The Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, is set to unveil a legislative plan today that will create a burden-shifting incentive for older teachers to retire by actually increasing pensions for retiring workers.

The Muskegon-based Education Action Group is critical of the plan because it does nothing more than shift--and increase--the financial burden at a time when we can least afford it.

While the MEA trumpets the alleged savings for school districts, the MEA plan says nothing about the added cost to the state or where the extra revenue is coming from to pay for the scheme.

"They're taking the lead weight out of the front pocket of taxpayers and putting it in their back one.  At some point, taxpayers are still going to be caught with their pants down," said Kyle Olson, vice president of EAG.

As the state is grappling with steep declines in the auto industry, a shrinking tax base and revenues, high home foreclosures, stagnant private-sector income, and continued stock market volatility, leave it to the MEA to continue devising ways of squeezing more out of the public system.

"The MEA has yet to demonstrate a real willingness to conserve taxpayer resources unless it somehow directly benefits them," Olson said.

We fear this is the MEA's way of "saving" money for schools so to ease the burden on other areas of the budget, most noticeably health care benefits.

By doing so, the MEA is decreasing the need to seek health insurance savings, thus preserving business for MESSA, an insurer which is owned and controlled by the union.

Is this a legislative plan devised by legislators or a special interest group that elected them?

Reform-minded legislators need to look at this plan with increased scrutiny to assess the additional burden to the already stressed state budget, as well as decipher who--or what organization--exactly stands to benefit from such a plan.