Crain's Detroit Business - December 19, 2011 - (Page 4)

Page 4 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS December 19, 2011 St. John: Land purchase ‘strategic’ ■ From Page 3 Bill: Schools urge veto ■ From Page 1 Center, said Sister Theresa Peck, administrator of the Daughters of Charity’s Mater Dei-Seton complex in Evansville, Ind. The center operated from 1929 until 2006, when it closed the orphanage after a state decision to stop funding residential programs for children. As reported by Crain’s in 2006, Novi-based Whitehall Real Estate Interests had agreed to acquire the property, but the deal fell through. Subsequent offers also fell through for lack of financing, said Peck, who was involved in the sale as former treasurer of the organization’s east-central province, which oversaw the Michigan property. “You get to a point where you don’t want to be a slum landlord from a distant state,” she said. Daughters of Charity had invested $500,000-$600,000 over the past six years to maintain the property, including continued payment of electrical and heating and cooling, she said. It also put up fencing to protect the historic buildings from vandalism. “It’s in excellent condition, considering it hasn’t been used in six years,” Peck said. The new owner has a historical link to the site as well, given that Providence, now part of St. John Providence Health and its parent, Ascension Health, were originally founded by Daughters of Charity. Sherri Welch: (313) 446-1694, swelch@crain.com. Twitter: @sherriwelch Fisher Center returns to roots BY SHERRI WELCH CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS After vacating its longtime home in Farmington Hills and getting out of the orphanage and foster care business, St. Vincent Sara Fisher Center has returned to Detroit and the mission it was founded on 160 years ago: providing education to at-risk children. The center is providing customized tutoring after school and during the summer to help children overcome issues with comprehension and concentration so they can do better in school. It’s also providing GED tutoring for their parents and other adults, from space at three Detroit-based nonprofits: Focus: Hope, Neighborhood Service Organization and TWW & Associates. The big focus now in metro Detroit is on improving educational quality, said Diane Renaud, executive director of the center. But to do that, “you have to attack the problem of generational deficiencies in education,” because parents who didn’t complete high school can’t provide for their families, get a job or do homework with their children, said Renaud. She brings 25 years of experience in nonprofit and marketing management for organizations including DMC Children’s Hospital of Michigan and BBDO Detroit. Last year, the center raised just $200,000 toward its $800,000 budget and made up the difference from its unrestricted en- dowment — which was $7 million at the beginning of 2011 and is roughly $7.5 million now — as it has for the past several years. This year, the organization has operated on a budget of about $700,000, raising about $150,000 of that, Renaud said. “Ever since the organization was required to change what it was doing, fundraising kind of (fell) to a standstill … We need to re-energize what has been a stagnant donor base.” St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center most recently served as a residential/foster care agency for children. In 2006, it closed its residential campus due to elimination of state funding. Rather than cease operating, the center’s board of directors made a decision to return to its roots. The center works with about 220 adults and roughly 40 children at any given time. Last week Renaud hired a development director to add to eight full-time and four part-time employees. She plans to add more staff as funds become available. St. Vincent Sarah Fisher Center may have to appeal to a new generation of donors, namely those whose parents supported the center in the past, said John Fike, president of Philanthropy Solutions LLC in Ypsilanti. That has to be done one person or family at a time, and it could very well be a long road back. But it’s worth pursuing, Fike said. Schuette: Don’t rush insurance bill ■ From Page 3 ance exchange. His press secretary, Sara Wurfel, said he still supports that initiative, but he will sign the supplemental funding bill even without the allocation for the federal planning grant. “Because a couple of matters within the supplemental (spending bill) were very time-sensitive things that were important to (the administration), he will go forward with signing it,” she said. The states have until Jan. 1, 2013, to demonstrate progress toward creating an exchange for implementation on Jan. 1, 2014, or Washington could force them to participate in one federally operated. That leaves plenty of time, Schuette said. Some of the federal grants to help fund the insurance exchanges don’t get appropriated until mid-2013. “That (2013) is the latest that the grant applications have to be submitted,” Schuette said. “I would advise my colleagues to do whatever they have to do before 2012 is over, but there is no need to rush into doing something right now when circumstances may change.” Schuette’s office is one of 26 attorneys general nationwide to join in a constitutional challenge to the health care act, asking the courts to decide whether Congress has the power to require people to buy insurance or face penalties under its individual mandate provisions. The Supreme Court is expected to take oral arguments in March and could issue a ruling by the summer. No exchange may be needed, Schuette argues, if the court strikes down some or all of the act or if a new president in 2013 has a different agenda for health care. Schuette is also Michigan campaign chairman for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “The governor’s view is that the (exchange planning grant) matter wasn’t quite as urgent as those other items, so it will wait and we can revisit it again after the first of the year,” Wurfel said. It was unclear how long Michigan has to allocate the grant funds before it loses them. Wurfel said the spending bill also includes funds for an educator effectiveness council, convened earlier this month to complete a report by April on criteria for teacher effectiveness, as well as reallocating money from other agencies to the Department of Ed- ucation for the Office of the Great Start, an early childhood educational initiative by Snyder. Executive Director Rick Murdock of the Michigan Association of Health Plans in Lansing said the timelines under the federal law and the logistical hurdles to creating a state insurance exchange create some urgency to get started. “Ramping up for any large program of this nature takes months, even years, to develop,” he said. Considering those challenges, Murdock said, waiting even for a Supreme Court ruling in summer could cost valuable time. “Many would argue, if you hold to the timelines that are in play under federal law, we may already be too late,” he said. Wurful added that the governor understands his differences with Schuette on the issue. “The governor is still committed to having Michigan be able to control its own destiny in (the exchange markets) rather than have the feds do it for us,” she said. “They (Snyder and Schuette) still have a good working relationship.” Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796, chalcom@crain.com. Twitter: @chadhalcom damage efforts to compete with private schools that offer domestic partner benefits as they seek to attract and retain faculty. “The University of Michigan must be able to offer an excellent benefit package to our employees and to those we hope to recruit to UM for their unique talents, skills and expertise,” UM President Mary Sue Coleman wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, last month. “The loss of our ability to offer such benefits would put the university, and our state, at a serious disadvantage compared to peers.” Lawyers in Snyder’s administration likely will decide what happens next. But if Snyder signs the bill as is, it may end in costly litigation. Len Niehoff, chairman of the higher education practice at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LP in Ann Arbor and professor at the UM law school, said university autonomy, protected in the state Niehoff constitution, will be used to fight the ban. Constitutional autonomy provides all of Michigan’s four-year institutions the ability to vest management and maintain financial control in the governing board, not in the Legislature, Niehoff said. “Autonomy was created to insulate state universities from the whims of politics,” he said. “There’s historical reason for this, as universities didn’t fare well under legislative control.” UM was granted constitutional autonomy in 1850 by creating a governing board, making it the first institution in the country to achieve that status. UM was granted autonomy “after many years of political interference in the operation of the university, including legislative and gubernatorial involvement in the selection and removal of the faculty,” according to a study by the California Higher Education Policy Center. Universities are, under the constitution, allowed to spend funds in any way the institutions see fit, including domestic partner benefits. The Michigan Supreme Court also has a history of upholding autonomy granted by the constitution. In a 1911 case, Board of Regents of the University of Michigan v. Auditor General, the Supreme Court ruled that universities have “the highest form of juristic person known to the law, a constitutional corporation of independent authority, which, within the scope of its functions, is coordinate with and equal to that of the legislature.” “Universities have decided that this (using funds to offer domestic partner benefits) is a good investment because it helps with recruiting and puts these universities on even footing with private institutions,” Niehoff said. “It’s exactly this kind of decision the principal of autonomy is designed to protect.” Ed Begale, assistant vice chancellor for governmental relations at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said the state’s universities would likely take the issue to court, saying Agema and other legislators are willing to damage recruitment for ideology. “Cutting us 15 percent in our operating budget is one thing, but then telling us we have to socially engineer who we have to recruit and offer benefits is outrageous,” he said. But Agema said universities are operating against a 2004 amendment banning same-sex marriage. “They basically have hidden behind the clause that they have autonomy,” he said. “We (the state) appropriate money, and they say we can’t tell them what to do with it. If they think they are above the law, they aren’t.” Boulus said the outcry by the Legislature is also over a relatively minor fringe benefit, from a budgeting perspective. As of July, only 93 people, including dependents, are enrolled in the domestic partner benefits at Michigan State University, to the tune of $370,000, according to the Lansing State Journal. A university official who wanted to remain anonymous said, “The vast majority of operating budgets don’t come from the state,” the source said. “The few dollars spent on these benefits are coming from tuition fees or housing, but they (government) can’t say that it comes from state appropriations.” Wurfel said Snyder will have a decision made by the Dec. 27 deadline. Domestic partner benefits are “most certainly a recruitment tool,” said Daniel Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “World-renowned institutions like the UM and MSU … are competing on an international playing field,” he said. Lots of top professors, administrators and researchers have options on where to go with their skills and abilities, within public or private higher education, Hurley said. The cost associated with offering domestic partner benefits is extremely minimal, he said, since on many public college and university campuses the number of employees electing the benefits is often in the single digits. “I have not seen any legislation in any of the states in recent years going in (this) direction,” said Hurley, a Michigan native. “This would stand out in the country as a backwards, anti-progressive policy move that I think would shine a pretty negative light on Michigan.” A 2011 survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources found the percentage of responding institutions offering health care benefits for same sex and opposite sex partners increased for the fifth straight year, rising to 56 percent and 43 percent respectively. Dustin Walsh: (313) 446-6042, dwalsh@crain.com. Twitter: @dustinpwalsh Sherri Welch contributed to this story.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Detroit Business - December 19, 2011

Crain's Detroit Business - December 19, 2011