Chair Talk
March 2011
It is probably a good thing that we cancelled/rescheduled the February CC meeting. About two weeks after the cancelled meeting, Governor Snyder released his budget proposal for 2012. Mary Pollock and I attended the Governor’s presentation of his budget to the Legislative Committees that would be dealing with it. The Governor was accompanied by Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and John Nixon the Budget Director. The budget proposal contained some rather disturbing reductions/cuts and the elimination of most tax exemptions. Needless to say, the budget proposal raised a lot of concerns with almost every group that deals with the State of Michigan. The Governor’s budget reduces funding of school aid, higher education, revenue sharing, eliminates film/business tax credits, eliminates the Michigan Business Tax (replaced by 6% corporate tax) eliminates the earned income tax credit for low income families, reduces homestead property tax credits, eliminates exemptions for public/private pensions and seeks $180 million in concessions from State Employees. Probably the elimination of the exemption of public/private pensions from income tax is the one issue that will affect state retirees the most. The figures given with the budget presentation was that the elimination of the pension exemption will bring in over $900 million. That basically covers about 1/3 of the elimination of the Michigan Business Tax. In my opinion seniors, schools, local governments and the working poor will be replacing the money the State receives in business tax revenue.
We have been (and will continue) meeting with other groups to determine what collective actions should be utilized to respond to the issues that have been proposed by the Governor’s 2012 budget. We will be meeting with AARP and the Coalition for Accountability in Reform (group we have been meeting with about the pooling plan) next week.
Mary Pollock has been attending various committees that are dealing with the budget process and other retirement issues. More detail will appear in her report.
Mary, Alvin and I met with Joy Ross (Web Manager) and discussed issues/changes/updates with the SERA website. Joy has been putting in extra hours redesigning the website. Joy has also developed new logos for SERA that will be discussed at the meeting. I have asked Joy to attend the CC meeting so SERA members could meet her and ask any questions they might have.
It has been a very busy month and I expect the months ahead to be just as busy. As news/issues develop we will distribute information to the Chapters.
Editor’s note: Bob Kopasz is Chair of the Michigan SERA Council. He may be reached at P.O. Box 692, Mt. Morris, MI 48458; phone 810/240-8380.