By Staff
CASSOPOLIS – We received a lot of good information for participating in Cass County's Community Conversation June 10 at the Edward Lowe Foundation's Billieville.
Michigan's total state government budget amounted to $41.9 billion in fiscal year 2006-2007, including taxes collected from businesses and individuals and great gobs of money passed through from our Uncle Sam at the federal government in Washington.
It's the equivalent of $11,064 from each household in Michigan.
About 90 percent of the $11,064 from each household goes to six types of spending: school aid, $3,459; community health, $2,948; human services, $1,179; transportation, $909; corrections, $512; and higher education, $472.
The remaining 10 percent of the budget pie is sliced up between a bewildering array of other spending categories: agriculture, $27; attorney general, $14; capital outlay, $57; civil rights, $4; civil service, $8; community colleges, $77; education department, $24; environmental quality, $109; Clean Michigan Initiative, $4; executive branch, $1; history, arts and libraries, $14; judiciary, $68; labor and economic growth, $319; Legislature, $35; management and budget, $85; military and veterans affairs, $32; natural resources, $75; Department of State, $49; state police, $144; debt service, $26; Department of Treasury, $99; local government revenue sharing, $293; and strategic fund, $21.
There seemed to be consensus around the table that Michigan can no longer afford to be all things to all people and needs to pare spending to what it does well. Its property tax system is broken and relies on non-residents to fund our schools. Michigan might need a progressive income tax and a broader sales tax, some suggested.
The first time we turned to our clickers, 26 percent of these 23 disparate county voices decided the top priority should be clear taxing and spending policies.
There also seemed to be broad agreement that term limits are bad, a mere crutch for complacent voters to avoid learning the issues and the people who want to represent them. Or haven't you noticed that all the term-limited House members are gearing up their Senate campaigns?
So many of these 23 are in education or came out of education, they weren't here to bash the jobs the schools are doing, but to point out that schools reflect society at large and they don't have the resources to raise children and educate them, too, for absent parents.
Two of the best solutions wouldn't cost anything: finding a way for every child to be read to before bedtime and families to eat their evening meal together.
Michigan residents greatly desire bipartisan problem-solving, but do not see clear evidence that Democrats and Republicans work together in Lansing, according to a statewide survey conducted for the Center for Michigan in winter 2008 by the Michigan State University Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.
How much do you think Republican and Democratic state lawmakers are working together to find solutions to state problems and challenges?: 44 percent, some; 40 percent, only a little; 11 percent, not at all; 5 percent, quite a bit.
I was kind of dismayed, however, at the disconnect between where our government leaders see the importance of renewable energy to Michigan's economy compared to the much lower opinion of our county leaders, although they didn't seem very informed about what's out there, either.
Our Congressman Fred Upton gets beat up pretty good for advocating a package that includes nuclear power, but the top Republican on the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in April also listed wind and solar as "an important part of the solution as we seek to reduce carbon emissions" and combat climate change.
"The potential for renewable wind energy in southwest Michigan is great – not only for our local energy supply, but for our local economy as well. Wind turbines throughout southwest Michigan will not only power our communities, they will help power our local economic engine and create jobs."
Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC) launches its 26-week program to train the coming generation of wind energy technicians when fall semester starts.
Among the chief instructional tools will be the 145-foot, 50-kilowatt, commercial-sized wind turbine that towers over KVCC's Texas Township campus and a 1.8-kilowatt model designed for residential purposes.
A wind-turbine lab in KVCC's nearby Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC) will also be part of the learning equation.
Through courses in applied electricity, electrical machines, programmable logic controllers, fluid power, the operations, maintenance and repair of wind turbines, the mechanical systems in these turbines and the generation of distribution of power, students will be introduced to the technical standards in the industry.
KVCC and Western Michigan University are collaborating to develop a Wind Energy Center to help create jobs and foster the creation of start-up businesses involved in various aspects of producing energy from wind, including manufacturers, designers, distributors and repair companies.
The Granholm administration last week credited the green energy push for 23,000 new jobs – "one of the few bright spots for the state's economy," which has been shedding manufacturing jobs for a decade.
Because of national exposure, some 430 people in just about every state – including one from Great Britain who learned of the training opportunity through a Reuters dispatch – inquired about gaining entry in the inaugural academy class of 15. The fee is $12,000.