Plymouth Democratic Club Convenes over State Budget Cuts

When Plymouth Democratic Club met Thursday night at the , talk zoomed in on hot-button money issues, including Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed , the and how reducing or eliminating Michigan's film industry incentives will affect the state’s economy.

“What’s coming down the hopper is what we’re all aware of, and that’s the budget,” said Oliver Wolcott, Michigan House of Representatives communications analyst. “I want to say right now that we’re going to have some pretty intense debates and discussions about what’s going to happen with this state financially moving forward.”

Wolcott – the first speaker of the evening – outlined some of the bills proposed this year on floor of the state House since Snyder took office and the potential impact of his proposed budget.

“The governor has said that he wants the budget passed by the end of May, and that puts us at five weeks," Wolcott said. "And there’s been one appropriations bill that has been passed."

Next up, he said, will be votes on tax policies.

Wolcott predicted a flurry of activity in Lansing as May 31, the deadline to finalize the state budget, gets closer.

Education funding cuts

Education funding will be caught in that flurry. Nancy Strachan, Wayne-Westland Educational Association president, told the Plymouth Democrats present Thursday that Snyder's proposed cuts are dangerous and suggested that, as a candidate for office, Snyder "pulled the wool over some peoples' eyes."

She said his statements on the campaign trail about the importance of a strong education are not matching his actions, now that he's in office.

"He has pretty much dismantled what we have done in this state toward students and education," she said.

Strachan characterized Snyder's attitude as anger.

“I don’t know where the anger has come from with him with public employees,” she said, “and it’s not just schools. It’s firemen, it’s the police, it’s any unionized employee. I think that’s one of the main problems that comes to mind: He’s a union buster. He wants to get rid of our collective bargaining rights because he feels that, first of all, our pensions are too generous.”

Aside from the impact Snyder's proposed cuts could have on the state’s school districts, Strachan said that the community at large should feel betrayed because the governor promised he would not cut education too deeply.

“He wants to make this a prosperous state to live in,” she said. "But when the cuts that he is proposing hit the district, I don’t know of any families that will stay in the state."

Strachan addressed union concessions, including pay cuts and increased health care costs,  and how remaining deficits could be paid for through millages or tax hikes.

“I’ve always said that when I pay my taxes now, I don’t complain about my taxes because I enjoy the services that I’m provided," Strachan said. "I enjoy the education of my children. When I got out of school, I didn’t holler and scream about these taxes because I looked at it as ‘I’m paying back.’ Somebody paid for my education, so I’ll pay for somebody else’s education. And I think if we can have other people open their eyes to that, there’s not going to be as much anger about the taxes we are paying.”

Strachan said state school employees fight for the needs of teachers and students.

"I have had my members mobilized in my district for probably about three months. We’ve had rallies, we’ve had letter-writing campaigns," she said.

She said she recently organized a joint educational and legislative forum that included handing out about 3,000 postcards to people for writing messages to the governor, which she promised to hand-deliver to Sndyer's Lansing office on Thursday – with the stipulation that messages “had to be professional, and they had to be respectful.”

“It was very important that those individuals who were at the forum knew that their voice was going to be sent up to Lansing,” she said.

She closed her speech with a brief allusion to the perceived inequities of Snyder’s budget proposal, saying that teachers' pay has slowly advanced but still does not match paychecks in the business arena.

But with the recent economic downturn, she said, paychecks in "the financial community and the business are starting to drop. We had never risen very far. So now they’re saying, ‘Well, the business world is taking at least 20 percent cuts. They’re not paying for anything other than their medical now, and you people (the educators) should start to pay. That’s where the equity has been lost.”

Fire Department contracts 'cutting into marrow'

The contract between Plymouth Township and the firefighters union is set to expire Dec. 31, and among the changes officials are seeking with a new agreement are a slate of cuts to services.

At the top of the list are proposed layoffs, which would include a reorganization of full-time staff to include more part-time workers and cut the current staff of 22 firefighters to possibly 12, in light of the city of Plymouth's agreement with Northville for fire services. The new contract would cost Plymouth Township about 25 percent of its fire budget.

Greg Mangan, Plymouth Firefighters Local 1496 treasurer, said that since 2002, the department has lost nine firefighters, six by retirement and three by layoffs.

In an effort to replace these employees, the firefighters union applied for and won a federal grant – but the township rejected the grant because it included a two-year "no layoff" clause, Mangan said.

Another point of contention for the union is the township's proposal to eliminate a large portion of the paramedic services in favor of a contract with Huron Valley Ambulance. He said that this would cost the department in response time – and potentially affect its ability to provide life-saving  paramedic procedures.

Mangan said Huron Valley Ambulance at times takes up to 20 minutes to respond to calls, while the Plymouth Township Department's average response time is four minutes, 45 seconds.

“If you’re going to be solely reliant on that ambulance service, you’re going to be – no pun intended – playing with fire,” he said.

He also spoke about the potential of supplementing the staff with part-time, volunteer firefighters, who are not required to have the paramedic training that all of the department’s firefighters currently have.

Mangan said the union has offered up to $300,000 in concessions, an act of faith the township has continually spurned, saying that the offer has come too late in the process.

“There is no fat left to cut,” he said. “We’re already cutting into bone marrow, essentially, as far as are staffing levels are at.”

Fighting for the film industry

Jim Burnstein, the vice chairman of the Michigan Film Office Council, said Snyder's proposed cap to film incentives threatens to hobble production in Michigan. The state's current incentive gives a project up to 42 percent off taxes and was considered the most competitive in the nation.

“We said all along that you have to give this five years to do a really accurate measurement," Burnstein said. "Well, we didn’t get five years, we didn’t even really get three or four years before Governor Snyder came in.”

Burnstein illustrated the film incentives' effect, saying that in 2007, before the state offered tax breaks to filmmakers, just three movies were made in Michigan, with "a grant total of $2 million in production."

In 2008, Burnstein said, 38 films were produced in Michigan with $128 million in production; and in 2009, the first full year of the tax incentives, “We had 43 films and $225 million," he said. "Last year ... we had 40-some projects and $293 million in production."

In total, the industry brought close to $1 billion to the state in film, television and digital production, which also includes video gaming, Burnstein said.

“Those of us who supported this from the beginning said that this is all about economic impact," he said. "You have to understand how this business works."

Burnstein said every dollar spent causes a ripple effect, creating thousands of jobs for those directly involved in a production as well as for hotels, restaurants, dry cleaners and caterers, among others.

He was adamant that Snyder's proposed $25 million cap on the incentives is so low that it will kill Michigan's budding film boom.

"We don’t want to cap it, but we are proposing a cap of $180 million,” Burnstein said. “That would allow us to grow a little. Will they come back with a lower figure? Probably. Twenty-five million (dollars) for the incentives is a nonstarter. They may as well give nothing. They may as well give zero, because that’s the end for Michigan.”

He implored Plymouth Democratic Club members to join the battle to save the incentives.

“Somebody give me a price tag on hope. I want to know," Burnstein said. "This industry is different in that regard, because it is one of the things that America still does and manufactures better than anyone else.”

Burnstein teaches a screenwriting class at the University of Michigan and said the film industry tax breaks made his students optimistic about job prospects. Now,  he is seeing that feeling drain from them with the prospect of losing funds that the program operates on.

“Tell me the sense it makes to educate these people," he said, "only to export them."