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Teacher Union Executives Get Double- Digit Raises While MICHIGAN CapCon is a product CAPITOL of the Mackinac Center CONFIDENTIAL for Public Policy A news service for the people of Michigan — Vol. 9 No. 4 December 2015 Daily Online Coverage at MichCapCon.com of retirement benefits granted to its own employees. Union liabilities TEACHER UNION EXECUTIVES GET DOUBLE- increased from $206.2 million in 2014 to $304.1 million in 2015. DIGIT RAISES WHILE LIABILITIES SKYROCKET The salaries the MEA reports to Top MEA officers, unlike teachers, get 18.6 percent average pay bump in three years the U.S. Department of Labor vary significantly from year to year. The BY TOM GANTERT between 2012 and 2015 ($119,520 to a teacher in Plymouth-Canton union says that in some years, there is a delay in the payments it receives from While the teachers they represent $149,433). Secretary-Treasurer Rick Community Schools saw her salary school districts, so some money earned have seen very small pay increases or Trainor was also up 25 percent during increase by 5 percent over a three-year in one year may not be reported until even pay freezes over the past three the period ($121,476 to $151,675). period from $57,448 to $60,346 during the next. years, high level executives at the President Steve Cook’s salary increased 2012 to 2015, according to a Freedom of For example, Trainor’s salary for Michigan Education Association union 16 percent ($182,154 to $211,390) and Information Act. the four years has been reported as received large raises. Executive Director Gretchen Dziadosz A Michigan Capitol Confidential had a 13 percent increase from 2012 to survey of the largest Michigan school $121,476 (2012), $109,911 (2013), The average increase in the salaries $158,296 (2014), and $151,675 (2015). paid to the top four union officials 2015 ($190,196 to $215,222). districts found 13 of the 17 gave some See “Double-Digit Raises,” Page 10 was 18.6 percent over three years. At The salaries and liabilities are type of pay raise to their teachers in the same time, the MEA’s liabilities mandated to be reported by the union 2014-15. Just one of the 17 districts cut increased by nearly $100 million, or annually in its federal LM-2 form. The pay, imposing a 1-percent reduction. 50 percent in one year. 2015 form recently became available. The raises come at a time when Vice President Nancy Strachan Teachers are not getting anywhere the MEA’s financial liabilities are received a 25 percent salary increase near those kinds of raises. For example, skyrocketing, largely due to the cost Number of Michigan Welfare Recipients Declines 70 Percent Page 4 Page 13 BY TOM GANTERT Independence Program provides temporary The number of people receiving welfare cash cash assistance to pregnant women and assistance from the state has plummeted since families with children. The program also Gov. Rick Snyder took office, partly due to the attempts many interventions to get people improved economy but also because the state employed in long-term jobs. now enforces a limit on how long beneficiaries From 2005 to 2011, the number of people could receive cash benefits. in this program held consistently in the low Want to Buy a There were 227,490 people receiving cash 200,000s range. It varied from 202,693 (2009) Tesla in Michigan? Bills Would End Daylight assistance benefits from the state in 2011. to 237,102 (2007). However, in 2011, with Too Bad, You Can’t Saving in Michigan As of August 2015, that number was down control of the Legislature and governor’s to 64,492. The state welfare agency’s Family See “Declines 70 Percent,” Page 8 MICHIGAN’S WIND ENERGY MANDATE COSTS EACH FAMILY NEARLY $4,000 BY JACK SPENCER According to the study, the economies A new study from Utah State University of all states with a renewable portfolio found that, as of 2013, Michigan’s renewable standard, or RPS, have suffered harm. energy mandate, enacted in 2008, has cost Among the negative effects are a nearly Midland, Michigan 48640 Michigan Midland, Permit #1776 Permit 14 percent decrease in industrial electricity P.O. Box 568 568 Box P.O. families and businesses here a bundle: Fenton, MI Fenton, 140 West Main Street Main West 140 sales, plus losses in both personal income PAID PAID $15.1 billion overall, or $3,830 per family, Mackinac Center for Public Policy Public for Center Mackinac U.S. POSTAGE POSTAGE U.S. and employment. A key finding was that an Capitol Confidential Capitol compared to what we would have experienced NONPROFIT ORG. NONPROFIT without the mandate. See “Mandate Costs,” Page 12 Michigan Capitol Confidential DECEMBER 2015 | 2 MICHIGAN CAPITOL CONFIDENTIAL Dear Reader, We could not do this without you. For eight years now, Capitol Confidential has served citizens as Michigan’s reliable and trusted source of news that includes the free-market point of view. We have reported breaking news on everything from alternative energy boondoggles to unwarranted