In 2011 significant progress was made in addressing the first three steps of the Michigan Turnaround Plan (MTP). These recommendations represented “fixing the basics” – common sense actions needed to set Michigan on sound financial footing and put in place practices to make Michigan competitive over the long-term.
Step 2 of the MTP focuses on providing state and local government and local public school services in an effective and efficient manner. Several key measures were enacted last year to advance this area, including:
- Legislation to bring school employees’ share of health care costs in line with the private sector
- Contract negotiations that brought state employees’ share of health care costs in line with the private sector
- Legislation to make a local community’s ability to pay the primary consideration in contract arbitration with local police and fire services
- Legislation amending several state statutes to remove barriers that had previously made it difficult for local governments to consolidate services
In 2012 and beyond, our focus needs to turn to the following at the state level:
- Improve the cost & productivity of our state workforce by adopting a total compensation system that enables the state to compete for talent in highly competitive fields and rewards performance at a cost comparable to the average state
- Reduce corrections costs to the Great Lakes average
- Improve the efficiency of state government by investing in programs that have a proven track-record of reducing long-term costs (e.g., prisoner re-entry, home health care) and adopting best practices to provide self-directed citizen and business transactions through the use of technology.
For our public schools, we need to improve our return on investment by accelerating the sharing of school services and the consolidation of schools where appropriate, and by fully transitioning school employees to a defined contribution retirement system. These measures will direct more resources to improving student learning through proven methods, including:
- Providing access to quality early childhood education
- Maintaining rigorous standards in reading, math and science
- Maximizing the time students spend on academic learning
- Attracting, training and retaining excellent teachers
- Attracting and training excellent school leaders
- Measuring and rewarding schools, teachers and school leaders that perform at a high level
Our local governments should adopt their own Turnaround plans that include steps to “fix the basics” by ensuring:
- Sound fiscal management practices
- Cost-effective, reliable basic services
- Strong ethics standards
- Effective public safety
- Competitive tax & regulatory standards
- Results-oriented redevelopment strategies
- Professional communications that improve perceptions
- Support for regional solutions
State government can enable improvements in local service delivery by:
- Providing incentives & disincentives in all state programs that recognize local service sharing
- Aligning federal & state program boundaries with regional economies
- Accelerating efforts to consolidate local administrative services and increase regional service delivery
In 2011, great strides were made toward getting the state on sound financial footing and improve the tax and regulatory environment. In 2012 we need to build on those efforts at state and local levels to help make Michigan as competitive as possible.