Michigan House Democrat Caucus Meeting, May 23, 2007

Day 134 today without action from the House of Representatives on the FY2007 budget crisis.

THEN (134 days ago):

"We are facing a budget shortfall this current fiscal year in excess of $500 million and next year's is in excess of $3 billion. Bottom line: We have a lot of work to do...

"We did this in anticipation of the looming budget crisis and the need for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work immediately."

Journal of the House, Jan. 10, 2007, pgs. 22-23

NOW (134 days later):

The House has, to date, taken the leash off trial lawyers, promoted frivolous lawsuits, talked to corporate pirates about staging a state-sponsored hostile takeover of one of the largest banks in the nation because they decided they couldn't do business in Michigan anymore and drifted off into fever dreams or plans or thoughts or paint-fume precipitated highs that lead to discussions of free iPods for school kids.

And that was before trying to grant high dollar corporate donor DTE a utility monopoly in exchange for a cash infusion.

But hey, yesterday they did approve $139 million in cuts.  Of course in the same bill they added $209 million in new spending and tie-barred the whole thing to an income tax increase.  That vote is expected to come today.

I think it's important to understand the difference between the House and the Senate when it comes to moving Michigan forward.  Dillon's racked up an impressive list detailed above, right?  Yeah.  Right.  Over in the Senate they've voted to balance the budget without raising taxes three different times and yesterday in one day they introduced more reforms and changes to the way Lansing does business than the House has introduced to date.  By far.  

What are we talking about here?

1. Legislation to open up Public Employee Benefits Health Care plans to allow pooling by schools and local governments and reduce rising costs of health care, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of savings to local schools and governments.  This is the MESSA kill, folks.  At least in part.  

2. Creating a shared school calendar within schools of each ISD that will allow shared services, such as vocational-tech centers to operate on days when all schools are in session and closed during school breaks.  

3. Sharing software systems by schools within the same ISD to streamline workload and provide savings in the areas of human resources, accounting and administration by working from one shared network.

4. Publishing an annual summary from each school district, providing residents a detailed breakdown of how the per-pupil foundation allowance is spent on school services, salaries, benefits, and funds spent in the classroom.

5. Allowing initial mental health care assessments to be provided via telemedicine and teleconferencing, reducing costs of transportation of prisoners to outside facilities.  

6. Creating partnerships with Michigan medical schools and prisons allowing students to gain educational experience and prisoners to receive treatment.

7. Requiring the Department of Corrections to conduct a complete performance audit of the prison system to ensure funds are being spent on essential services, and forgoing the governor's latest plan to spend $2 million to create a panel to investigate Michigan's prison system.  

All of that AND they've held the line against tax hikes.  Dillon's answer?  Another day another tax hike proposal.  But hey, maybe just maybe they're finally ready to vote.