By Simon Haddad
At a time when taxpayers in Clinton Township can least afford it, the Clinton Township Board is considering more cuts in services and increases in fees and taxation to fund lavish contracts and fringe benefit packages for its employees. This is nothing new – it happens in communities across the State. But that doesn’t make it right.
After attending every strategic planning meeting the Township put on its agenda, several taxpayers, including me, offered suggestions as to how the Township can balance its budget without cuts in services and without making our children and grandchildren indentured servants. Even many Township employees themselves are frustrated by the apparent lack of direction the Board has taken. These employees understand that they need to restructure their wage and benefit programs for their own good. The lavish pensions as currently offered are unsustainable and they know it. Yet they do not have the strength to stand against a small minority of union leaders, negotiators and Township Board members who serve special interests and not the Taxpayers.
Currently, the Clinton Township Firefighters are operating with an expired contract. The Board is looking at making the “tough decisions” necessary. The problem is they are completely evading making the RIGHT decisions for the taxpayers and are catering to 99 firefighters at the expense of thousands of taxpayers. Suggestions have been made to adopt a volunteer fire department like the one used in Troy, MI. That suggestion was dismissed without consideration or discussion. Yet the Board says they are at the mercy of the union when there are several other possible solutions. They selectively hide behind laws that support their scheme while ignoring others that can set things right.
The Township needlessly overpays retirees with excessively high pension multipliers when state law only mandates multipliers that are less than half their current benefit levels. This is a work in progress and the more citizens know, the harder it will become for government to get away with these sleight-of-hand abuses of taxpayer dollars. Join the fight for your future and stay tuned.
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I have no problem extending a contract to firefighters to include their benefits unless it is out of proportion of most government jobs. Let’s take a look at our representatives and senators whose benefits are quite generous compared to ordinary citizens. Any government employee (legislative, postal, education, etc) should not be entitled to more than the majority of Americans get. I’m very tired of paying for my government and teachers to have much more than I, a college graduate and non-union worker have. There are no equities in life but one way to make it appear less inequitable is for our officials to think more of the average citizen than him (her) self. It’s another example of Marie Antoinette’s attitude of ‘let THEM eat cake!’.