By John Lindstrom
Posted: July 15, 2024 9:11 PM

Former Michigan Treasurer Douglas Roberts said once in an interview he wanted to be remembered as "a good public servant."

Roberts was in fact a matchless public servant, playing a critical role in almost all of Michigan's leading fiscal and financial positions from the 1970s into the 21st century, and in developing most of the state's critical revenue and tax decisions that have guided Michigan's financial path for nearly 50 years.

Roberts, 76, died Thursday. He had pancreatic cancer.

Roberts twice served as the state's treasurer, he was deputy budget director under two governors – and joked it was his son who finally got the job he really wanted as THE state budget director – he directed Treasury's Office of Revenue and Tax Analysis, he was the very first State Employer, in the 1980s he was director of the Senate Fiscal Agency, he was deputy superintendent of the Department of Education and he was a top aide to the Michigan House's Taxation Committee chair, Rep. George Montgomery (himself also a legendary fiscal giant).

When Roberts retired from state government – to lead the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University – he continued serving the state for many years as chair of the State Tax Commission/p>

And he also served eight years (two of them as chair) on the Northern Michigan University Board of Trustees.

He served with five governors: William Milliken, Jim Blanchard, John Engler, Jennifer Granholm and Rick Snyder.

Roberts' family was immersed in public service, and that influence inspired him to public service as well. He could have easily pursued a high-income career in finance, and for a very brief period, he did. In the 1990s, he left the state treasurer's post to work at Lockheed Martin in Washington, D.C. After two years, making more money than he ever had before, Engler asked him to return as state treasurer.

He did return because, as he once said, "I thought I could make a difference."

A lifelong Republican, Roberts' reputation for complete, honest, unvarnished counsel meant he was thoroughly and unquestionably trusted by both legislative Democrats and Republicans in proposing and explaining various tax and finance issues. For example, during the 1970s, when the state was debating a new business tax to be called the Single Business Tax, Roberts helped oversee the measure passing the House. Though a Republican, Roberts was the one majority Senate Democrats wanted in their caucus room to explain the SBT, and assess possible amendments to it, when it was the senators turn to pass it.

In fact, when Engler was elected governor in 1990 and asked Roberts to be treasurer, Roberts said he would take the post on one condition: he would not raise money for Engler's campaigns. Roberts said working with large financial companies on the state's investments, as well as working with the public on tax issues, meant he had to be seen as above politics. Engler said, "Well, you would be no good at it anyway."

Proud as he was of his own service, Roberts glowed when speaking of his own family and their role in public service. His son, Doug Jr., worked for the House policy office before working for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and now for Consumers' Energy. His son, John, was deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush and worked for the Michigan House Republicans before becoming state budget director under Snyder. He is now with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Roberts' stepson, Patrick McKennon, is a teacher and former member of the Grand Ledge School Board and his stepson, Ryan McKennon, is both a physician and attorney.

Roberts' main passion was doting on his family. When he received an award, Doug. Jr. told the audience how when he was in high school his father went out in the early mornings before work to help him practice kicking for the East Lansing High School football team, which won a state championship.

And Roberts once stopped anyone he could to praise his then teenage son John's wits: hired to watch over a house while the owner was away, John had seen the door open one day. Instead of just walking in, as most folks probably would, John called the police from a neighbor's house. The cops busted a burglar in the house.

Roberts was born October 9, 1947, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, to Emory and Betty Roberts. He grew up in Maryland. His father was often away in his capacity as a Secret Service agent. The Roberts household is a treasure trove of American history, with photographs of his father Emory standing behind President Dwight Eisenhower and French President Charles DeGaulle during a summit, of him defending then Vice President Richard Nixon during anti-American demonstrations in Latin America, of him with President John F. Kennedy and Astronaut John Glenn.

Emory Roberts was the Secret Service agent in charge of the Dallas detail to protect President Kennedy in November 1963.

Roberts was in class at Wheaton High School when it was announced President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. But the announcement also wrongly said a Secret Service agent had been killed. Roberts ran from the classroom to a public phone, calling his mother and asking if his father was all right. "Your father is OK," his mother said. Relieved, Roberts returned to class. Days later he wondered how, in those chaotic first moments after the assassination, would she have known his father was OK?

While Roberts was at high school, he met a girl named Joan Hornbeck. The two became sweethearts. They married in 1969 as he finished his bachelor's degree at the University of Maryland.

Graduate studies brought Roberts to Michigan. He said he applied to five different universities for his economics graduate degrees, but Michigan State University was the only school to offer him money. He joked he was bought off for $300 a month, and he and Joan lived in Spartan Village Married Student housing while he pursued his doctorate.

