Michigan residents say Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has failed to keep her campaign promise to fix the state’s roads, according to a recent poll done by EPIC-MRA.

“It is a near unanimous opinion that Michigan roads and bridges are in terrible condition, with 93% offering a negative rating of just fair (28%) or poor (65%), and only 6% offering a positive rating,” EPIC-MRA stated in a press release. The poll was conducted May 11-17 and has a margin of error of four percentage points.

The condition of state’s trunkline roads, which consists of state highways, federal highways and interstates, has seen a slight improvement from 2010-11 to 2020-21, according to the report of the state Transportation Asset Management Council that evaluates roads.

The portion of highways in “good” condition has increased from 19% to 25% over that 10-year span and the share of roads in “bad” condition have decreased from 34% to 33%.

Michigan spent $2.0 billon on roads in 2011. In 2019, when Whitmer took office, the state boosted spending on roads to $3.6 billion. About 38% of that increase in funding came from a tax hike on fuel and increased vehicle registration fees, enacted in 2015.

In 2019 Whitmer proposed a road improvement plan that consisted of a 45-cent per gallon increase in the fuel tax, which would have collected an additional $2.5 billion a year in revenue. But when she submitted an executive budget proposal that year, it allocated just $1.9 billion of the increased tax revenue to roads, with the remaining $600 million to be spent elsewhere.

AAA Michigan reports the cost of gas in Michigan on June 6 at $5.05 per gallon. Had the governor’s 45-cent increase become law, the figure would have been $5.62 a gallon. But no legislator, including her fellow Democrats, introduced a bill to enact the increase.

When the 45-cent proposal received no traction in the Legislature, Whitmer’s next plan was to borrow $3.5 billion for roads. A top-rated municipal bond of 20 years is currently paying interest of about 3%. The cost of debt depends on its timing and structure. If the state were to borrow $3.5 billion all at once at current rates, the interest payments over 20 years would be $1.15 billion.

The poll was commissioned by the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association, an industry trade group of companies engaged in public works projects, including road construction.

A Michigan newspaper reported that teachers’ salaries have not kept pace with the high cost of living or the available in other fields of labor. This has created a teacher shortage, the newspaper stated:

“Consequently many teachers have left the profession and gone into other work of various kinds because they could make more money,” the publication reported. “Frequently the best teachers are the ones who have left the profession because they have been able to command exceptional salaries elsewhere.”

That article was published April 16, 1920, in the Charlevoix County Herald.

The debate over pay for public school teachers in Michigan is more than 100 years old. And the talking points have remained the same.

Last year, WXMI-TV produced a story about a teacher shortage and low pay for educators.

The article quoted Blake Mazurek, a teacher at the Grandville Public School District who is also a board member of the Michigan Education Association and president of the Grandville teachers union local.

“I knew I wasn't going to be rich like Bill Gates, right. But I also knew that there were going to be other benefits to the job beyond the actual teaching itself. But for to care for my family with insurance or a pension and things like this, which are, in some cases much diminished compared to 20 years ago, for new incoming teachers and all, you know, take those things in combination. It makes the profession potentially less attractive for individuals looking to follow the path,” Mazurek said in the story.

Mazurek received $85,073 from his school district in 2020-21. News stories about claims of teacher shortages and low pay rarely if ever explore what would constitute reasonable expectations for compensation in a public school system. A survey of current and past pay levels suggests that Michigan’s teachers are more highly paid today than their predecessors.

The Livingston County Daily Press and Argus reported in June 1934 that the average teacher salary in Michigan in 1932-33 was $1,027.66. Adjusted for inflation, it translates to $21,705 in 2021 dollars. That was in the middle of the Great Depression.

The Lansing State Journal reported in December 1959 that the average teacher salary in Michigan was $5,500, the fifth-highest state in the country. That pay becomes $52,156 in 2021 dollars when adjusted for inflation.

The average teacher salary in 2020-21 for Michigan teachers was $64,237, according to the Michigan Department of Education.

Michigan school districts also provide generous health insurance and other fringe benefits. School employees hired before February 2018 are eligible for a traditional defined benefit pension. For example, a teacher who worked 30 years at Troy Public Schools and received the $98,300 pay specified as the top of the local union scale would receive an annual pension of $44,200.

The state overhauled its pension system in 2017, after years of underfunding by past officials. By then the Michigan Public Schools Employees Retirement System’s pension fund was $24.2 billion short of the amount actuaries project will be necessary to meet its pension promises to employees. A new system that began in 2018 provides generous employer contributions (up to 7% of salary) to individual 401(k) retirement savings accounts.