Who writes this stuff over at Detroit News?

Talk to Bouchard before raising taxes

Talk to Bouchard before raising taxes Oakland sheriff has ideas to cut budget without slashing services W hen opponents of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposal to raise taxes urge covering the shortfall by taking a different approach to doing business in Michigan, it's not always clear what they mean. So Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard provides a few specific examples. His county jail, with 2,000 inmates, contracts with a private company to provide inmate meals. The savings over paying county employees to cook and serve meals is $1.2 million a year, Bouchard says. The state has 51,000 inmates in its prisons. If the savings Oakland County achieves can be duplicated at the state level, Michigan could cut more than $40 million from its prison food service bill. Oakland County also privatized pharmaceutical services for inmates for an annual savings of $440,000. Again, adopting that idea for the state corrections system could save $12 million or more. Bouchard also projects that contracting out the State Police dispatch system could save $500,000 a year, allowing more troopers to stay on the highways. Just a few ideas, but they add up to a potential savings of more than $50 million. That's just in one department. If Bouchard's approach to operating government in a more creative and efficient way were applied across the state budget, there's no telling how much money could be saved. But we'd love for the state to find out. Other sources have offered additional ideas for cutting the budget without devastating state government. The governor, however, seems locked to an either/or choice: Either raise taxes or slash critical services. Granholm insists that it's not possible to erase the $800 million deficit through budget cuts. But she can't say for sure, because she hasn't approached the problem the way Bouchard recommends. State taxpayers might be a lot more comfortable with the idea of raising taxes if they were certain that their leaders had explored every other avenue for balancing the budget. As Bouchard demonstrates, they haven't done that yet.