While he was initially a Terrapin, Roberts viewed himself forever after as a Spartan. He followed MSU sports avidly. His car's license plate said, "win4m5u."

In his studies he focused on taxation and public finance. His doctoral thesis dealt with Michigan's tax structure. He began working for the Legislature while he was still pursuing his graduate degrees.

His first boss was Detroit Rep. George Montgomery. Chain-smoking, gruff, raspy-voiced, blunt, no-nonsense but still welcoming and respectful, Montgomery was a legislative legend.

Roberts said working once with Montgomery on the House floor on a tax bill, another legislator approached and asked if the chairman would add an amendment to the bill. "If I do that, will you vote for the bill?" Montgomery said. "No," the legislator said. Montgomery studied the amendment, then said, "OK, I'll put it on."

Roberts was stunned. Why would Montgomery add the amendment when the legislator said he wouldn't vote for the bill? Well, Montgomery said, the man was honest, the amendment will help his district and others, and "I'll get his vote later for something else. His word is good. I can deal with that person," Montgomery said.

That incident, Roberts said, taught him the value of long-term thinking and how to sometimes look past immediate issues in reaching agreements.

In the mid-1970s, Roberts left the Legislature and was named the state's deputy state budget director under Gerald Miller in the Department of Management and Budget.

In the 1970s, following the OPEC oil embargo during the 1973 Yom Kippur War with Israel, Michigan's economy tanked as sales of larger, less gas efficient American cars collapsed. For a decade, going into the early 1980s, Michigan's economy and budget cycles went through massive busts and a couple mini-booms.

Frequently, Milliken had to issue executive order budget cuts. Once, after a massive series of cuts was enacted, it was Roberts' job to tell Milliken even more cuts would be needed. The governor stood up from his desk, put his arm around Roberts' shoulder, and said, "Well, if I have to stay here, so do you."

"At least I knew I still had a job," Roberts said.

During the ups and downs of Michigan's economy, two major fiscal issues stuck out: stabilizing Michigan's revenue sources and cutting Michigan's property taxes. The first was helped in some ways by the Single Business Tax. The second would obsess lawmakers and the public for more than a decade.

The SBT, repealed in the mid-2000s, scrapped six existing taxes businesses paid, including a business income tax, for a single value added tax. It was the first, and essentially the only, such value added tax enacted nationwide. First working with Montgomery, and then as deputy budget director, Roberts was in on the development of the tax as well as a major revision a few years later.

While no tax is popular, the SBT was probably the most unpopular tax in Michigan history. Businesses, especially small businesses, loathed the SBT, often complaining they had to pay the tax even when they lost money.

Accountants especially reviled the SBT. Roberts often wondered if accountants' animosity helped drive the hatred for the SBT. He always argued it was overall a fairer tax for the state.

The controversy aside, the SBT stabilized business tax revenues at a critical time. Especially in its first year when it delivered a $100 million bonus to state coffers. Roberts would say – nearly 50 years later – $100 million didn't sound like much in current budget terms, but in the mid-1970s it saved the state from dismembering government.

The SBT was replaced by the Michigan Business Tax in 2007, and then the Corporate Income Tax replaced the MBT starting in 2011.

When he took office, Blanchard asked Roberts to continue as deputy budget director. For a very brief period, one month between budget directors, Roberts held his dream job, as the budget director. Decades later, his son John held that dream job.

Michigan's turmoil over taxes, revenues, school funding and the economy continued to roil state government.

A committee, led by former Michigan State University President John Hannah, urged an income tax increase. Roberts advised Blanchard to propose a tax rate high enough to cover the state's needs and avoid continuous budget cuts and clear up a growing "hidden" deficit created by ongoing short-term revenue shortages. In 1983, Blanchard proposed a 38 percent tax increase, to 6.35 percent.

The tax boost helped resolve many of the state's fiscal problems. But it generated ongoing animosity. Two Democratic senators were recalled, and the Senate fell under GOP control, and stayed under Republican control until Democrats won the majority in 2022.

Yet, the tax boost did not resolve the continuing controversy over property taxes and school funding.

During the 1980s and up to the election approving passage of the Proposal A school funding issue in March 1994, Roberts was tossed into ongoing efforts to resolve the two issues.

In 1987, while deputy state school superintendent, Roberts was chief of staff to the Harden-Runkel Commission, a 36-member commission led by former MSU and Northern Michigan President Ed Harden and Phil Runkel, the state superintendent. The commission made a series of proposals to fix education funding and improve education. The vote to send it to the Legislature was 33-3. One of the three no votes came from the Michigan Education Association, dooming the proposal with legislative Democrats.

