Triplett: Vilifying public employees is wrong approach
East Lansing an example of how partnership with workers can be successful
Nathan Triplett
For the Lansing State Journal
In Michigan, we are often reminded of the various hunting seasons that are a treasured part of our heritage – deer season, wild turkey season, etc. Unfortunately, legislators have added another hunt: an open season on public employees, the hard-working men and women who serve our communities.
Legislators would have you believe that public employees are the problem. They argue that public sector workers earn more than their private sector counterparts. That claim is simply untrue. The preponderance of credible, nonpartisan studies of relative compensation clearly show that when education, skills, and credentials are taken into account, public sector pay and benefits lag behind similarly situated private sector employees.
For example, a study conducted in 2008 by the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency concluded that “Michigan state employees with college degrees tend to earn appreciably less than their counterparts in the private sector” and that “(t)he difference in earnings between Michigan state employees and private-sector employees grows significantly as the level of educational attainment rises.” This study is by no means an outlier. Its results were substantially confirmed in studies by MSU economist Charles Ballard in 2009, by a team of University of Wisconsin economists in 2010, and in a study by the Economic Policy Institute released only days ago.
Public employees are vital to the solutions that will put Michigan back on the road to prosperity. My experience as a member of the East Lansing City Council has been that when asked to help find innovate solutions to our financial challenges, our employees rise to the occasion. Many of the reforms being advocated by the Legislature have been standard operating procedure in East Lansing.
More than 15 years ago, we stopped making promises of health care upon retirement for most new hires. More than a decade ago, we began substituting defined-contribution retirement plans for more costly defined-benefit plans. Nearly 10 years ago, we created a Health Care Task Force to control the rapidly escalating costs. The group has held our annual increase in health care costs to 3.5 percent – less than a third of the national rate of health care inflation.
We issued a challenge to city employees and they delivered. These changes required real sacrifices by city employees. At a time when Gov. Rick Snyder is calling for “shared sacrifice” to address Michigan’s ailments, the public employees who stepped to the plate to innovate in East Lansing should be praised, not pilloried. Moreover, the wholesale indictment of local governments as backward and inefficient detracts from the many communities that follow the same best practices as the private sector.
These are tough times for Michigan. We must leave no stone unturned as we work to put our fiscal house in order. But taxpayers deserve a frank debate about sensible reforms based on accurate information. Vilifying public employees and local governments based on bad data is a disservice. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work on real solutions – and stop making dedicated, hard-working public employees out to be public enemy No. 1.
Additional Facts
Nathan Triplett is a member of the East Lansing City Council.
