By Nick Smith
Staff Writer
Posted: December 8, 2017 3:32 PM

Call it a missed opportunity on municipal retirement system changes. Call it a fair treatment for first-responders who risk their lives every day. A first step in finding a solution. Or even accepting political reality.

Depending on who you talk to, this week’s overnight session in which Republican leadership in both chambers removed a controversial enforcement measure from a proposed municipal retirement package and replaced it with the content of a task force report can be seen in a number of ways.

A few things were made clear after leadership realized they did not have anywhere near the votes for enacting a process, pushed by Governor Rick Snyder, to allow more state intervention in underfunded community retirement benefit systems.

The controversial final step of what was originally proposed, to enable the use of a financial management team – similar to an emergency manager – with broad local budget authority to make changes if retirement funds were not being funded adequately, was not politically feasible.

From the beginning it was known there would be no Democratic support unless the legislation mirrored the task force report.

For Republicans, there are a number of caucus members in both chambers that could have been put in an awkward position to vote on what was the original proposal given the vehement opposition by police fire fighters, both rank-and-file and management. Their caucus has a member in each chamber running for the party’s nod for attorney general. A gubernatorial candidate. Some members are weighing runs for higher office such as Congress as well as many running for re-election. Others still have backgrounds in the very professions they sought to legislate.

Voting for something that could have, arguably, negatively affected health care and pensions for those who protect the public each day likely would have been a major problem.

Police and fire fighters fall in a nonpartisan category, like members of the military, in which politicians are virtually always supportive of, want to be seen as supportive of and to have their political support. They are an important, powerful constituency to have on your side in elections.

Making broad sweeping changes to the benefits of public safety officers, who may be one’s neighbors or friends, is also more difficult politically than justifying changes to pensions for, say, teachers. Educators and educator groups have significant sway as well. However, educators, more so in recent years, tend not to enjoy nearly the same level of positive public perception granted to police and fire fighters. Unlike the municipal employee retirement bills, potentially stronger changes to teacher benefits did pass earlier this year.

What passed may have been a missed opportunity, or as Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) put it, “a few first downs” rather than a touchdown.

Following the task force report, despite no enforcement mechanism with teeth, was an obvious first step.

Should the municipal employee retirement benefit situation worsen, however, despite the bills passed this week, public safety officers may find themselves facing a similar, or what they might argue worse, solution staring them in the face in the future.