Monday, January 25, 2016 Board of Trustees @ 7 pm Bloomfield Township, MI
This meeting has another agenda item concerning the W&S transfer of funds into the Retired Employees Health Care Trust Fund. This time the agenda item is to amend the trust language again by adding 2 more trustees.
Even though there was an informal agreement to hold a study session in January 2016 to discuss this Fund, it appears that some on the Board have already met and made a plan. Someone has already made the language changes they want to the document/ presented that to the township/ got it approved to be part of this board packet/ and has already decided who should be the other two proposed trustees of the trust fund. Dan Devine is the Fiduciary Trustee of this fund at present. Was this the work of Attorney William Hampton? Who authorized or suggested the wording to be changed? Savoie? Board members? Would any discussion at the meeting make any difference to the outcome?
Nothing like open and transparent government. This is typical of this administration. It must end.
The vote will probably be 5-2 to approve. It should be 0 yes 7 no. The Savoie administration has changed this Fund where it is now segregating water and sewer employees from all other employees, collecting water and sewer fees to fund it. If this agenda passes at the Monday meeting, the "leadership" will compound the issue with 2 more people acting as Trustee of the Trust and more costs to the taxpayer and less money in the Fund for the retirees.
What I want to say is this: There is no need to add two more trustees to this fund. This is another personal decision and action by a group of people to continue their mission to "take out" Dan Devine.
This agenda proposal should be voted NO. No additional trustees should be or need to be added to this Fund.
My opinion.
Marcia
PS: view the audio/video of Board of Trustees Meetings
Here is an article from 1999.
Among the several provisions of Headlee is Article IX, Section 31 of the Constitution, which requires voter approval before a tax can be imposed or increased. In its 1994 report, the Headlee Amendment Blue Ribbon Commission found that a growing number of Michigan townships, counties, and cities were skirting the voter approval requirement by mislabeling certain taxes as "user fees." The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision may end that practice once and for all.
In 1995, the city of Lansing adopted Ordinance 925, known by many as the "rain tax." It provided for the creation of a storm water enterprise fund "to help defray the cost of the administration, operation, maintenance, and construction" of a new storm water system that would separate sanitary and storm sewers. Heavy rains had occasionally caused the city’s combined sanitary and storm sewer system to overflow, discharging untreated and partially treated sewage into the Grand and Red Cedar Rivers.
Half of the 30-year, $176 million cost of the system was to be financed through an annual "storm water service charge" imposed on each parcel of property in the city. The city maintained that the service charge was a user fee and therefore did not have to be put before the voters for approval.
But Lansing citizen Alexander Bolt had read the state constitution and knew a tax when he saw one. Bolt challenged the Lansing "rain tax," taking the case all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court, a majority of which on December 28, 1998, declared, "We hold that the storm water service charge is a tax, for which approval is required by a vote of the people. Because Lansing did not submit Ordinance 925 to a vote of the people as required by the Headlee Amendment, the storm water service charge is unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void."
The Court’s majority opinion refreshingly argues that "a primary rule in interpreting a constitutional provision . . . is the rule of ‘common understanding.’" In other words, in this case the intent of the voters should be of utmost importance, as opposed to some judicially activist fabrication. The Court affirmed that the voters intended to place limits on taxes and governmental expansion.
Just what exactly distinguishes a user fee from a tax? The Court advanced three main criteria: 1) a user fee is designed to defray the costs of a regulatory activity (or government service), while a tax is designed to raise general revenue; 2) a true user fee must be proportionate to the necessary costs of the service, whereas a tax may not be; and 3) a user fee is voluntary whereas a tax is not.
The Lansing ordinance failed all three tests of a user fee. The Court determined that it constituted "an investment in infrastructure as opposed to a fee designed simply to defray the costs of a regulatory activity" and agreed with the dissenting opinion in a lower court ruling that the revenue from the charge was "clearly in excess of the direct and indirect costs of actually using the storm water system." The Lansing rain tax applied "to all property owners, rather than only to those who actually benefit," contrary to a genuine user fee.
Most plainly, the rain tax was utterly involuntary. True user fees are only compulsory for those who choose to use a service, but Lansing property owners in this case had "no choice whether to use the service" and were "unable to control the extent to which the service" was used.
The Court’s majority concluded by quoting the Headlee commission report, "This is precisely the sort of abuse from which the Headlee Amendment was intended to protect taxpayers." Amen!
The message is clear to Michigan municipalities: You now have no legitimate excuses for mislabeling taxes as "user fees." Be honest. If it’s a tax, put it before the voters as the Headlee Amendment requires, and make your best case. You can’t ignore the Constitution just because you need the money.
So are the "right to serve" water and sewer fees a tax as they are not proportionate to the cost of service?
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