Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on April 5, 2007

Click here to view bill details.

With the state unable to meet it's present budget, the idiot wants to increase pension benefits. What committees is he on?

for early retirement at 50-so we can pay even longer!

To only someone who just arrived in Michigan from another planet would this even be considered at this time.

This bill would save money by getting rid of those state workers making top pay with top benefits. New workers hired would make far less money and their retirement benefits would be part of a cheaper plan. Early retirement packages must make sense in corporate America because many companies are using them to save millions of dollars. I'd rather see state employees get an early out than see convicted felons get an early out!

I am in agreement with the comment that it would make good economical sense to give state employees an early out. The newer employees would come in at a much lower salary and you could offer them a 401(k) retirement instead of a state paid pension. I ask that you consider age and years of service add up to 75 instead of 80. The employees at the 36th District Court would leap for joy!!

In the past, the State has offered early retirements with deadlines for applying. This resulted in mass exodus of seasoned State employees. With this bill, employee retirements would be staggered, occurring when the employee becomes eligible or chooses. This would allow less negative impact on the remaining employees and services to the State of Michigan. Seems like a win-win to me. Also, even if another early retirement is not offered, more than 30% of State employees are going to be eligible for retirement within the next 4 years. Let's get some younger employees in now so we can train them sufficiently to continue to provide citizens the services they deserve.

Raise the service tax? Raise the gas tax? Double the registration fee's? Way to go Michigan. We got what we voted for.

Good plan. Will get rid of the more expensive older employees. Benefits and pay will be less expensive for new employees.

This is a sane approach to cutting state government! Why lay off state troopers or others (who will then be collecting unemployment benefits) when the state can downsize through attrition? And it would open up a few hundred badly needed jobs for young people in this state to keep them in Michigan instead of them leaving in droves. People on unemployment vs people retiring and job creation . . . it seems like a no-brainer to me!

The thing is even with the money saved here it would not be no wears near enough to balance the budget, so tax increases or job cuts are still gonna have to happen.

I understand that state employee pensions are guaranteed by the constitution -- if that is true, the best way to save money is to offer early retirements now (a combined age/years of service of 75 years sounds perfect). The longer a person works, the higher their pension will be, so getting rid of the older workers gradually (to protect the people who are served by state agencies) and employing less expensive employees will save money both now and in the future.

Removes high cost employees and reduces pension costs because of two tier employee wages.

Kids are goats

Actually it is sound financial management to remove high cost employees, prevent layoffs, and re hire lower cost two tier employees, like many large companies have been doing to REDUCE cost.

Actually it is sound financial management to remove high cost employees, prevent layoffs, and re hire lower cost two tier employees, like many large companies have been doing to REDUCE cost.

Actually it is sound financial management to remove high cost employees, prevent layoffs, and re hire lower cost two tier employees, like many large companies have been doing to REDUCE cost.

it MAY BE sound financial management to do all of those things, which is why michigan will NEVER DO THEM.

... but it does not require increasing pensions on state employees to terminate their employment. Just do it. They have whatever pension they are entitled to, and that's it.

"but it does not require increasing pensions on state employees to terminate their employment. Just do it." What??? Just do it?! Are you suggesting that hundreds of state workers should be terminated??? How do you propose to keep the state running if the people who work for the citizens of Michigan are terminated? And how would you feel if you had 15-20 years with an employer and someone who knows nothing about the quality of your work suggested that your company "just do it" to you!?

