Congratulations to President Barack O'Bama on his historic moment. His inaugral speech hit mixed notes in my mind, I'll point to two.

In my mind, this is the most interesting passage of the speech (which had no "zingers" like "fear itself" or "ask not"):

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

There's a definitely an element of the diversity and multi-cultural "speak" in this, but I'm drawn to the way it is not written. It is not written as an attack on America's past, but as a recognition of the past as perhaps a proof that the "other old hatreds" (Arab-Israeli conflict, the religious battle lines that dominate foreign affairs, and simpler, smaller hatreds that dot the world) can be overcome. His line "the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve" is certainly hopeful and could be construed in a conservative and individualistic light, but it is unclear where O'Bama would deviate the tribalist policies many in his party support or how he intends to get us there.

Here's the second:

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

The first sentence is interesting in that while it seems to be an attempt to change the paradigm debate on "big v. small government" to "effective government." But if the question is "whether it works" and the answer is "no" much more often than it is yes, will we truly see the programs end? Of course, the reason small-government conservatives are for small government is not just for the sake of liberty - it is because we believe, more often than not, bigger government doesn't work. He's set himself up for a test here - does government work? Will Barack O'Bama's version of government work? If it does not, then we must "hold to account" the leader. If he fails to "spend wisely", to "reform bad habits", or most importantly do business "in the light of day" - he must be held accountable. As a fervent believer in open records and meetings, I wish him the best of luck in increasing government transparency - if that is what he means. And if he "spends wisely" and does those things, he'll be hard to beat.

That is the test he should be held to in 2012!

We're moving our reporting of the Howell School e-mail FOIA lawsuit over to OutsideLansing.com, even though it began here 17 months ago, since it fits that topical site better. But for those of you following it - the Livingston Circuit Court ruled in favor of us and the schools over the Michigan Education Association. There's plenty to follow, so stay tuned.

The State News at Michigan State University gets this priceless quote from one of the MSU Trustees:

Joel Ferguson, chairman of the MSU Board of Trustees, said he hopes Proposal 2 is overturned, but isn’t optimistic.

“I don’t necessarily think they can succeed,” he said. “Anybody can file a lawsuit.”

True indeed.

It's too bad he hopes Proposal 2 is overturned, but you know the lawsuits are mighty frivolous when the cheering section says that.

Of slight note is the non-response by Lou Anna Simon (now earning over $420K a year), and the wierd "equality-is-non-equality" argument from former Democratic Party co-chair Melvin Hollowell, now relegated to plaintiffs attorney in frivolous filings:

Melvin Butch Hollowell, counsel to Detroit’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is on the plantiffs’ legal team. He said the case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

“We believe that this is the most important civil rights case,” he said. “We are seeking the lawsuit to place students of color on equal footing as all other students in the admissions process.”

MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said she was unable to comment on the case because the litigation is ongoing and it targets universities.

Orwell would be proud. War is peace. Unequal is equal.

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.

Dawson Bell of the Detroit Free Press has picked up on our FOIA request & five part series here in this piece. Here's a link to OutsideLansing.com where we take note of Dawson's piece, and part 3 of our series citing the political diversity issue.

For those of you who follow my miscellaneous national and topical interests like signature-gathering, and Ward Connerly's SuperTuesday, you'll also know that I follow First Amendment questions of whatever type. The Paul Jacob story hits all three. Connerly is helping a group in Oklahoma collect signatures as I write. Signature-gathering difficulties there are driven largely by politics - and although the people of Oklahoma are quite rational, their Attorney General and special interests seem to have figured out that out and realize they must hamstring the people.

Enter Paul Jacob. Like him or hate him and his efforts, he helped a group in 2005 in Oklahoma collect signatures for a version of TABOR (taxpayer rights initiative). Taxpayer initiatives are serious challenges to government and special interests because when taxpayers can say no and turn the spigot off - special interests and the "governmental class" (the army of people working for the government get to vote, and self-lobby, too) get mad. Mad enough to put people who threaten them in jail.

