Perhaps the biggest omission at the Thursday session on government at the Regional Policy Conference was that the panel didn't include a current public official.
No mayor, city manager, township supervisor, state lawmaker or county administrator was at the table to tell the audience about the difficulty of running a unit, the feasibility of consolidating services, or the probability of merging with another unit of government -- which were key points of discussion during the two hour session that was moderated by former Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema. Although plenty of local public officials attended the session. But what Phil Power of The Center for Michigan, Michael Shea of Government Strategies LLC, and Louis Schimmel of Municipal Financial Consultants, the panelists, did say led the audience into choosing the following five changes that need to be made for the state and the region to get back on track.
- Remove the barriers and create rewards for local governments to consolidate services. The key state barriers to doing so are three laws that require the highest established pay scale to be enacted when services are consolidated, and eliminate Public Act 312 of 1969 that calls for binding arbitration when a unit reaches a labor impasse with public safety employees, such as police and fire.
- Repeal and/or modify the state term-limits statute
- Elect only honest, courageous and visionary leaders to state and local government posts.
- Set a benchmark for public pay and benefits packages.
- Eliminate the Michigan Business Tax and cut state spending.
"If we keep doing what we've done, we will keep getting what we got," said Power, who paraphrased former General Motors CEO Roger Smith.
David Czurak, reporter
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