Support staff jobs and Health Insurance also under attack

The Senate is considering Senate Bill 1074, which would require competitive bids for custodial and food services, and Senate Bill 1046, which would require public employees to pay 20 percent of the cost of their health plan. The Senate could yet vote on these bills this week, so please contact your senator now to urge a NO vote on these proposals!

Senate passes pension legislation -- SB 1227 heads to House

Legislation to compel thousands of public employees -- including those who work in education -- to retire by July 1 is headed for the state House following a Wednesday vote in the Senate.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 1227, which would require those who don't retire by October to pay as much as 3 percent more of their salary toward the pension system.

Senate Bill 1227 does not include an increased multiplier, as originally proposed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The bill passed with 21 Republican votes and a lone Democratic vote -- one Republican voted against the bill, along with the rest of the Democrats.

This legislation will not solve Michigan's budget crisis. Contact your Representative today!

Keep Your Guard Up!

While it’s also Spring Break for the Legislature, it doesn’t mean we are safe from their anti-public school employee “reforms.” Legislators are back home looking for support on their misguided attempts to balance the budget on the backs of school employees.

Take the time to reconnect with your legislator and make your voice heard!

A Review of the Governor's "Retirement Reform"

The Governor is proposing a combination of positive and negative incentives for school employees and State employees to retire this summer.

The positive incentives include:
• An increase in the “multiplier” from 1.5% to 1.6% of final average compensation for all employees who are immediately eligible for a full pension and who retire with an effective date between July 1 and September 1, 2010.
• Phased in Retirement for some employees is another positive incentive of the plan. It would enable employees to retire under the incentive above and work a reduced schedule of no more than 50% of their previous schedule for up to 3 years. The employees could only work for the district from which they retired, and it would be up to the district to decide whether and who they wish to hire under this arrangement. The rationale for the proposal is to be able to retain difficult to replace employees on a reduced schedule for up to 3 years.

The negative incentives are numerous, including:
• Elimination of all subsidies for retiree dental and vision insurance for anyone with a retirement effective date on or after October 1, 2010;
• Increase the employee contribution by 3% for all employees who continue to work effective July 1, 2010 (the only exception is “MIP Plus” employees whose contribution was increased to 6.1% in 2008. These employees will have contributions increased by 0.9%);
• Cap of 30 years on the amount of earned service credit an employee may accrue starting July 1, 2010. Employees with more than 30 years as of that date would be capped at what they have earned.;
• For employees hired after October 1, 2010, a reduced pension system that will be a combination of a defined benefit plan and a defined contribution plan.

What does "SOS" really stand for?

School employees have given almost $1 billion over the past three years in salary and health insurance concessions. You pay hundreds – if not thousands – out of pocket every year for basic instruction supplies. You fund your continuing education and training to keep your skills sharp for your students. You work with increasing class sizes and decreasing resources. You pay into your retirement system and pay out of pocket for your health benefits.
Yesterday, the “SOS: Save our Students, Schools, State” campaign, a group of school management organizations, released its reform agenda. While MEA agrees with their central premise that our school funding system is broken and needs to be overhauled, that’s where our agreement ends. SOS has apparently chosen to ignore the sacrifices made by its own employees by insisting that even more be taken out of your hides.
Their list of anti-employee proposals includes:
• A statewide health insurance pool (which has been proven to cost more money than it saves).
• Mandatory health premium payments (regardless of what you’ve already negotiated regarding your compensation).
• Increasing payments into the retirement system (not money that will go to fund your retirement, but rather to pay for the investment and funding mistakes made by bureaucrats in Lansing regarding your pension and retiree health funds).
• Banning health benefits for retirees before age 60 (despite pressure from the governor for employees to retire now in their early 50s).
• Changing bargaining law to take the pressure off of districts to settle fair, equitable contracts with their employees, including increasing penalties for strikes (exactly how many school employee strikes have there been in the past 15 years? I think I can count them on one hand).

The SOS campaign is a group of statewide school administrator organizations. That doesn’t mean your local administrators necessarily agree – or even know about – what SOS is advocating.

It’s time to ask them about it.

Talk with your superintendent, your principal, your business manager, your school board members and your PTSA president. See what they think about this attack on your school district employees by organizations that school district dollars support.

Lawmakers Want to Hear From You!

Every decision that impacts public school employees is made by an elected or appointed official. Because of this, it is very important that you get involved and stay involved in the political process.

With all the changes coming from Lansing, MEA members have been motivated to contact state representatives and senators.

Sen. John Gleason, D-Flushing, shared tips for constituent relations when he attended an August training of MEA member-leaders in Flint. Gleason said he needs to hear from people who live in his area and he warned them not to send e-mails because e-mail contact isn’t his favorite way to interact with constituents.

He also offered the following four suggestions:
1.“You must engage the political process.”
2.“Your voice should be just as strong as those who don’t think much of you.”
3.“We don’t need anger, we need agitation. I need to hear from you before the process is complete.”
4.“The best defense is a strong offense. Get on with it.”