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Published November 4, 2007 Once again, the headlines trumpet a budget deal for Michigan. Once again, though, lawmakers have left critical decisions on the table.
Meeting through the night Tuesday,
legislators did put together most of a 2008 budget that
called for more than $400 million in cuts or spending
reductions. Paired with an income tax increase and a sales
tax extension, the cuts allow Michigan to pretty much cover
its bills for another year. That's small potatoes, though, compared to the huge budget decisions dodged by the Capitol crowd; decisions headlined by the future of the state Department of Corrections. Michigan now spends about one in every five general fund dollars on this department. Since 1980, per capita corrections spending has gone from $18 to $177, according to the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. One in three state employees works for the Corrections Department. Prisons are not the only major spending account for Michigan. Community health (read Medicaid), higher education (universities and community colleges) and public schools are big, too. And the pressure on all these accounts is for more spending, either to cover rising costs or to invest in services the voters have repeatedly endorsed. Yet, the 2008 budget deal hinges heavily on limits on education funding - 1 percent average increases for public schools, for community colleges, for universities. Such increases fall short of the inflation rate and can be called a disinvestment in education. How does that jibe with Michigan's needs, its priorities? The deal also includes the closure of two prisons and other trims within DOC. But compare these two numbers: • Fiscal year 2007 general funds for corrections: $1.872 billion. • Fiscal year 2008 general funds for corrections: $1.997 billion. That's a $125 million increase in a single year, part of a long trend of Michigan spending an increasing share of its limited dollars on incarceration. The state cannot sustain this course, not with a battered economy, empty reserves and growing demands for more help on education and health care. There's no shortage of ideas for changing Michigan's corrections policies. Some argue that savings are best found in privatizing support services (go to www.mackinac.org. for more on that). Others target the huge gap in incarceration rates between Michigan and its neighbors (go to www.capps-mi.org for specifics along this line). But the ideas are getting subsumed in the political rhetoric, such as the fear-fanning claims this year in response to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposals to alter some criminal sentencing rules. These partisan clashes get Michigan nowhere. What's needed now is an in-depth, bipartisan, top-to-bottom review of how DOC operates and what Michigan needs from it. If other states have found ways to incarcerate more efficiently, copy them here. But with that must come some acceptance, by all parties, that Michigan cannot be the imprisonment capital of the Midwest, with more than 50,000 prisoners at an average cost of $30,000 per year. Without that acceptance, both major parties leave themselves pointed at failure. Without significant savings from corrections, there can't be further investments in education unless taxes go higher or other basic government functions are all but gutted. Unless the two parties can get together on corrections reform, there's zero chance that Michigan will escape the cycle of structural deficits and annual budget standoffs.
That's the challenge for 2008 - a challenge
for lawmakers and voters alike.
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