Zarko Research enjoyed 2007.

It was a year in which the Michigan Education Association (MEA) sued (May 8) to stop us from using FOIA to uncover misuse of taxpayer-funded resources by union leaders in the Howell Public School system during a collective-bargaining battle. Nothing wrong with aggressive bargaining - just don't use public resources to tip the hand in your favor. The Detroit News opined in our favor here.

Since that litigation began, Zarko Research has properly joined the matter. The story related to the Howell e-mail FOIA lawsuit spawned this whole category here, and has already resulted in a limited production of e-mails.

In July, this blog again set trends in publishing the salary databases, with serious statistical analysis of employee growth rates and salary increases, of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. The data debunked the notion that higher-education tuition increases were a result of lack of legislative appropriate or "cuts" by the legislature. The increases are explained by grotesque growth rates in bureaucracy and administration at all universities - where competition is either perverse or non-existent. Here is The U-Michigan analysis and the
MSU analysis.

Finally, in August and September, Zarko Research spawned new blogs, with the idea of increasing the penetration and prominence of our publishing business to more niches, locally and statewide. This blog remains intended for the issues we've focused on in the past, and for a "hodgepodge" of other miscellaneous issues not easily fit into the boxes of "OutsideLansing.com" and "OaklandPolitics.com".

OutsideLansing has broke significant original news, including the filing of a campaign finance complaint against billionaire Jon Stryker in November, and FOIA'd e-mail from Central Michigan University on the Dennis Lennox case cited by Dawson Bell in the Detroit Free Press just this month. OaklandPolitics tapped into the presidential election news cycle, breaking the story of Paul Garfield's termination from the Ron Paul campaign, covering Duncan Hunter's speech here in Pontiac with original video, and covering a number of other issues.

And the force is with both blogs as the statewide columnist Jack Lessenberry has equated Zarko Research to "Zark-Vader".

Of course, there are a thousand little threads leftover I haven't mentioned, and several of them will wind their way into 2008, but look forward to more of the same and some curveballs. Full speed ahead.

The folks at State Sunshine and Open Records blog, also operators of the fabulous "WikiFOIA," have posted their interview of me here. The interview gets into some of my ancient past FOIA history - something I don't go into much detail on here. I recommend reading their other interviews though and using the wiki tool -- the breadth of advice on FOIA there is astonishing and only likely to expand.

Many have commented on and complimented OaklandPolitics.com, the new Oakland County political news source and community builder. The geographic niche there should be obvious.

Now, Zarko Research & Consulting announces "OutsideLansing.com," a statewide community designed to fit the "center-right" niche (coincidentally referred to by Newt Gingrich in his Saturday speech). OutsideLansing.com is not like the leading liberal blog/communities of the day - we neither arbitrarily censor and we encourage a broad-based community that isn't "automatically partisan," as Newt pointed out. This new community also isn't meant to compete with purely conservative forums like this very one at RightMichigan.com. It fills a niche somewhere in between that and the reasonable left and will hopefully be a place where some civil interplay among the often vitriolic competing sides. Hopefully, this can occur with some respect. It will also focus more on original journalism of a statewide nature, although commentary and editorializing is not discouraged. The name was meant to suggest that we should not, as many journalists have become, look on Lansing as insiders and that much of the political news of Michigan originates elsewhere anyway - hence OutsideLansing.com.

Check out our mission and editorial policy for more information. I'm looking for a few front-page authors, but I'd prefer at least an even mix of news writing to commentary if you're interested. Like OaklandPolitics, I'm also going to sponsor a small prize for the best investigative journalism on a statewide issue that is posted first to OutsideLansing.

Truly,
Chetly Zarko

This one's a real doosy. Perhaps inspired by the language of the automobile industry, an Oakland University Professor has produced a real clunker, as reported in the Oakland Press:

"As you look at how systems live and die, we're entering the death rattle," Dessert said. "We're entering a phase where there will be no escaping."

That's pretty apocalyptic. I think I'll either have to bone up on my physics and black hole spatial mechanics, or re-read Revelations. What exactly is this guy talking about:

An Oakland University engineering professor well known for developing workplace efficiency strategies argues that Michigan is losing its manufacturing sector to other states and nations because its K-12, higher education and private sector systems have failed to develop a creative, inspired and highly skilled work force.

Oh, wait, this is the same higher education system that is growing every year. Forget about the fact that the University of Michigan and Michigan State hired 3% more people on average every year, that one of their Presidents took an $80,000 dollar twenty-five percent pay raise, and the top 1000 U-M employees average almost 6% pay raises annualized over the last six years while other employees only averaged inflation or less.

That's a death rattle at 80 mph and accelerating.

This is not to say that the professor isn't a serious guy or doesn't have some good ideas. He apparently is and does, we're just short on the specifics.

The assessment has spurred some controversy but is not one that Professor Pat Dessert came up with overnight.

The seasoned professor employs advanced mathematics to model how various components of large and multifaceted systems interact. He can also use his theory to pinpoint potential efficiencies within those systems.

Three years ago, Dessert applied the Unified Systems Theory that he developed to glean insight into state economic challenges and what the future holds for Michigan workers.

The author and editor of the rather long-article just waste the space and don't get to anything other than the jingo. Some obvious truisms, requiring no deep plumbing of the universe for insights, are stated:

Many of Michigan's high school graduates are not adequately prepared by the K-12 system to succeed in college, Dessert said.
...
"When systems are aligned, they work well. The real problem is that we're not aligned," Dessert said.

But the only real solution offered is one program where hands on auto-racing demonstrations by NASCAR-types motivated students in some demonstration project. Unfortunately, its just not the type of program that is "scalable," that is, can be exported to large numbers of schools. It's hard to know here whether it's the mathematician who doesn't have other ideas, or the journalists who failed to find them.

Finally, while no explicit appeal for "more money" is made for higher education, the reporter finds the Oakland ISD both disagreeing with the mathematician and then contradictorily blaming any failure on a lack of money for her pre-kindergarten programs.

