canceled as they sit in a room with 40 other kids.

[gumby]

You are correct about being able to use banked leave time later. But I don't know about you but I have bills i have to pay now, not later. I never said I had it bad but I get sick and tired of hearing how I have it soooo easy. That is simply not true. the fact is I get 72 cents on the dollar compared to people with similar education in the private sector. I do not have a cadillac retirement like everyone seems to think. My insurance premiums have doubled the past couple of years and they are threatening to raise them again. I am told that I am underworked and lazy because that may have been the case 30 years ago when case loads were around 100 per worker but now that they are 650 in Genesee County and upwards of 1200 in places like Wayne County that is simply not the case. We have a computer system [[Bridges) that just doesn't work so on top of the high case loads we can't process them correctly.


So forgive if I get a little defensive when idiots like you tell me I am not living in reality. When the economy tanks we get more work not the other way around. Lansing needs to stop balancing the budget on our back and start looking internally.

[gazhekwe]

Det_ard said: Enjoy your raise while our kids see music, art and sports canceled as they sit in a room with 40 other kids.

State workers are going through the same hard times as everybody else. Their kids are in the same schools as everybody else. Don't forget, furloughs are pay CUTS and state workers have taken a big hit over the past several years. Not to mention, with a much smaller workforce, the workload is much higher. State workers pay a good portion of their health care premiums. The only workers that have full retirement and benefits are those hired before some time in the 90s, and the state is working hard to get rid of them.

While I may agree that a pay raise is not the best sounding thing right now, how about the legislators step up and show us the way?

[kraig]

You are correct about being able to use banked leave time later. But I don't know about you but I have bills i have to pay now, not later. I never said I had it bad but I get sick and tired of hearing how I have it soooo easy. That is simply not true. the fact is I get 72 cents on the dollar compared to people with similar education in the private sector. I do not have a cadillac retirement like everyone seems to think. My insurance premiums have doubled the past couple of years and they are threatening to raise them again. I am told that I am underworked and lazy because that may have been the case 30 years ago when case loads were around 100 per worker but now that they are 650 in Genesee County and upwards of 1200 in places like Wayne County that is simply not the case. We have a computer system [[Bridges) that just doesn't work so on top of the high case loads we can't process them correctly.


So forgive if I get a little defensive when idiots like you tell me I am not living in reality. When the economy tanks we get more work not the other way around. Lansing needs to stop balancing the budget on our back and start looking internally.

Don't sweat it Gumby. There are a lot of us out here that appreciate the efforts of our hard working public servants. I know people in the public sector that do a whole lot more work than their private sector counterparts.

It's just that when people see the likes of Kilpatrick, Granholm, Cox and Blackwell, it's easy to scapegoat all public servants. Which is really unfair.

[gumby]

I admit it isn't the best time for a pay raise but what people don't realize is that we collectively bargained for this one a couple of years ago when we gave up other pay raises that were already in our contracts. We will be making less after the 3% raise than we would have if we didn't agree to letting the others go.

[wolverine]

Grifters and con men prey on the desperate and greedy. Michigan in desperate for new business. I don't think that anyone in the state government was stupid, just trying to grab an opportunity for the people..

.....wow.............