But Roberts said he put the proposal in his desk drawer.

In the meantime, Engler named Roberts director of the Senate Fiscal Agency.

During that time, resolving the state's annual budget was often a struggle – even in good economic times – because the SFA had one set of numbers, the House Fiscal Agency had a second set and the Department of Treasury a third. There were annual wrestling matches on what numbers the budget would use. During one budget discussion tussle, the Lansing State Journal published on the front page a photo of Roberts with his head in his hands.

Roberts and Engler discussed how to end the conflicts, which led to – when Engler became governor – the now twice-a-year Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference. At the conference the SFA, HFA and Treasury agree on the figures the governor, must by law, use when proposing the budget and the Legislature must use when resolving the budget.

Engler won the governor's post largely by promising to slash Michigan's property taxes. The first effort to do so, which again, Roberts helped developed, urged the voters to approve a 20 percent cut in property taxes. But it had no way to make up the lost revenue, so it was again defeated to protect schools. But where the 1970s and '80s proposals garnered only about 25-30 percent yes votes, this latest effort was supported by 41 percent of the voters.

So, in June 1993, again with Roberts' efforts, Engler and the MEA agreed to a proposal to cut property taxes and replace the lost revenue with a sales tax increase. With support from all sides, officials were confident this time the voters would pass the proposal.

It failed.

Thus, the stage was set for what would become arguably the most dramatic overall restructuring of Michigan's financial structure in history.

A month after the 1993 proposal failed, Republican lawmakers were preparing to move a new proposal to cut property taxes by 20 percent. Roberts was in a meeting with Engler when then Senate Majority Leader Dick Posthumus said there were rumors Senate Democrats would propose eliminating all property taxes for school education. If that was proposed and passed, Posthumus asked, would Engler sign it.

"They won't do that," Engler said.

"That's not what I asked," Posthumus said. "If they do and we pass it, will you sign it?"

Engler thought for a moment, then said, "Yes."

"My head hit the table," Roberts said, faced with the sudden prospect of state revenues being slashed by some $7 billion and trying to find a way to pay for K-12 education.

Once the measure passed and was signed, Roberts took center stage in developing a proposed alternative to finance Michigan's schools. Engler told him he wanted a commission named to develop the proposals. Roberts said there wasn't enough time to find, name, convene, develop and enact whatever a commission might propose. A solution had to be enacted in the four months remaining in 1993. If Michigan had no alternative revenue system in place by December 31 that year, the Headlee Amendment's restrictions on total tax burden would dictate how much the state could raise, and it would be considerably less than what was needed.

"Give me the best people in state government and we'll work seven days a week to come up with a solution," Roberts told Engler.

The governor granted the request. Before they got to work, Roberts also pulled the Harden-Runkel Commission report out of his desk drawer.

The group did work seven days a week and long hours in the next several weeks pulling together the different aspects of what Engler would propose in October 1993.

The effort Roberts led did not deal with the fundamental changes to the K-12 education structure, particularly the creation of charter schools. But as it developed the proposals on sales tax increases, the real estate transfer tax and other financial elements, it did try to attack what Roberts saw as a critical problem with school funding: the massive gap in spending between wealthy and poorer districts. By establishing a fundamental basic payment made to all public school students the group did at least tilt Michigan's financing structure towards greater equity. What became Proposal A did not end the gap, Roberts said, but lowered it.

There were two reasons Roberts pushed his work with urgency. One was the December 31 deadline. The second was he had developed a brain tumor that required surgery. The surgery could wait until a solution was approved, and Roberts told only the governor about his condition. But the possibility this proposal could be the last project he ever worked on weighed on him emotionally.

Voters overwhelmingly passed Proposal A in March 1994.

His surgery was successful. And the economic boom of the 1990s put Michigan in a position Roberts hadn't encountered in nearly 30 years: absolutely no concerns about state finances and no need to slash the budget. Roberts set his goal in the state winning a coveted Triple A rating from the major bond houses. The actual rating was won during his time away from the state but both Engler and then Treasurer Mark Murray praised his efforts in winning the rating.

Retired from the state, Roberts directed the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at MSU, which oversees the Michigan Political Leadership Program. He helped set the program on a more stable funding system, along with enticing speakers for its annual fundraising events.

And he was able to bring several former members of the Kennedy Detail to campus to speak, including agent Clint Hill who was the Secret Service agent who leaped on the presidential car attempting to protect the president. That event, bringing back his father's friends and colleagues, was especially emotionally important to him.

John Lindstrom was a staff writer, editor and publisher for Gongwer from 1977-86 and 1993-2019.