Oakland Schools Superintendent Vickie Markavitch objected to the notion that K-12 schools have failed students. She says the majority of graduates who go on to college find success there.

"I don't think it's a misalignment issue," Markavitch argued, noting that comprehensive curriculum enhancement in both career-focused and general education programs has targeted both postsecondary study and emerging career opportunities.

Students who do struggle in college, Markavitch said, likely faced academic challenges early in their careers because of a lack of adequate prekindergarten programs in Michigan.

"Until we begin to address the gap that exists when children enter kindergarten, we will not adequately address the gap that exists when children leave the 12th grade."

That's about as crass as it gets. If our only problem was pre-kindergarten programs, you'd think the problem would have been solved by now. But its radically untrue, as well. I live in the small town of Clawson, a medium sized school district by all accounts, and have studied its problems closely. Aside from the town not having the social or financial problems of an inner-city or rural school district, the Clawson schools are considered a fairly successful performer (slightly above average when the whole student life cycle is averaged) when it comes to testing measures. But there is a fall off in students passing the measures that starts in about 7th grade and is very noticeable upon graduation. Students seem to lose touch emotionally with the idea of and methods of school as they become teenagers. This isn't rocket-science, folks. We all experienced those years of our lives. It takes a different teaching paradigm to reach those students. Yet Clawson just hired a superintendent whose primary experience was K-6, despite the numbers, an alternative choice with high school experience, and citizens who pointed out where the improvement needs to come. And the Oakland ISD (which provides intermediate services to Clawson, ironically) superintendent has the same myopia. And even with high schools, its not money that will solve the problem. It's creativity, focus, attention to hiring (and the ability to fire) the right people for the right spots, and proper segmentation of specialties to cater to the individual needs of different students as they grow on their own tracks. How can ZR say this confidently - because there are high schools, even in inner-cities, rural districts, and the average Clawson's, that aren't showing the traditional dip in performance. It's simple policy modeling from that point - its finding and copying rather than reinventing already invented wheels. I'm also lead to ask the question of whether K-12 administrations are dominated by elementary teachers. I have no data on this issue - its just a thought.

Most of my Michigan readers are probably aware of former Michigan Lottery Commissioner and Granholm-Appointee Gary Peters and his recent declaration of candidacy to run for 9th District Congressional seat held by Joe Knollenberg. As a matter of full disclosure, I have in the past worked for Marty Knollenberg - Joe's son - but have no current financial relationship with the family. Naturally, as a result of that relationship, I follow the race with a keener interest than ordinary.

An interesting early twist to this race is that Peters initially appeared to do the right thing in the spring when he left his government post in preparation for running for office. But then, almost immediately thereafter, talks of Central Michigan University hiring Peters for a part-time endowed "Griffin Chair", which is an honorary appointment of considerable tradition at CMU, at about $60,000 a year for teaching one class and maintaining a short set of office hours. It's maybe quarter-time work. Peters accepted that position, and as I believe it will become clear over time, he knew he'd be running for US Congress while doing it. So the "right thing" - resigning from a government post to run full-time - became more of the wrong thing for Gary Peters, who actually gets a cush quarter-time appointment to pay his bills while he is still able to devote full-time to his campaign. It's actually a better gig for him than Lottery Commissioner because he'd have had to actually work full-time, and its all on the taxpayer dime. You may agree with Mr. Peters politically, but this whole CMU angle looks trickery and raises taxpayer-funded lobbying/campaigning issues.

Yesterday, I sent this letter to the President, Political Science Chair, and others:

Dear President Rao, Mr. Ringquist, and others:

I write to express serious reserverations over the appointment of Mr. Gary Peters to the Griffin Endowed Chair. While the university has argued the chair is privately endowed, we all certainly know that such appointments are still made by the public body for the equal benefit of students. Once money is given to the university it becomes public money subject to the ethics laws and will of the people of the State. Indeed, the university, like every other university, has an obligation to the taxpayer to seek out private donors to reduce the taxpayer burden. Those donations don't give the university extra flexibility in violating the laws of the State or even stepping outside the bounds of wisdom and fiscal prudence. It is also certain that such money is "fungible," that is, regardless of the source, its existence frees up other money which is most certainly subject to ethical regulations and common-sense.

In this vein, I write to seek your explanation on the appointment of Gary Peters. It is unnecessary for you to reiterate his qualifications. The question is whether the university should knowingly hire someone that it knows will become engaged in a full-time partisan political campaign during the propose tenure of the position. This question has four aspects. First, hiring a person while they are engaged in the campaign constitutes a form of financial support to the candidate, freeing them from the need to engage in additional fundraising (Mr. Peters can legally pay himself a salary from his own campaign, but CMU has now freed him of a large chunk of that burden - indeed, a larger chunk of that burden than anyone would legally be allowed to donate to his opponent). Second, hiring such a person calls into question whether their full-time committment is to their campaign or to students. Third, hiring such a person in the Political Science department, where questions about the campaign are bound to come up, calls into question whether an unbiased presentation, even at the subconscious level, is possible. Fourth, there is a question of whether Mr. Peters was forthright with this department during the hiring process? Most observers believe that Peters made a decision to run shortly after or before leaving his role as Lottery Commissioner. Was the Committee that selected Mr. Peters aware that he was running when it made the decision to hire him?

While it may be the case that faculty members across the country run for elective office during their tenures, it is far more rare that people running for elective office are hired by public universities to teach political science while they are in the midst of seeking office. I think it is vital that the university clarify to the public what its understanding of the relationship was and Mr. Peter's intent was when it made the decision. My request for this clarification does not necessarily imply that anyone, including Mr. Peters, committed wrongdoing here. My request is so that the public be fully informed so that it may judge the situation for itself.

