| 2/9/2010 6:23:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Granholm calls for
compromise, budget reform
Danielle Arndt
Gov. Jennifer Granholm called 2009 the "dividing line" in the "decade from hell" in her eighth and final State of the State address Wednesday.
The governor said Michigan's economy has changed and the only way to succeed in what she donned as the "new Michigan" is by creating jobs, educating people and protecting citizens.
Rockford Public Schools Superintendent Michael Shibler praised Granholm for her emphasis on education and harsh criticism of the current budget process in Lansing.
She said the process is "a last-minute crisis-driven disaster" that is "sacrificing the needs of children first in hard times."
Granholm said legislators must "do better" to fix the structural deficit that exists in public school funding - something Shibler has fought with legislators about as well, he said.
"(The governor) really pushed that issue hard. I thought it was the most important point she made all night," Shibler said. "She said it would require bipartisan efforts by both Democrats and Republicans - them really working together to come up with a solution."
Shibler said there are two things that must be done to fix the deficit in K-12 funding: the government must work to create new revenues and compromises must be made by public employees to cut costs.
He said if all public employees were required to pay for just 15 percent of their health insurance and if the sales tax, a primary K-12 funding source, were cut from six percent to five percent and spread across some services, excluding medical and dental, it would generate at least $600 million in additional funding for education.
"Legislators need to listen to the possibility of this solving the problem," Shibler said.
In her address, Granholm also called on members of Congress to support the constitutional amendment currently being spearheaded by a bipartisan group of freshman legislators. The amendment would dock the pay of each senator, representative and the governor for every day beyond the deadline that the budget is not passed.
"I urge you to put that amendment on the ballot and to live up to it this year," Granholm said Wednesday.
She added she would have next year's budget prepared by Feb. 12 and challenged legislators to hand it back to her by July 1.
Rep. Tom Pearce, R-Rockford, said the governor is proposing about $450 million in cuts based on reforms she announced last week. However, he said the state is looking at a budget shortfall of $1.6 billion for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
"So (the reforms) still leave her with over $1 billion she still needs to address," he said. "It will be very interesting to see how she expects to eliminate that deficit. And she said (Wednesday) she wants to bring back the Michigan Promise Scholarship - that's another $200 million unaccounted for."
Pearce said he voted "no" on the Promise grants when they were first proposed because he knew the state did not have the resources to sustain the program.
Though Pearce was unable to attend Granholm's final State of the State address Wednesday, he said he believes the governor's highlight reel of jobs that were created in 2009 was slightly misplaced.
Granholm reference nine communities throughout Michigan - such as Battle Creek, Holland and Kalamazoo - who have worked together and rose above the recession, with the help of tax incentives and economic stimulus dollars, to bring jobs to their areas in renewable energy, advanced battery manufacturing and biomedical sciences, among others.
"Providing tax incentives to select businesses with the hopes of their growth is not a wise use of tax dollars," Pearce said. "I have trouble patting ourselves on the back for using these kinds of incentives to create 2,000 jobs when we lost hundreds of thousands more."
He said during her time in office, the governor focused her efforts too narrowly on bringing new job providers to Michigan and not enough on helping the struggling businesses already here.
Pearce was in Washington D.C. Wednesday attending the National Prayer Breakfast.
"For the last three years I have been asked to attend this event," he said. "Unfortunately, the date was set long before the governor decided when to deliver her State of the State. I thought it best that I follow through with my previous commitment to them."
|
Article Comment Submission Form
|
|
 |
|