Why should state employees get a better deal than the rest of us in private industry? You think businesses don't lay off someone with 15 - 20 years experience? Is it hard for the state employee? Yes. There are no guarantees in life for private companies and there shouldn't be any in government employment either. How would we run the state without these seasoned veterans of state make-work jobs? Quite easily. I could quite happily eliminate the entire DMV unit. I could quite happily eliminate every clerk processing silly fishing, hunting, moving, and beautician licenses, along with the accompanying audit and enforcement staff. We could do without Child "Protective" Services that have taken three kids away from parents only to give them to approved foster parents to be killed. We could happily eliminate the entire ineffective Michigan Economic Development Corporation unit with the associated corporate welfare gaming that uses taxpayer money to enrich one corporation over another. There are a few ideas.

the flip side of your question is, "why should public employees get the same raw deal as employees in the private sector?" does anyone really believe that whacking public employees will improve their own lot as a private citizen? or is it just satisfying to make somebody else suffer, too, because you are unhappy? get past those issues, and then maybe there can be reasoned discussion of proposals like this.

I'm confused. The description suggests that this bill would apply to anyone whose years and age add up to 80. But from the text, it sounds like the bill only applies to people who are either 60 with 10 years (or 55 with 30 years) and already eligible for retirement, or people who are 50 with 30 years seniority - it doesn't seem to have a genuine '80 and out' provision (for instance, it would not apply to a 57 year old with 23 years), so it doesn't look like it would apply to many people or create many new jobs. Am I reading it wrong?

For those of you who know nothing about state employment and think we live it up on the gravy train, let me try to give you some insight. Are you aware that we already went through "furlough" days? Those unpaid days off were not given to us in a block of time so we could at least get unemployment benefits. No, we had to get by on a day's less wages in every pay period that we had to deal with a furlough day. And did you know that we worked our 80-hour pay period and got paid for 76 hours for months and months? I don't care how much you make, you count on a full paycheck to cover your bills. It was a difficult time, and I am still trying to recover from the financial stress it put on my family. I am a state employee and I am proud of the work I do. Believe me, I work hard! I just got a promotion and I am now doing most of the job I had before the promotion plus another FULL-TIME job...and guess what? I won't see a pay increase for 2 years. I am stressed and exhausted when I head home every night, but I am also extremely proud of the quality of work I put out. You who paint all state employees with the same brush and think we are overpaid, underworked clods should come sit in my office and watch me for 8 hours.

This bill provides an 80 and out for only those 50 years old with 30 years service. It's 70 and out for those 60 years old with 10 years service. For those right in the middle and 55 years old, it works as follows. If you're 55 and have 25 years service which also adds up to 80 points, this "80 and out" bill says "to retire without penalty, work five more years and then you can retire on this fabulous "90 and out", but this comes with a memo from the Governor telling you how important you are to the State". Maybe this bill should have specified retirement without penalty at 50 years of age with a total of 80 years of age and service. Without this change, the devil is indeed in the details.

I am a retired state employee. And I take this as an insult to those of us who retired due to the extremely heavy workloads which were place on workers who were efficient and had numerous years of experience. I can tell you that for the last 15 plus years the state has paid some of the laziest workers on the face of this earth. They come to work alright but the quality of the work mass's of them do it not acceptable. But they are great workers well if anyone was allowed to speak freely to the newspapers you would hear quite a different story. So yes there are a lot of workers who would deserve such an increase if this law pass's. But there are three times as many who don't even earn the salary which they are given on any day. What I am saying is if they can increase pensions for new retiree's what about those of us who retired after working 20 plus years are we even considered in this equation? Overwork is all that you hear from state employees. And yes they are overworked because they workers who carried them on their backs all of these years retired to get away from them.

go into any state office and then tell me that you want to steal more of MY MONEY to give to the state teat sucklers... You folks are delusional. Everybody else in this state is losing pay, pensions, jobs, houses and you want to bleed us even more? You oughta be ashamed.

Ashamed?remember, you're talking about state slugs here. They think that they are entitled to whatever they can get.

 I am interested in your comments.  Why do we continue to have lazy workers on state payrolls, as you have informed us?  Why aren't they fired?  Why pay someone to not do the work needed?  There should be plenty of unemployed private sector workers ready to work for the state and give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.  I know that the Department of Treasury is overworked based on the responses I've received from workers when I've called for information.  They are years behind even entering information on state SBT returns, much less auditing, examining, etc.