Truly,
Chetly Zarko

State Senator Mark Schauer (D, Battle Creek) has attacked State Senator Bruce Patterson's (R, Canton) claim that university cost control failure is the main reason for tuition increases. The liberal blogging machine, supported by self-proclaimed journalist and occasional mainstream media freelancer Eric Baerren, is rushing to attack Patterson by flipping truth on its head. Baerren's sources are "reverse engineering" Patterson's numbers and an anonymous "friend" researcher at Central Michigan University.

Central Michigan is now the third university Zarko Research turns its data analysis talents toward CMU by necessity since that is the subject of Baerren's defense. At the bottom is an image (click for fuller readable size) that shows the Excel spreadsheet of the first and last of nine years of CMU spending, using CMU's own budget summaries.

To be fair, we compared CMU to inflation and the legislator and created a final line that assumes the legislative appropriation grew with inflation and compared it to the expenditures. Even if the legislative appropriation outpaced inflation and 100% went to reducing tuition (or any category), tuition would have skyrocketed. And guess what - two conclusions of Zarko Research's U-Michigan and Michigan State analyses are enhanced. Administrative growth accounts for the majority of increases AND AGAIN liberal elite administrators are paying themselves double inflation adjustments while put the rings to their lowly staff (inflation or less depending on adjustments). In fairness, the Michigan legislature (and Governor) have not kept pace with inflation over the last 5 years, and deserve a small amount of the "blame" --- but when you look at these numbers, which factor in a "model" assuming the legislature met the Proposal 5 standard (increase by inflation or 5%, whichever is less -- represented on the bottom line of the sheet), the average tuition increase is barely dented. The numbers say it all - administrative growth, health care, and raw supply overhead are the killers in relative terms.

Wizardkitten fills us in on a Wednesday tirade by Canton's own Bruce Patterson. Patterson's response to Mark Schauer's statement that Republicans in the state Senate are responsible for prompting big tuition hikes at the state's public universities?

It's the fault of universities. She quotes part of his speech:

I venture to say that the problem isn't in the amount of appropriations; it's in the failure of the governing boards of these universities to contain costs. That's why students are suffering tuition hikes of inordinate amounts--a failure to contain costs.

I venture to say that Bruce Patterson is wrong ... very wrong.

Baerren ventures a long ... long way. Let's follow.

The first university on Patterson's list was my own alma mater of CMU, which Patterson cited as having increased faculty compensation by $15,000 per Full Time Equivalent over the last five years. Is this true? I have no idea, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't pull the number out of thin air.

But, the question is what this costs the university. Here, Patterson's facts were surprisingly in short supply. But, thanks to e-mail, we can fill them in by simply contacting the university. The university, as of November of last year, employed 1,105 FTE as faculty (the university employs another 1,513 FTE as staff). By sticking my pointer finger straight forward and pushing some little black buttons on my calculator, I deduced that 728 FTE multiplied by the $15,000 in extra compensation over the last five years equals $16.5 million. Mind you, this isn't something that comes in one big chunk, but was spread over the last five years (and through a couple of faculty contracts). On the other hand, state support for CMU has decreased by roughly $10 million over the last decade, and today -- according to an official I spoke to there -- funding levels are approximately what they were in the late 90s.

In 2003-2004 (which I don't fill in in the chart because of time considerations), there was a one-time $9 million cut from $89 million to $80 million, but that is still higher than the 1999-2000 appropriation ($79M), and it was during the fiscal year following 9/11 and national recession (which never ended in Michigan), and it was actually the decision of Granholm. One should expect that during times of recession everyone has to make concessions. Since 2003, legislative appropriation has stagnated and slightly increased, but at less than inflation. Again, to be expected during a stagnant economy. But it didn't fall 10 million "over the last decade" - if rose $10 million from 2000-2002 (13% in two years) and the legislature took that back during the recession at Granholm's suggestion (there's a nice 2003 CMU press release blaming Granholm, but I don't have the link handy). ZR doesn't blame her for that action - it was necessary and appropriate. But it was a cut of an increase - not a full cut. But even if we adjusted for inflation and gave CMU an inflation-locked increase (exactly as if Proposal 5 of last year existed), it would make a tiny dent in the gross tuition increases - which in raw terms doubled during the 9 years and in average percentage terms adjusted for inflation and a compensating legislative increase, rose at more than 5% annually, and more than 6% annually gross.

But let's follow Baerren and Schauer on their venture of reasoning.

How does this break down, in terms of pay and benefits? If it's just salary increases, CMU's faculty received salary hikes of about $3,000 a year ... which, if this is what has Patterson so exorcised, means he's angry about pay raises that are just a little bit more than COLA increases (this, for a university primarily regarded as a regional teachers college and trying to cultivate a national reputation in advanced nanotechnology research). There are raw numbers, and there is context. Patterson had one, lacked the other.

We'll address this competition thing in a moment, but Baerren is the one devoid of context. It's not the faculty hikes that are the killers - although ZR thinks they are bit high. Look at the image provided - the big increases are the "other/administrators" and the supply costs and, as everyone admits, the killer in benefits. Administrators are fleecing us for more than double the inflation rate consistently - year in and year out. They're also shorting staff and faculty -- this is not about competition in attracting quality nanotech - its about padding the President's pockets and his staff. Proposal 5 doesn't sound so bad in this environment (evil, but lesser of two) - and if we could put a spending growth cap on with it?

If Patterson were including total compensation, to include benefits, then he is also alluding to increases in health insurance. In this regard, the university has taken steps to keep costs down, because during the 90s -- seeing rising health care costs coming down the pike, they started a self insurance program, which has been successful.

Baerren's venture has found the cliff. He has bought into some sales pitch by the university. Benefit growth is the highest of all categories - not successful. Is there probably a grain of truth being exploded into a mountainous lie somewhere in that claim - sure: CMU pobably did do some self-insurance in some program, or it tweaked something else, and their claim a "potential savings" that no one really can measure. But it's clearly facing the same problems everyone else is (and look, health care is soaring, but the market has spawned the greatest innovations in life-saving technology humanity has ever witness and its expensive sci-fi kind of stuff).