So, when Democrat Attorney General Drew Edmonson told a grand jury to indict Jacob earlier this year, they jumped. Grand juries would indict cinder block if told to, and even under the best circumstances, a grand jury indictment is under a standard of evidence that there is simply enough evidence to warrant a trial - not that anyone is guilty. Regardless, the indictment was for "conspiracy" to "defraud the state", a stretch of that charge based on the underlying crime of ... coordinating signature-gatherers who did not intend to live in Oklahoma forever. That is, using "out-of-state" signature gatherers invalidates a signature in Oklahoma (nowhere in the Oklahoma code however, could I find a law criminalizing out-of-state gathering, merely the AG interpretation that residency means someone must intend to live in Oklahoma forever). From the non-crime of not knowing exactly where one might live in a few years, and two years following the Oklahoma state court's "referee" refusal to place TABOR on the 2006 ballot, the AG indicted 3 petition drive leaders (with no indictments for any criminal circulator below them, another hard piece of logic to follow). Now clearly this all contrived to make all signature-gathering of any type more difficult, and to plant the fear of criminal prosecution in the hearts of petition-drive leaders.

But the AG made a technical mistake in his grand jury indictment, and misused the multi-county nature of that body, so he had to drop the charges. Yesterday, he reissued the charges under his own office's direct power of prosecution, and is going full-steam ahead.

Whether you are liberal or conservative, or libertarian (I guess if you're authoritarian, you should support the AG), you should take note of this case. It's about control and power. It's about suppressing speech and petitioning. Sure, reasonable rules can invalidate bad or petitions created in error - and although there is probably no compelling interest in state residency requirements even if there were, this case is one of ambiguity in law being used as a blunt hammer to quash dissidents. Even if you are an opponent of Jacob's views, to remain silent when his speech and petition rights are subverted is to invite the same to happen to you when you disagree with the establishment.

In all, this is probably the most important First Amendment case, and clearly the most important petitioning case to arise from the year 2007. Follow it closely. Prevent it from happening in your state. Blog it if you can. Write a letter to the editor if its relevant. And be careful when you travel through Oklahoma.

Whoa, and does he ever.  He accuses this writer's past - and society's continuing - nemesis, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), of "killing our children" (and I can't say that's wrong).
This is why Akindele's Unleashed blog is clearly one of the best in the Michigan blogosphere.

Here's a sample of his powerful critique:

Every now and then I look at what BAMN is doing in the community. Here are a socialist group of bandits that causes more hell than a headache.

First, they were against my friend Ward Connerly and the whole affirmative action thing. Thank God my sister Jennifer Gratz and company won that war. We thought BAMN would go away and crawl back in their cave.

I guess not.

Now, these misfits are having a town hall meeting on solving the crisis of public education in Detroit. [Dec. 6 if you're interested].
...
Again, where is BAMN on these critical issues [charters, parenting, and choice]? Where are those quacks Steve Conn and Heather Miller?
...
BAMN is doing nothing but keeping our children angry. Our children do not need anger. Our children and parents need options.

Having seen the Conn game and Ms. Miller an action, I'm fond of Akindele's use of terms here, even if it is slightly over-the-top. When you incite riots and take your children out of classes for your political machinations and you're a public school teacher, the term "quacks" is has a descriptive truth to it despite its ad hominem nature.

... and an Arizona CRI update.

Three must reads from our sister-site, OutsideLansing.com, all dealing with campaign finance research we've done, and on statewide stories. 

First, a story of shady self-dealing from the newest, revived pro-stem cell ballot committee. $10K goes into the pocket of the same non-profit executive director, while $7500 goes to the non-profit.  $2500 was spent on the aborted 2004 ballot operations, out of $20,000 raised.  Not a good deal for donors.

Second, the analysis of a new Jon Stryker Michigan PAC, Communities Voting Together, and some odd accounting.

Third, the campaign finance complaint this author filed today against the Stryker committee.

And here's some interesting updates on other issues.

