By Staff
It seems hard to believe that broke Michigan selected now to build a new $39.7 million, five-story state police headquarters for 560 employees in downtown Lansing.
"It's like our bridge to nowhere," Sen. Cameron Brown, R-Sturgis, who used to represent part of Cass County in the state House, commented Dec. 18. "People are actually offended by this project."
Some of them might be state police employees who remember earlier this year when Lansing couldn't find operating dollars to increase trooper strength.
Last spring, the Michigan State Police Troopers Association donated almost $400,000 to the state to spare 39 troopers from layoff.
Troopers had to restrict the number of miles they drove through late July to help save money for their department, which also came close to closing forensic labs in Sterling Heights and Marquette.
"We've got a state that is in a condition of profound economic decline, state government that's broke … and it's incurring huge new costs? The rationale just doesn't appear to hold water," commented Jack McHugh, legislative analyst for the Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank.
Though no payments will be due until the building's completion, anticipated in May 2009, the lease will cost $3.7 million a year for 25 years, or $92 million, then the state can own the building for $1.
However, the state is expected to buy the building a year after it opens, using bonds to retire a cost closer to $45 million, including $6 million for furniture, fixtures and equipment.
The new facility enables the department to consolidate operations from their separate locations.
The existing East Lansing state police headquarters appears cheap, thanks to a $1 annual payment to Michigan State University under a contract that runs through 2030.
But state officials who support the new building say the current headquarters is more than 70 years old, needs $340,000 a year to maintain and needs yet another $2.3 million in repairs to the roof and to heating and cooling systems.
Edward Woods, III, spokesman for the state Department of Management and Budget, said the new building is further a good deal for the state because the no-bid contract requires any cost overruns to be borne by developers, while the state reaps any savings.
One eyebrow-raising aspect is that developer Joel Ferguson, a longtime MSU trustee and Democratic National Committee member, is a political contributor to Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
He points out that he also is a donor to Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mitt Romney in the White House race.
"This has nothing to do with that," Ferguson told The Associated Press. "This was the right time to build a building because you put people to work" – 540 construction-related jobs, according to Woods.
To see Michigan spend money, one might never guess its supposed financial straits.
Gov. Granholm, at $177,000, is the third-highest-paid governor in the country, after California and New York.
Our legislators rank second at $79,650 in salary, plus $20,000 expense accounts, second only to California.
Funny how we don't have enough to pay our bills and the only answer is to pay more taxes, when our public servants are doing fine enough to build a new $39.7 million state police headquarters.
No wonder the part-time Legislature movement is catching fire. Taxpayers have a hard time rationalizing Michigan's mixed messages.