Baerren ventures into the land of the hook, line, and sinker. He believes what he's told, like any good reporter would:

The interim vice president of finance told me during an interview last month that the university has been more successful doing this than educational institutions and governments that haven't. In short, they anticipated rising costs, and took steps to mitigate their impact on costs ... the kind of thing meant to bring under control costs Sen. Patterson intoned darkly were out of control.

Judge for yourself. The key question:

There are two questions here ... is this outrageous, and has CMU passed along to its students an unfair share of that burden?

The answer to the first is no. As Wizardkitten notes from a Gongwer article, Michigan university compensation is in line with other Great Lakes universities.

First, all universities suffer from the academic elitist view that they are worth ever escalating amounts with no checks in place from the market (let's bring back those anti-trust lawsuits filed against the Ivies in the 80s and 90s -- and Democrats usually like anti-trust laws but not when it impinges on their constituencies) and with government subsidies providing a "free shock absorber" to prevent market forces from stopping administrative growth. Second, the "in-line" analysis is obsfucated by the fact that universities literally collude in trading their data (through a process called the "Data Exchange")(anti-trust!) and that the "comparative data" from universities is all "in-line" because they try to be "close" to each other. The argument justifying salary explosions is that is "normal" and everyone else is doing it so we must. Classic collusion - although not always "conscious" - the system has built the collusion in, from the top cascading down.

In short, if you want to compete -- and I think we do -- then you need to spend money like you're serious about doing it. And, unless Gongwer is lying to the people of Michigan, the state's universities are doing what they need to do to compete against universities in neighboring states -- quality professors aren't going to work for free, you know (in fact, I know a local chemistry professor involved in nanotechnology research who tells me that he got offers from bigger, more research intensive universities but that he decided to stay at CMU because they offered him better research facilities ... he's also just released the first textbook in an emerging part of chemistry).

Reporter resorts to his friend the "local chemistry professor" in nano-tech. Hard for us to verify or cross-examine and analyze, but its a nice anecdote.

The answer to the second is also no, at least in the case of CMU.

As most of us know, CMU hiked its tuition by 21 percent this year, and the compensation costs for their faculty have risen by $15,000 per over the last five years. In fact, for all of the universities Patterson cited, only the University of Michigan -- Ann Arbor campus' faculty costs have increased more (and, why, I wonder, would a university competing for students with Ivy League students see its faculty salaries increase faster than everyone else?). Clearly, CMU's administration is screwing its students, and clearly the Board of Trustees -- appointed by the governor -- are guilty of lax oversight.

Not so fast there, Sparky. CMU's tuition hike of 21 percent is the only tuition hike its freshmen class will see. That is, unless some of them go on the Bluto plan and stay undergraduates for seven years, their tuition will remain what it is this year for their entire careers.

So, what is CMU's 21 percent tuition hike averaged out to four years? About six percent for a student who finishes his or her degree in four years; or five percent for five years. This puts the university, with its $15,000 over five years increase in compensation, close to the bottom rung about impact of their students.

He can't even get the basic division right here - but what guarantee is there of no additional hike? And the real measure is not what the hike is for the 2008 freshman amortized - its what the hike is for the 2009 freshman - which could be 30% if the school chose.

The flip side of this is that CMU plans to make another $1.39 million in cuts come October. Where is this money coming from? Well, the state took money away from the university it said it was going to give it, which has put CMU's budget out of whack.

Chump change, but Baerren even admits its not a "cut", its a reduction of an increase that the state "said it was going to give". So much for the reform-type of cuts.

They're waiting for school to start and professors to return to classes before making the cuts[non-increases], because for some silly reason university officials think that professors should have a say in whether or not proposed cuts[non-increases] will ultimately hurt[not pad] their ability to attract and retain quality students and faculty.

Finally, as a quality journalist, Eric has eliminated the ability of his critics like Zarko Research from commenting on his website, and endorses Michigan Liberal's similar censorship. If we could comment, we might be able to at least correct a few of his factual errors - there probably not intentional, but they're negligent.

Zarko Research again provides insight into the vaunted, but bloated, University of Michigan.

Like the ZR analysis of Michigan State University salary database trends over the last two years when it asked for a 9.6% tuition hike last week, ZR has been collecting U-M databases. An analysis of five year trend data provides a clear insight into why U-M tuition rates explode. There are 38,000 employees at U-M - and 3500 of them make more than 100K annually, a number itself that has an impressive growth rate.

The engorging is top-heavy - an outlandish growth rate among $100,000/year employees, percentage increases in the "Top 1000" by two measurements that are consistently in the 5% range (with a 7.5% average spike, and 20% total spending spike in 2001-2002, reflecting probably a "preparation" for bad times given the strong economy the previous year and the obvious signs of crisis down the road. But there has been no "crisis" for the purses and wallets of U-M bureaucrats, even as the Michigan economy has crashed. They keep churning out nickel increases while the Governor wants to appropriate extra pennies from the plebes to make up the difference.

Education is important. But out-of-check, unaccountable cost increases for top-level administrators do not guarantee any student a fair education. Check the tables yourselves. It's all there - or actually, its' all in Mary Sue Coleman's $600,000 (plus hidden benefits) salary. Imagine if that money went to students instead!

In a time of fiscal crisis, the President of Michigan State University gave herself (or asked and allowed the Board of Trustees to approve) a 25% raise. And the Top 555 employees averaged at least 5.5% raises, while the rest of the school's employees averaged 3% raises. And the school's overall employee based increased, with 2% more total employees hired.

Zarko Research publishes here a listing of the 2005 "Top 555" employees, the 2006 "Top 555" employees, and the entire 11,000 employee database here (WARNING - 2MB in Excel Format), all obtained through the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In our Top 555 listings, we provide a series of statistical analyses to provide context. And the context is shocking when MSU is asking its students and parents to pay 9% more in tuition this year, and blaming it on lack of state legislative appropriation.