Same old tactics in Arizona against the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative (AzCRI). For example, its "divisive" (all political questions are) and programs for women's violence might be stopped (not so at all since its "public education, contracting, and employment" only, and educational programs against violence should be broad-based anyway, and physical protection programs even without the categorical protection would be protected under the "bona fide" sex-based differences clause):

State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said she feared the initiative would wipe out the Governor’s Commission to Prevent Violence Against Women and the Women in Applied Science and Education program at Arizona State University aimed at helping women in the College of Education.

But Max McPhail, director of the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, said the University of Michigan still has programs aimed largely at helping women in science and engineering despite voter approval last year of a ban on discrimination in education “But they don’t discriminate against men,’’ McPhail said. “So if men want to come to the program, they’re allowed.’’

McPhail's response is correct, and he probably also hit the violence argument hard too but it didn't get put in the paper. There are just too many of these bogus arguments out there.

If it has to do with signature-gathering (particularly if not inside Michigan where one of my sister-sites will pick it up), its a subject ripe for PP&M. And this one is ripe - Ralph Nader has sued the DNC alleging a vast conspiracy (VLWC) by the Demoncratic National Committee to obstruct his ability to get on the 2004 ballot. Frivolous lawsuits, blockers, bogus challenge-phase assertions. The suit itself details some 90 law firms that participated.

This story, from the site "Ballot-pedia", which is a brilliant use of the wiki concept to map out a small universe of specialized knowledge, details it well and provides links to the original source documents and news stories.

Needless to say, while ZR doesn't normally subscribe to conspiracy arguments because they are too complex and usually not the simplest explanation, there is some validity to this one. The DNC didn't make it a secret that it wanted to keep Nader off the ballot - in fact, it admitted it was trying to do so. And various officials admit to using frivolous legal techniques solely to drain Nader. That's abuse of process, and Nader should recover something for it.

The Howell Public Schools has witnessed its third school board resignation in six months. In addition to the two elected seats in May, that means that the majority of the board will be completely new by the time the next selection is made.

Howell is clearly a district in turmoil. Zarko Research met (and indeed communicated with) for the first time on Monday evening Howell's notorious Vicki Fyke, at a Duncan Hunter speech here in Oakland County we were covering for OaklandPolitics.com. Fyke informed us of Doug Norton's retirement, and attributed part of the cause of that to Zarko Research FOIA work. Nonetheless, we would disagree with that interpretation and suspect Norton's reasons were broader. The ZR FOIA simply wasn't that important and at best only exposes conditions in the district, not creates them. Clearly the district has issues that are affecting a whole range of people, and our reporting can not be a driving force behind that. Here's Howell's press release yesterday:

The Board of Education of Howell Public Schools announces a second Board Member vacancy, effective October 11, 2007.

Parties interested in applying for this unexpired Board Member term should do so at the Board of Education Office located at 411 North Highlander Way, Howell, Michigan.

PLEASE NOTE: Anyone who showed interest in the seat made vacant by Mary Jo Dymond’s resignation, MUST RESUBMIT A LETTER OF INTEREST for filling the vacancy left by Susan Drazic’s resignation.

In order to apply, interested parties must submit a brief letter of intent or Interest in Board Vacancy Form, in hard copy, (no emails or faxes will be accepted) at the Board of Education Office no later than 3:00 PM on Tuesday, October 16, 2007. Material received after this deadline will effectively disqualify the late candidate from being considered by the board on October 22, 2007.

When the letter is submitted, each party will be provided with a more detailed set of qualifying questions which should be completed and returned in hard copy (no emails or faxes will be accepted) to the Board Office no later than 11:00 AM on Friday, October 19, 2007. Materials received after this deadline will effectively disqualify the late candidate from being considered by the board on October 22, 2007.

Qualifying candidates will be screened and interviewed in person at a Regular Board of Education Meeting set for Monday, October 22, 2007, at 7:00 PM.

During the interview process, each candidate should be prepared to give a brief oral statement. The board will then do its evaluation and decide on the appointment.

The candidate appointed, as early as October 22, 2007, will serve only the unexpired term until the point of the upcoming School Board Election currently scheduled for May 6, 2008.

