Senate Fiscal Agency: Dismantling school employee retirement system will cost $1.6B

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016

LANSING — The Senate Fiscal Agency today testified in the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that a proposal to dismantle the school employee retirement system would cost the state $1.6B to $3.8B over five years, as reported by the Detroit Free Press today.

“Dismantling the school employee retirement system would cost taxpayers billions of dollars and would hurt kids and local schools in the process,” said Doug Pratt, Director of Public Affairs with the Michigan Education Association. “Ramming through this legislation in the final days of the legislature is utterly irresponsible, especially when so many fiscal experts are warning lawmakers about the negative financial consequences of this reckless proposal. We need to have a transparent, public debate about this issue, and lame duck is not the time for such a debate, especially when independent fiscal experts are sounding the alarm bells about the staggering price tag for taxpayers.”