Michigan's broken legacy

Tim Bradshaw knew he was entering a working world much different from that of his parents when he accepted a job more than 2 years ago with the City of Kentwood. Unlike many of his older coworkers, he would not earn credit toward a guaranteed monthly retirement check, and “my wife and I just assume […]

Tell us how cities can reduce worker retirement costs So you’ve read Bridge’s fairly terrifying report about how Michigan cities and towns have failed to fund employees’ pension and health-care plans, sometimes ignoring the problem for decades. The result: billions of dollars in unfunded retirement obligations across the state. Add to that crumbling infrastructure, dwindling […]

They are the exceptions, but leaders in a handful of Michigan cities and towns foresaw the financial crisis that would overwhelm their communities if they didn’t begin setting aside enough money to pay the pensions and health insurance they promised workers when they retired. “It took about 10 years to figure this out,” said Eric […]

Not long after Robert Daddow came to work for Oakland County 20 years ago, a couple of elected officials suggested the county should stop setting aside money for its retirees’ health insurance. No law required Michigan’s local governments to prefund the health care plans promised to retirees, so why pay for something now that you […]

Michigan native Kate McEnroe travels the country helping companies decide where to locate new manufacturing plants and offices. Firms typically weigh factors like access to transportation and customers, land and wage costs and the skill level of the labor pool. But one combination can be a deal-killer: high taxes and low quality of life. “If […]

It is unfair to expect Flint’s current residents to bear the full brunt of the city’s legacy costs, which were incurred when the city’s population was twice its current level, Mayor Dayne Walling said. When Patty Tokar’s husband, Steve, retired from Flint’s sewer department in 1996, the couple figured they wouldn’t collect a large pension, […]

Kalkaska resident Virginia Thomas: “When we retired, we thought we had health care until we died.” (photo by Ted Roelofs) KALKASKA -Seated at her kitchen table, Virginia Thomas confessed she is less trusting than she used to be. Thomas, 75, worked nearly 30 years for the rural northern Michigan Village of Kalkaska, serving as everything […]

Back in the 1950s, when Detroit’s automobile industry ruled, few gave much thought to the long-term price of fringe benefits like pensions or retiree health care. The post-World War II auto boom was a model of modern manufacturing, creating jobs from Detroit and its suburbs to cities like Flint and Saginaw. Factories hummed around the […]

A decade of recession hit one region – southeast Michigan – harder than anywhere else. So perhaps it’s no surprise unfunded pension and retiree health-care debt is concentrated there as well, in a long list of cities that extends well beyond Detroit or Flint. Southeast Michigan is responsible for a staggering 86 percent of the […]