But if you think that's rough, wait until we post cross-year analysis of the University of Michigan databases, including its mammoth 38,000 employee structure.

State Representative Marty Knollenberg (R, Troy, Clawson) writes yesterday in the Detroit News this fabulous op-ed. As a matter of full-disclosure, I believe it important to let readers know that Marty is a former client of mine from the 2006 election-cycle, when he was first elected. Rarely do I blog on former individual clients, but this piece is worth highlighting because the overall vision is one of both sharpness in reform and savings and it reflects a tone that should be something that could receive bi-partisan support. I won't say "moderate" tone because I don't believe the reform is moderate - it cuts to the core of failures in our benefits systems - but it is one that objectively answers the **realistic** (sure, the left will throw up insincere and non-realistic obstacles) concerns of current government employees and it thinks in the long-term, rare for legislators today.

This is a solution everyone should get behind, including current employees, and Marty has the courage to apply to himself what he applies to state employees. I include the whole piece because legislators work and write for the people:

Friday, June 29, 2007
Get more money in classroom by reforming health benefits

Michigan ranks 48th in the nation in the amount of school operation dollars actually getting into the classroom. With an average of more than 17 percent of each school district's payroll being spent on retirement, Michigan needs to overhaul the system with the state's best interest in mind.

Under the current retirement system, the state could pay 100 percent of retiree health-care premiums after as few as five years of employment. Imagine a part-time employee drawing lifetime health care coverage after five years on the job.

Our education system is broken. We fight to get enough funding into classrooms while our schools face skyrocketing health care and retirement costs. It is clear, and has been for some time, that we can no longer wait to fix this structural problem. We must take action on necessary reforms now.

Unfortunately, in a recent House Education Committee hearing on reforming school employee retirement health care, some of my colleagues actually argued that if we passed much-needed reforms on retiree health care, we would no longer have anyone willing to work in public schools. I almost fell out of my chair.

While House Democrats were busy talking, the Republican-led Senate approved a legislative package sponsored by Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, that phases in eligibility for retiree health care, closes some of the more egregious loopholes and caps the state's cost at 90 percent of retiree health-care premiums. House Education Chairman Tim Melton, D-Pontiac, introduced this package in the House.

Under the Senate plan and similar House proposals, if you became fully vested after only working 10 years, you would get 30 percent of your health care cost paid for by the state. If you worked 30 years, you could qualify for 90 percent of the premium paid for by the state.

It is time to change retiree health-care benefits for school employees. The common sense reforms reward employees for service much like what the private sector has done.

This is a move state employees made long ago, and one that would save millions of dollars each year. The nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency reported that nearly $300 million would have been saved in 2006 alone if this legislation had been enacted 40 years ago.

Unfortunately, savings wouldn't occur immediately in this legislation because it would affect only new employees hired after the legislation takes effect. It would not affect any current teachers, custodians, food service personnel or bus drivers. This type of long-term thinking will help eliminate future budget crises rather than accounting gimmicks and quick fixes.

The intent of this plan is not to single out school employees. I have introduced similar legislation to reform another lucrative retirement system -- lifetime benefits for lawmakers.

It is simply absurd for the taxpayers to fund lifetime benefits for myself and my colleagues after six short years in the Legislature, the same way it is absurd for the taxpayers to pay for lifetime benefits for school bus drivers after only five years of work. I hope my House colleagues agree with me and support this legislation.

State Rep. Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy, sits on the Michigan House Education Committee.

The Livingston Argus is reporting through "sources" that the secret deal between the Howell Education Association and the school bargaining team representatives essentially saves the district nothing.

Sometime soon — perhaps next Monday night — the Howell school board will vote to ratify a three-year contract with its teachers.

As with most such contracts, the details won't be revealed to the public until after the labor agreement is approved.

But if there is truth to the rumors that have leaked out about the contract, we have to wonder why the board waited a full year before signing this deal. In the final analysis, it doesn't appear that the district gained much by digging in its heels.

According to a number of off-the-record sources, there are several key parts of the contract:

# The expensive MESSA-administered health insurance remains.

# Teachers, who up until now have paid nothing toward their premiums, will now be assessed a modest amount: $600 retroactively for the year just ending and $750 for next year.

# Raises are small — a percent or less for the first two years of the contract. But remember that the majority of teachers also receive experience — or step — increments, which means their pay will increase by about 5 percent a year.

If these contract features are true — no board, administration or union spokespeople will comment — then the management in Howell schools has decided not to take a hard line in negotiations. That's too bad. For if there were ever a time to hang tough, this was it.

Zarko Research suspects the Argus is correct, although we have no way of verifying it and it may or may not be a rumor that is being spread for some other reason.

While ZR doesn't advocate a "hard line," it believes fair (obviously that has hugely variant meaning) concessions should have been made on both sides and that the Board should stand on principle, and this appears to be a one-sided deal as the Argus recognizes. If the Board was right in February and there was a budget crisis necessitating its February actions, then reverting to and accepting a pre-February offer by the union proves the Board either lied then or is lying now about the fundamental fiscal position of the school. Either it had the money then to accommodate the union's requests, or it didn't. Either the future fiscal crisis of exploding health care costs is serious, or it isn't.

This is a great reason why all collective bargaining agreements should be public. Indeed, not just the final agreement, but make the meetings open. While FOIA might seem a fruitful way of getting at it, case law on the issue is confusing and FOIA would allow enough of a delay through its normal response time that it wouldn't be productive in most cases anyway. The legislature must act to reform the Open Meetings Act and FOIA to prevent this kind of secrecy. The public has a right to advance consideration of any proposed final contracts - we're not even talking about events pre-dating the final agreement here. Indeed, the entire collective bargaining process should be subject to open meetings. When you negotiate with the taxpayer for money, the taxpayer should be able to watch. Period. It's simple. It's obvious.

Someone blinked - but the School Board can still stand up for what is right.

