With summaries from both legislative fiscal agencies saying a measure allowing public school employees to get more pension if they retire would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to the retirement system, Rep. Fred Miller (D-Mount Clemens), sponsor of the bill, said the Legislature should invest the next two weeks to see if the measure is doable or ready to be classified as dead.

Mr. Miller made his comments during a meeting of the House Appropriations Investigations, Intergovernmental and Oversight Subcommittee on February 26.
His bill, HB 4285, is assigned to the House Education Committee, but Appropriations chair Rep. George Cushingberry Jr. (D-Detroit) brought the issue up because he's asking the fiscal agency to assess the cost of providing a retirement incentive for all government employees.

There is some concern that keeping the proposal alive for too long without it really going anywhere will prompt school employees to hold of retiring to see if they can get the pension boost included in the bill. That was one of the issues brought up as the Senate Education Committee took testimony on its bill (SB 255) last week

The Michigan Education Association, which is leading the effort to get the bills passed, has questioned the estimated costs to the retirement system because they are based on a five-year smoothing process, but the costs could be spread out over a longer period of time.

Source: Gongwer News Service, 2.26.09