Philip Westmoreland, President

Howell Board of Education

UPDATE: RepublicanMichigander, a former Howell resident, has excellent ongoing coverage of the issue. 17 people applied for the first seat, and no doubt most will double up for the second. Fyke is among them, apparently.

Paul Jacob, one of the principal forces behind the Term Limits movement and an architect of the recent TABOR drives, voluntarily submitted himself to Oklahoma authorities yesterday to be indicted by Oklahoma attorney general Drew Edmondson. Jacob was indicted for helping bring non-Oklahomans into the state to petition for their Stop Overspending drive, which was thrown off the ballot in 2005 because non-Oklahomans allegedly were involved in signature collection and this allegedly violated Oklahoma's residency requirement, which is poorly and unclearly defined.

Jacob's story here.

Speaking from my experience with Michigan signature-gathering and management, its clear that opponents will throw everything they can at you. Don't think for a moment that exercising your rights in this arena isn't risky. This attack on Jacob is a fundamental attack against American liberty and self-government. It's meant to crush Jacob personally using the raw power of government and to scare the rest of us into inaction. Speaking to those forces - I, for one, am invigorated by your threats and the battle is on. In all my endeavors, I will strive to follow the law as it is, but I will not be intimidated by threats of misapplication of vague laws. To my supportive readers - if you can assist Jacob, please do so.

Bill Nowling at Lunchbucket Conservative has been pointing out the ties between Norman Hsu and Michigan's Democratic leaders Debbie Stabenow and Jennifer Granholm.

Democrats have taken a liking to continually beating on the Jack Abramoff scandal that is now a year in the past to point to Republican corruption. But here we have it in spades on the other side, straight from a Ponzi-scheme artist, Norman Hsu. First, Hsu is a bad guy, as the New York Times points out:

According to court records from the case, Mr. Hsu ran a Ponzi scheme that took in cash from dozens of investors and returned profits to some of them before shutting down with more than $1 million missing.

Now Hsu is accused of a political-Ponzi whereby he would act as conduit to evade campaign finance limits.

With RightMichigan also noting the additional money going to Michigan Committees. Stabenow has returned $4200 of the donations to a charity, but apparently hasn't donated remaining $27,000. The Michigan Democratic State Committee apparently accepted $35,000, and Granholm's gubernatorial committee over $13,000.

Obviously, candidates receiving such money aren't necessarily aware of crimes before they become known (bad that our system is such, but reality). But it would be hypocritical to continue railing on 10th degree of separation links to Jack Abramoff, as well.

And its also time to give it all back, ladies, and Mark Brewer.

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

The Kansas City Star reports on the Missouri Secretary of State's actions to use her raw power to thwart the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative. What stands out on a second glance is how the Secretary of State chose to use "preference" when it suited her and "affirmative action" when it suited her. This inconsistency between paragraphs itself should be a legal downfall (although Courts are political too, and as the Star reports none of the SoS language in previous initiatives has been overturned by the courts, although its unknown how egregious her language writing was).

Carnahan’s office used this language:

“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:

“Ban affirmative action programs designed to eliminate discrimination against, and improve opportunities for, women and minorities in public contracting, employment and education; and

“Allow preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to meet federal program funds eligibility standards as well as preferential treatment for bona fide qualifications based on sex?”

What's amazing is that Carnahan has found a way to say MoCRI "bans affirmative action" (the "good type" in her opinion as the "designed to" implicates), AND say that MoCRI actually "allows preferential treatment" in her twisted misusing of the federal funding safe haven. She's actually pervertedly used the federal funding clause - one that theoretically protects some affirmative action - to say MoCRI "allows preferential treatment". So there is the foolish inconsistency she should have to explain to a court. If "affirmative action" is supposed to be the operative language that MCRI and MoCRI and other drives allegedly "concealed" from the public, at the least then one would expect that second paragraph to say "allow affirmative action ... to meet federal", rather than "allow preferential treatment." It is this complete inconsistency that makes Carnahan's language so offensively biased and abusive.

Here's MoCRI's submission. Note, the second paragraph is exactly the operative language of the law as it would appear in the Constitution. It would be understandable if the first sentence were somewhat different than proposed(though not inaccurate of Asher in his suggestion), but Asher's proposal opts for precision by copying the language of the proposal rather than interpretation.