The Detroit News editorial board has chimed in on the Michigan Education Association's ridiculous argument that the actions of union-official teachers on public time should generally be exempt from FOIA.

And they hit the nail on the head. The editorial title says it all: "If taxpayers pay for it, they should see it." And the money shot:

"A private group like the MEA is entitled to keep secrets, but not on public property. If it can afford to be one of the state's most generous lobbying outfits, it can afford to make sure that officers of its locals conduct business on their own computers."

And as to Doug Norton's arguments that I have "an ideological bent" against unions - aside from its absurdity (I grew up in a two union-parent household) - it's "irrelevant." FOIA applies to even those the Michigan Education Association dislikes, as the News points out. If the Freedom of Information Act only applied to those without "ideological bents," it would, of course, apply to no human being. Zarko Research has never claimed to be a non-editorializing news source. And while I struggle to present well-documented and tight original source evidence as often as possible, conclusions are drawn - and my history and potential biases are out-in-the open right here on this site.

And so much for Doug Norton's "friendly lawsuit" statement. Raymond Davis, Howell Public School's attorney seems to put that bold spin (I'm being generous this morning) to rest.

In this investigative piece, the Flint Journal takes to task a group of school board candidates in the upcoming May 8, 2007 elections for having missed personal opportunities to vote in the past. By simply checking the qualified voter file maintained by the state, or a city or county clerk's files for local elections, one can come up with this fairly rapidly. Here's the upshot:

They're asking for your vote May 8, but five of 21 candidates for the Board of Education haven't voted in the past five Flint school elections, and five others have cast ballots in only one of them, according to city of Flint records.

None of the candidates voted in all five of the elections; five of them voted in four.

Some candidates with spotty records downplayed their significance; others said voters should take note.

"It's hypocritical to ask someone to vote for you when you don't participate in the democratic process," said candidate A.C. Dumas, among those who voted in four of the five elections.

ZR has a bit of a different take. While there is validity to the criticism that a candidate didn't previously vote, I'll bet many of you didn't even know there were school board elections on May 8, or if you knew, the elections may have been uncontested and it wouldn't be productive to spend your time casting a ballot in a non-competitive election. We suspect the lower voter turnout even among people now running for school board is that they didn't know about - or races weren't competitive enough - for them to vote in previous elections. That's a problem.

These elections are so-called "stealth elections," designed to have maximally low voter turnouts so schools or municipalities can more easily pass their millages and bonds by turning out teacher's unions members. A local election typically costs $10-50K to administer, so multiplied across the state, this would be a superb low-hanging fruit (low hanging in how it would impact government) to work on for consolidation. In 2004, Republicans lead by state Sen. Ruth Johhson thought they had a solution when they limited elections to 4 dates and encouraged localities to move elections to match larger even-year primaries or generals, but only two districts in Oakland County opted for the change. The law did have an effect on ensuring that all spring elections occur on one date (previously not the case), but the real savings haven't been realized. Politically though, this is a high-hanging fruit because unions, municipalities, and school administrators all agree on stealth elections because it increases their power in the lower turnout elections. It's corruption at its best. They have proffered two fake arguments to suggest that we need these unknown, low-turnout elections.

First, is that school board members "need the time to learn the complexity of the school board operations" and electing them in May is the only way to ensure that they come into office in June or July and have a couple months on a board before the school season starts during summer break. The variations on this are that this would "break existing law," (change it, although existing law allows Nov. elections, so school boards can choose it now) require charters to be amended (so what - do it - save the money), or allow current members to serve longer than they were elected for (shorten current terms by 7 months rather than lengthening them by 5). This is so easily solved and even flipped on its head that its laughable - ZR believes it is the first to recommend that schools vote in November for trustee positions and have an extended "Trustee-Elect" term where the members are required to actually sit in the 7 following meetings until June, when they take office. They would actually have more experience under this system. The second type of argument is that schools may need elections for bonds and millages or for unforeseen circumstances. Again, easily solved - aside from the fact that school boards are supposed to plan well-ahead for such things. ZR proposes that all school (and municipalities) elections be held in November of odd years OR August or November of even years, AND schools be given an option to hold their own special elections for millages once per year by special vote anytime they want leasing equipment from their counties (which often resides on school property anyway as they manage local precincts). The real truth of why this hasn't happened yet is that low-turnout elections are more easily controlled by a mobilized force with a vested interest in your tax money. In the meantime, ZR proposes to close the budget delay in school aid payments and make it uniform with the rest of the budget so that schools don't have to take out short-term (weeks sometimes) loans to cover gaps caused by state delays, which itself would save the state money in the long-run. If that happened, schools might actually warm up slightly to such a deal.

We need further consolidation. This legislation could easily be passed - and the time is ripe with the current budget crisis.

In a ridiculous court order that borders on the absurd, an Ottawa County judge has ruled in favor of the Michigan Education Association's (MEA) recent crusade to protect a corrupt former member of its Zeeland Schools union, Brian Beckham. Beckham resigned abruptly in January apparently without obvious cause. Here's his terse letter:

January 8, 2007

TO: Superintendent Feenstra
Board Secretary of Zeeland Public Schools

In order to pursue other career opportunities, I hereby irrevocably resign from any and all further employment with Zeeland Public Schools and its Board of Education, effective January 8,2007. I have enjoyed my association with the Zeeland Public Schools.

Sincerely,
Brian Beckham

The following day, the school wrote this cryptic message to parents:

January 9,2007

Dear Students and Parents:

Today I have to inform you that Mr. Beckham has resigned as a teacher from Zeeland Public Schools for personal reasons. He will not be returning to class. Mr. Beckham regrets he will not be able to work with you any more this year. I know many of you really liked Mr. Beckham, as a teacher and as a person and I am sure this news is a real shock to you.

Ms. Sandy Brewer is the substitute in all of Mr. Beckham's classes. Ms. Brewer has subbed often at Cityside and she knows our kids, our staff, our policies and our curriculum. Ms. Landes is already working closely with her to try to maintain the high quality education the Eagle Team has been known for.

