LANSING -- Michael Boulus, whose job is to look after the interests of Michigan's colleges and universities, is mad.
Hopping mad at what he sees as self-destructive and irresponsible behavior on the part of the Michigan Legislature.
"They are trying to win the race to the bottom, to see if they can make our state dead last," said Boulos, who runs a universitywide consortium known as the Presidents' Council.
A former deputy state treasurer for education, he has a hard time understanding why the Legislature would risk ruining the quality of the state's major research universities. He is enraged over the lawmakers' unwillingness to vote for a tax increase that he sees as clearly necessary to erase a $1.8 billion hole in the state budget.
"We are the one area that hasn't had our quality destroyed ... And we don't intend" to let that happen, he said defiantly.
But he admitted it was hard. In the past six years, the state has reduced the amount of money it gives Michigan colleges by $2,666 per student. Thirty years ago, state appropriations accounted for about 75 percent of higher education expenses. Now, that is barely 40 percent.
That has meant steep tuition hikes. Wayne State University, for example, has increased tuition 42 percent in the last three years.
"These lawmakers pretend they haven't raised taxes. Ask any parent who has been hit with an 18 percent tuition increase if they are paying more taxes."
Raising the state's 3.9 percent income tax rate -- or, more accurately, restoring it to where it was for years, 4.6 percent -- would make far more sense, he believes.
Even before that, he said the state needs to "pay us what they owe us" -- the more than $100 million in higher education payments the Legislature "deferred" in May, to "balance" last year's budget.
It is not clear when that payment will be made, and many fear the schools will never see the money at all.
Boulos has, of course, a vested interest in higher education; the state's college and university presidents pay his salary. But he is also not alone in his concern for it -- or exasperation with the state. Doug Rothwell, who has spent his life promoting economic development, is president of the pro-business Detroit Renaissance.
"I really think they are determined to have a government shutdown," he said.
That's what may happen, at least in part, if the Legislature cannot agree on a balanced budget by Sept. 30.
The state's fiscal year starts the next day, and the Michigan Constitution requires a balanced budget. Yet members of the opposing parties continue to mostly talk at each other, rather than to each other. Both the Democrats who control the House and the Republicans who run the Senate seem determined to pass opposing budgets that will be ignored by the other chamber.
The possibility still exists of cooler heads prevailing, and a last-minute deal. But one has been expected for so long, some observers think both parties may need to go over the brink before a return to common sense becomes appealing.
Remembering 9/11
Patrick Anderson, a former state deputy budget director, isn't likely to ever forget that day.
Now the chief executive officer of the Anderson Consulting Group LLC, Anderson and a co-worker, Ilhan Geekil, were at the World Trade Center, in the Marriott Hotel at the foot of the giant towers, when the planes struck that day. "Somehow, we both made it out alive, though for awhile neither of us knew the other had," he said this week.
Ever since, he has wanted to do something for the Michiganders killed in the attack and to honor the many companies of fire fighters and rescue workers who came from Michigan to New York. Accordingly, he is establishing the "Michigan Remembers 9/11 Fund" (www.michiganremembers.org) and intends to seek donations and publish the stories of the people who died and who survived.
"Eventually, we will also construct a permanent physical memorial, but just what and where has yet to be determined," said Anderson, who began by personally donating $25,000 to the fund.
Full disclosure: Jack Lessenberry is a journalism professor at Wayne State University. Contact him at Bucca@aol.com or write to him at 189 Manoogian Hall, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 48202.
Print this story
E-mail this story
