“

At 60th reunion of South

Haven Class of '61, 2021

Email: stevenrharry@gmail.com

Phone: 517-730-2638

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I worked for the State of Michigan for a total of 23 years, first for the Department of Social Services (now Human Services) and - after a 7 year gap - for the Department of Management and Budget.

 

I started in March 1966 as a caseworker for the Mason County Department of Social Services in Ludington. In October 1968 I transferred to the Ingham County DSS where I eventually became supervisor of the intake department. In January 1971, I moved to DSS' central office in downtown Lansing, initially to write procedures for a new computer system. I learned more and more about computers and ended up supervising a group of system analysts. In 1977, I designed a program that saved the state $6 million ($25 million in 2019 dollars).

In May 1978, I quit Social Services and went through several jobs and a few periods of unemployment until - in November 1985 - I finally got a state job again with the Department of Management and Budget. The first of those interim jobs was in the City of Lansing's data processing department, followed by a short stint at Farm Bureau Services, then all the way to New Orleans to write procedures for the mining firm Freeport Minerals (now Freeport McMoRan). I worked for Gulf Systems Inc for 3 years where one of my projects was to design a system for maintenance of the City of New Orleans' street signs. After that, I worked for Ross Perot's EDS for a year in Baton Rouge.

 

I returned to Grand Rapids in the summer of 1984 and jumped from job to job. I was delivering pizzas and out of money at age 42 when I managed to land a job with the Department of Management and Budget in Lansing, where I worked on systems for the Office of Retirement Systems. In 1996, I left state government again to work for Municipal Employees Retirement System (MERS). I retired from MERS in 2004.

 

I married Carol (Simon) Nurenberg from Fowler, MI in 1989 (my fourth marriage, her second).

 

I've been interested in government/politics/economics since high school, but my first real involvement was when I joined a group to fight the City of Lansing's early retirement of 1992, where 144 employees, including the mayor and city clerk, took generous bonuses to retire. That led to a run for city council in 1993. I lost in the primary.

 

In 2008, I ran against state representative Joan Bauer in the 68th district Democratic primary and lost. This website originated as the website for that campaign.

 

In the fall of 2010, I tried to launch a statewide petition drive to put four issues on the ballot: eliminate the state Senate, enact right-to-work, make collective bargaining voluntary for schools and local governments, and ban collective bargaining for state employees. I got the petitions approved by the Board of State Canvassers, but needed $2-3 million dollars and raised only about $120. You can see the website I created for that effort here.

 

I learned how to create websites on my job at MERS and have two of them, this one and steveharryssite.com, which has family pictures, pictures from trips, country school class pictures, old letters, etc. To do these websites, I use a program called Microsoft FrontPage, which Microsoft quit supporting in 2003. My sites are hosted by Site5.com.

 

Occasionally, my work gets the attention of legitimate journalists:

Also, there is this appearance on the late Bonnie Bucqueroux's WLNS radio show in the fall of 2014. I am mute until 6:00 minutes in.

 

Finally, there was this 6/12/2018 email from Ingham County Commissioner Mark Grebner responding to a reader who asked who I am and how she got on my email list:

He's a fanatically motivated private citizen who digs deep into government pension / retirement issues, and then publishes what he finds out. He files FOIA requests, tabulates huge quantities of data, asks annoying questions, and gets to the bottom of why people REALLY leave one government job, and then pop up in another.


I have no idea how you got on his list, but it must be because he hopes you care about public waste and pension manipulation.


Nobody pays Steve, nobody even covers his costs, and nobody ever thanks him for his efforts.  The most thanks he ever gets is that some people read what he writes, and take it into account when negotiating labor contracts, or allocating public money. I wish we had twenty more of him (looking into areas other than pensions, since he's got that covered) to help keep things honest.  I don't always agree with his point of view, but I rarely find myself questioning his numbers, and never his sincerity.


He's no fun at a party, but he's doing important work.