Sincerely,
Jon Voss
Principal

That prompted the Grand Rapids Press to inquire through FOIA in February by requesting Beckham's personnel file. Before the school's record officer could release the records, the MEA sued the school under what is called a "reverse FOIA", citing a little known provision of the Bullard-Plawecki Right to Know Act (a personnel records act) requiring certain "investigatory files" to be destroyed if "no disciplinary action is taken". That provision apparently applies to "criminal" investigations, but the MEA and Beckham's attorney somehow convinced the judge this qualified, and that since the school hadn't taken "disciplinary" action because Beckham resigned before they could fire him, the files must be destroyed. The judge issued his outrageous order on April 9th, and we had already had a FOIA request similar to (but different in some ways) the Grand Rapids Press FOIA by Kym Reinstadler. If indeed the law is such - that a public employee can evade FOIA by resigning - then the law should be changed. A careful reading of the law suggests that might not be so, but the Grand Rapids Press will probably lack the courage to pursue. The judge's order was so ridiculous that he ordered the school shred the material within 14 days, hardly giving anyone a chance to appeal with the normal appeals time frames.

ZR is producing the entire FOIA response here (WARNING: 12MB PDF). Here's all we know about Mr. Beckham's problem:

For Personnel Record of Mr. Brian Beckham

At the time of Mr. Brian Beckham's resignation, Zeeland Public Schools was in the process of investigating whether Mr. Beckham had violated its technology use policy and/or engaged in unprofessional conduct. No final determination was made and the investigation ended without any conclusions being reached due to his resignation.

1/8/2007
Mary Colton

But according to our FOIA request, which sought other FOIA's, it appears that there is other craziness happening at Zeeland Schools. Laurie Jordan, a teacher, was terminated on January 11, 2007, just three days later than Beckham, although there is no evidence of a connection. Advance Newspapers Kristin Churchill made this March FOIA request:

In accordance with the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (PA 442 of 1976), I am formally requesting the following information that I believe is under the control of your agency: Any and all records pertaining to the re-hiring of office aide Laurie Jordan, Including any back pay settlement and the date and reason glven for that settlement.

Here's the shocking and deeply concerning response:

Enclosed you will find copies of the payroll documents pertaining to this matter. There is no written documentation regarding a reason for this settlement which was a verbal agreement between Mrs. Jordan and Superintendent Feenstra.

The payroll document clearly indicates termination, and a later rehiring. It is unfathomable that a rehire - or any hire - could be based on an oral agreement. Something strange is afoot at Zeeland.

The Michigan Daily reports here on an 896 room rental housing unit on North Campus at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. U-M is to be commended for not fighting the project (as it certainly could have), and allowing construction access easements, but the whole project raises the prospect of a tremendously interesting idea.

Privatize the entire housing, food provision, and custodial service provision operation at U-M. This might entail selling some of the buildings (obviously more difficult for special housing that is connected physically to parts of the university, like RC or WestQuad), or if retaining physical ownership is necessary or politically important (remaining state property changes speech rights, law enforcement jurisdiction, eminent domain, etc.), the management service could simply be subcontracted with the University retaining title.

The savings would be gargantuan - although ZR has no way of predicting how much they would entail.

And the increase in quality of service would be attractive to students. For example, in the early 90s the Michigan Union allowed a much greater range of restaurants to lease space in its main floor, there was a dramatic decline in West Quad (attached physically by a maize of hallways). There is no question the whole area involving West Quad and South Quad saw a decline in utilization of university food services in the dorms - I personally witnessed and experienced it. Despite the decrease, the leasing fees the university earned more than offset any costs it may have incurred in lost dorm food demand.

Universities should be in the business of educating students - not housing and feeding them, except perhaps in select programs or situations.

In an epiphany, ZR has yet another early morning idea, and is creating a new category called ZR solutions. In the previous entry, I opined on the possibility of "progressively curved" government-employee pay cuts. It's an idea that could appeal to conservatives and liberals for different reasons.

In reading this Detroit News piece by Marisa Schultz (this is not the first time ZR has noticed solid work from Schultz), several ideas combined into one in my mind.

The article notes that 75% of Michigan's young teachers end up being employed out-of-state, because our own child-aged population is declining and more notably because universities are pumping out even greater numbers of teachers. I'd add that the educational lobby, university administrators, and others also "over-sold" the "teacher shortage" in the late 90s, and have gained this knowledge through first-hand conversations with many teachers and teacher-certificate holders that are stuck in Michigan without jobs. And perhaps there is still a teacher-shortage in growth-states, which means that newly trained teachers that aren't tied to Michigan leave by a margin of 3-1. Since the average legislative "subsidy" of higher education is $5800 a year, we are literally subsidizing schools to train out-of-state jobs - at a very significant clip. And Michigan universities do not appear "responsive" to that concern, since it is the path of least resistance is to take the state's money which it will get no matter what and continue to use the "capacity" now developed for teacher training.

One answer that appears to have cross-partisan appeal is to end the Constitutional autonomy of universities, or curtail it enough to allow the legislature to control the curriculum direction more. The problem with this approach is that the general concept of autonomy was a good one (within the confines of the interaction between university and legislature - the idea that universities are above the law or the people, which is a gross stretch that universities would like to imagine, is complete bunk) - it keeps Lansing bureaucrats from micro-managing university bureaucrats, and replacing one bureaucrat with another is not a better way.

At another extreme, the education lobby and Governor insist that we must college educate and fully-fund every student, and colleges then complain about an inability (or unwillingness) to steer (or at least offer solid, but expensive, career counseling) students to the fields that will make us competitive - science and technology. Schultz identifies this problem here:

At Western Michigan University, students who are undecided about their major have access to plenty of information on the job market and hot fields, said spokeswoman Cheryl Roland.