seizures of private property to union perks at taxpayer expense, all with the objective of holding government accountable to the people. Today I want to thank you for your readership and ask for your continued support. Will you make a tax-deductible gift to Michigan Capitol Confidential during this holiday season? You can send a gift in the enclosed envelope or make a donation online at www.MichCapCon.com. Your gift will help safeguard our liberties through investigative journalism that keeps citizens informed. Thank you for your consideration, and happy holidays from all of us at Michigan Capitol Confidential. Sincerely, Dan Armstrong Managing Editor [email protected] 989.631.0900 www.MichCapCon.com Michigan Capitol Confidential DECEMBER 2015 | 3 LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT MEET THE STAFF The Idea of Liberty BY MICHAEL J. REITZ my first time viewing the ceremony. The guard Tom Gantert is the senior capitol correspondent “Americans and Europeans alike sometimes relinquishes his watch and passes orders to the for Michigan Capitol Confidential. He may be forget how unique is the United States of new sentry: “Remain as directed.” Through rain, reached at [email protected]. America. No other nation has been created so snow or terror … remain as directed. swiftly and successfully. No other nation has Against this backdrop is the hysteria of been built upon an idea — the idea of liberty.” students on campus who demand intellectual Jack Spencer is capitol affairs specialist for childproofing to shield them from contrarian Michigan Capitol Confidential. He may be —Margaret Thatcher, 1991 reached at [email protected]. In November, I joined hundreds of lawyers, viewpoints. Trigger warnings, safe spaces, judges and policy experts for a gathering of shouting down opponents and lodging protests the Federalist Society in Washington, D.C. The over graduation speakers all flow from the same occasion, the Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture; troubling assumption that truth can be attained Jarrett Skorup is digital engagement manager for Michigan Capitol Confidential. He may be the speaker, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. through a militantly enforced silence. Occupy reached at [email protected]. The Federalist Society established this annual Wall Street has devolved to Occupy My Bubble. lecture 15 years ago to honor a life cut short. It would be easy enough to deride the A lawyer and commentator with a distinguished childish expectation that all disagreement can career in public service, Barbara Olson was a be avoided. Instead, we should recognize an great friend of the Federalist Society and the opportunity to defend one of the pillars of the ideas it espouses — individual liberty, limited idea of America. As a free people we are eager to government and the rule of law. Olson died on embrace vibrant debate. Justice Louis Brandeis Sept. 11, 2001, a passenger on American Airlines explained this when he wrote, “Freedom to think Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. as you will and to speak as you think are means Cotton used his address to highlight America’s indispensable to the discovery and spread of exceptional promise, both for those born here political truth. … Discussion affords ordinarily and those who would come: “We should take adequate protection against the dissemination pride that we live in a nation people are willing of noxious doctrine.” Those who would silence to die to reach, not escape.” Our duty, he said, speech would suffocate democracy. is to do more than simply pay tribute to Olson Sacrifice, equality, duty and free expression. and the thousands killed that day, but to live Ideas worth the founding of a nation, and worth lives that preserve and advance liberty. Cotton’s + our vigilance today. remarks were especially poignant as news of the Paris terror attacks came to us that very day. DO YOU LIKE WHAT Later that night my colleague Patrick Wright and I walked down to a symbol of a different YOU’RE READING? era of crisis. Abraham Lincoln’s words etched Then check us out online! in marble and Dr. King’s 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial remind us again of the idea We completely overhauled it with you in mind. Now it’s Michael J. Reitz, easier than ever to stay up-to-date with the important of liberty — the proposition that “all men are Executive Vice President created equal.” things going on in Lansing and around Michigan. Our last stop was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to watch the changing of the guard. MichCapCon.com I’ve made dozens of trips to D.C. and yet this was Michigan Capitol Confidential DECEMBER 2015 | 4 MICHIGAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION RETIREMENT COSTS SKYROCKET IN 2015 BY TOM GANTERT $112.2 million to $149.8 million This allowed Cook to parlay his WANT TO A retirement system created during the same period.
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