Asher’s group had suggested the following language:

“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to prohibit any form of discrimination as an act of the state by declaring:

“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting?”

The unfortunate thing for MoCRI is legal challenges are draining, and courts can be political. Missouri will be an uphill fight.

Time to revive an old ZR analysis of U-M data manipulation. Read that along with with last week's ZR exclusive on U-M administrative growth, and yesterday's piece by Marisa Schultz of the Detroit News who writes here about the statewide wave of tuition increases.

And guess who's allegedly to blame again - anybody but the administrators at the schools. The legislature isn't appropriating enough of your money.

Hammered by six years of state appropriations reductions, U-M has taken considerable cost-cutting measures, from motion sensors that activate lights only when someone's in a classroom to reducing the number of deans in the College of Engineering, said U-M Provost Teresa Sullivan. "But finding additional things to cut is getting harder and harder."

In 1960, state funds comprised nearly 80 percent of U-M's budget; now that's 24 percent, and tuition is the largest stream of revenue, she said.

"We are in a situation in which our state appropriation has been under considerable pressure," Sullivan said.

Wait, there hasn't been "six years of state appropriations reductions" - there have been six years where legislative appropriations have stagnated or modestly increased. More importantly, that quote on the 1960 comparison of "relative % of legislative funding" is an extension of the fabulous lie first perpetrated by former president James Duderstadt in the mid-90s, when he pointed out that U-M's 1986-1996 "share" of state funding as a percentage of U-M's overall funding fell from 18% to 12%, and blamed the legislature for the "cut". Sullivan deserves credit for the novelty of expanding the time-frame to 1960 to increase the magnitude by a factor. Still, ZR debunked the original horrible twisting of statistics which applies today, pointing out that U-M averaged 17% growth in administration over the same time while the legislature gave 8% more over the time. That's twice the rate of inflation (quadruple for expenditures and other revenues including tuition increases and federal sources) - the legislature lived up to its end of the bargain, yet U-M blamed it on them in the bustling 90s and still uses the same old saw today.

Although the Detroit News writer is doing the best she can with the beat she's assigned, the problem is when you're forced to take the word of U-M officials you're in for some surprises.

"Time and time again we've made the cuts and we've done the reforms," said Regent S. Martin Taylor, noting U-M has slashed $120 million in costs in five years. "We've done those things and then we recognized that (in order) to keep Michigan great, we have to increase revenues."

Just last night State Senator John Pappageorge told a Rochester gathering a story. You go into your boss's office and ask for a $5,000 raise. After much discussion about your value and productivity, and the budget of the company, your boss gives you a $2,000 raise. You walk out of the office and tell your office-mates you just took a $3,000 pay cut.

In the University of Michigan shadow world of budgeting, an increase can be a cut. A look at the Provost's data reveals how words can be twisted - but ZR's favorite is when James Duderstadt tried to play the same trick in the mid-90s and ZR broke it down with this analysis showing that the decline was really an increase but decline relative only to outrageous 17% annual growth by U-M bureaucracy.

If U-M "cut $120 million" in expenses, it doesn't mean that it reduced its overall bureaucracy by that size. Either they cut a hypothetical $120 million that they might have spent in ideal circumstances, they cut something they were going to cut anyway or was at a natural end, they cut something but spent twice as much elsewhere, or any number of explanations. Regardless, I'd like to see the documentation of exactly what their cuts were, and methodology. And even if they saved a $120 million in future costs, its nearly a $3 billion dollar budget. Compare these explanations with last week's ZR statistical analysis of the last five years of U-M administrative growth.

Flip S. Martin Taylor's statement around. Instead of, "(in order) to keep Michigan great, we have to increase revenues," it should be "to keep Michigan great, we have to decrease costs." Does it really matter whether a student pays for his university education in tuition - or through his or her parents and future taxes. It's just a shell-game either way. The key is to reduce costs and provide better value. And with the salary analysis ZR has done, clearly that isn't happening.