"Most students come to us with a career in mind and they are attracted to WMU by the quality of program in the major they plan to pursue," Roland said. "We can't slot students into being engineers or scientists when they aren't interested or academically prepared for that direction."

Part of it is K-12 isn't preparing enough science students - and part of it is students may not be "interested." As one commentator noted, his vision of universities was to:

Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., another Ann Arbor think tank, said the ultimate question is: What's the purpose of public funding for higher education?

"To fill Michigan jobs or to help kids who grow up in Michigan realize their dreams, no matter where they find work? They are both worthwhile goals. Historically, the answer has been the latter," he said.

If government's role is to subsidize and help everyone "realize their dreams," taxpayers are doomed and the economy will eventually collapse under that weight. The mission of education at most should be prepare everyone to be competent in the knowledge-economy - individuals' must still remain in charge of their own dreams.

So as long as Granholm keeps pumping unaccountable billion-dollar chunks of cash into colleges, we're going to see science stagnation at the expense of growth in softer-fields (though the scientists we do produce are quality and significant in number, we are not optimizing):

About 45 percent of the bachelor's degrees conferred at Michigan's 15 public colleges in 2005 were in science, business, computers and math-related fields.

But over the past six years, the number of graduates has grown considerably in fields such as teaching (up 23 percent), communications and journalism (up 51 percent) and visual and performing arts (up 41 percent).

In essence, from teacher training, to focus on the most productivity-enhancing fields, to the generally exorbitant quadruple-inflation growth in higher education administration spending (mostly salaries), there is no market force acting on the university.

For several years, ZR has advocated, along with other major policy voices, for a program of portability in higher-education funding, very much like the K-12 "foundation grant" of money "per pupil" that travels with the student. Simple calculations suggest that with the administrative savings - not including savings caused by possible competition - all the money handed directly to university administrators could instead be turned over to students (or made portable with them at their choice of Michigan public university) and guarantee everyone about $6300 a year in costs.

That's $2000 more PER YEAR than Granholm's one-time $4000 per student grant.

That's a free-ride or close to it at all be but the most elite Michigan universities - although its not even close to enough to cover a U-Michigan education, and well short of the next three top-flight universities.

But here's the twist to the educational portability proposal - why lock ourselves into total uniformity, and why not incent more pursuit of science, math, and technical training (even non-university training, although that's educational heresy). And if a field is still oversupplied - reduce the scholarship further (and perhaps work with other states cooperatively to pick up some of the costs in exchange for some of our oversupply, if it still exists). Students could always choose to continue their own personal preferences - but they'd see the career costs and choice values up front before their education, not after their 3, 4, or more years deep into a field. If a student was still committed to a field, they'd make that choice despite the costs.

"You have students who really have a passion to teach elementary education and you can't sway them from that," said Crystal Walrath, a career development associate at Eastern Michigan University. "But a lot of students who are graduating haven't done enough research to realize that the jobs are not plentiful here in Michigan."

You'd have some students who'd stay with their passion, but at the margins, where it matters, students would have a better idea, through the up front cost of their education, of where the market was.

We could empower (or elect) a body to annually adjust scaling incentives based on models (the difficulty would be keeping politics out of such a body). Even with a merit/field-of-competitiveness sliding scale that reduced amounts in some fields and increase it in others (or for merit), we could still dramatically increase student affordability, and introduce a competitive cost-control element, by utilizing funding portability. And a final twist could be to make some or all of this money available in the form of "forgivable loans," rather than grants, which could be repaid over time simply by staying in the state (one could amortize the tax value of a graduate over time and graduate the forgiveness in that way). It may still be economical for some individuals to move out of state - or simply a personal choice - but in such cases they would then be forced to pay the balance of their loan less the credit for time spent in Michigan. Indeed, this amortization of forgiveness could itself be a cost-saving solution - and it would add state flexibility in making "deals" with other states (student exchange programs, or "negotiating" some compensation from other states in advance in situations like the teacher glut here and shortage in North Carolina - those states with agreements would pay forgiveness costs [or more!], in essence paying for what is now the Michigan-higher-education subsidy)

And if we're educating Michiganders that are to only leave the state for jobs elsewhere, why not lift the artificial self-imposed (as part of an ancient "deal" between U-M and the legislature) "cap" on "out-of-state" students at U-M, which is roughly 30%. Let it be 40 or 50%, or more (I'm still confident enough Michiganders will still qualify on their own merit). Since we don't subsidize out-of-staters at all and in fact charge them "profitable" tuition rates, even if they leave Michigan we're at least not losing the subsidy we'd invest in a Michigander that left, and increasing the odds or base of out-of-staters that might move to Michigan, or at worst visit Michigan for homecoming games or to enjoy our natural wonders that they become familiar with. The problem is that years of politics has "sold" the "cap" to Michigan taxpayers as ensuring that their "subsidy" goes to Michiganders - but its never been true - their subsidy has always been equally spread out throughout the university. Which leads one to ask - why not abandon the subsidy entirely for our flagship university - the University of Michigan (or allow it to be completely portable as described above). With more out-of-state students, and the fact that the legislature's share of U-M's budget has fallen to a mere 10% of U-M's income (the legislature held its end of the bargain though - it averaged 8% growth for a decade but U-M administrative costs averaged 17% growth over the same time, thereby reducing the RELATIVE contribution by half), U-M should be able to easily compensate, and thereby turn the institution into a money-maker for Michigan (such a shift would also allow us to use some unused capacity in our 12 public universities and not have to consider closing a school like Northern Michigan University, which is underutilized). And with higher-standards in admissions, we'd attract even more of the "world's best", perhaps truly rising to a level comparable to Harvard, which is an empty U-M slogan today. Indeed, citizens of Massachusetts are not concerned about, and benefit directly from the, importation of super-talented people attending Harvard. That's a hard political sell - but we're in hard times. I understand this latter point would be more politically difficult and consider it separately.

This combination of proposals would be a powerful set of reforms to our higher education financing structure. They stand here as a challenge.