27 October 2011

MyElderLawPlanning VA Disability Help Michigan

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These Top Elder Law Attorneys have assisted hundreds of families who need legal assistance with Estate Planning, Medicaid Planning, Guardianship & Conservatorship, and Probate & Trust Administration in Michigan.
Elder law is becoming more important as baby boomers approach their golden years. Elder law is a distinct practice, designed to assist the elderly in protecting their assets from probate expenses, federal estate taxes and nursing home expense.
The Elder Law professionals at Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center (JBELC), are dedicated to providing intelligent, compassionate and timely information about estate planning, probate, Medicaid and all other issues pertaining to elder law.
These are the areas of service that the Jordan Balema Elder Law Center provides:
Estate Planning  — Throughout the years you have built up an estate and achieved success. Now your focus shifts from accumulation to preserving these assets for your care and eventually distribution to your loved ones upon your death. That is what estate planning is all about.
Medicaid Planning — Do you have a loved one in a nursing home or hospital? Or are you thinking long-term care may be inevitable? The professionals at Jordan-Balkema Elder Law Center can assist you with planning for long-term care costs.
Guardianship & Conservatorship  — Guardians and conservators are appointed by the court for persons who lack the physical and/or mental capacity to care for themselves and are found to be incapable of caring for themselves or their property. At the Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center we help you understand the laws and in setting up the proper course of action for your need.
Probate & Trust Administration  — The attorneys of the Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center have provided assistance to hundreds of families who have required the legal knowledge necessary to manage the probate procedure maze. MyElderLawPlanning will make the probate process as easy as possible by giving detailed explanations and by promptly addressing any concerns you may have.
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MyElderLawPlanning Michigan Medicaid Help

The Michigan Elder Law Attorneys of the Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center offer services for the elderly such as Estate Planning, Medicaid Planning, Guardianship & Conservatorship, and Probate & Trust Administration. 
These Top Elder Law Attorneys have assisted hundreds of families who need legal assistance with Estate Planning, Medicaid Planning, Guardianship & Conservatorship, and Probate & Trust Administration in Michigan.
Elder law is becoming more important as baby boomers approach their golden years. Elder law is a distinct practice, designed to assist the elderly in protecting their assets from probate expenses, federal estate taxes and nursing home expense.
The Elder Law professionals at Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center (JBELC), are dedicated to providing intelligent, compassionate and timely information about estate planning, probate, Medicaid and all other issues pertaining to elder law.
These are the areas of service that the Jordan Balema Elder Law Center provides:
Estate Planning  — Throughout the years you have built up an estate and achieved success. Now your focus shifts from accumulation to preserving these assets for your care and eventually distribution to your loved ones upon your death. That is what estate planning is all about.
Medicaid Planning — Do you have a loved one in a nursing home or hospital? Or are you thinking long-term care may be inevitable? The professionals at Jordan-Balkema Elder Law Center can assist you with planning for long-term care costs.
Guardianship & Conservatorship  — Guardians and conservators are appointed by the court for persons who lack the physical and/or mental capacity to care for themselves and are found to be incapable of caring for themselves or their property. At the Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center we help you understand the laws and in setting up the proper course of action for your need.
Probate & Trust Administration  — The attorneys of the Jordan Balkema Elder Law Center have provided assistance to hundreds of families who have required the legal knowledge necessary to manage the probate procedure maze. We will make the probate process as easy as possible by giving detailed explanations and by promptly addressing any concerns you may have.
For more information on how an Elder Law Attorney can help you, visit www.myelderlawplanning.com.

18 October 2011

Property Tax Bill Would Ease Family Property Transfer

Story first appeared in the Traverse City Record-Eagle

Measure aims to cap tax when land passes to relative
Homeowners could more easily pass their homes to their heirs or sell them to their relatives under a bill that would ease the property tax burden of such transaction.

Rep. Peter Pettalia, Presque Isle, introduced the bill to cap property tax when homes and land are passed between relatives. Heirs would pay less taxes than currently paid by family members that inherit land.

Since Proposal A passed in 1994, taxes on a homestead property cannot rise more than 3 percent a year, no matter how much property values rise.

But when someone sells their property, the buyer pays taxes on the newly assessed worth, lifting the 3 percent cap. This bill would keep the cap for family-exchanged properties.

Many times, Pettalia said, people inherit a piece of land from their family such as lakeside cottage and cannot afford to keep it because the property is now worth more than the previous family member was taxed.

“It’s a family heritage; they have no intentions of ever selling it, but they can’t keep it because the property tax has now become too much of a burden upon them, “Pettalia said.

If approved, the law would become a good estate planning tool, said Brad Ward, director of public policy and legal affairs at the Michigan Association of Realtors. “It would be an incentive to create more of those internal family sales.”

But the bill could create headaches for local assessors.

“I think some of these legislators have to think about the reality and the complexity of what we have and how it can be handled,” said Laurie Spencer, equalization director of Grand Traverse County. “They are asking an awful a lot of assessment administrator, in my opinion.”

Assessors would have to see proof of family as far as third cousins, a potentially difficult task because last names are different and proof is hard to come by.

"Are we going to start doing DNA tests to see if they meet the criteria?” Spencer said.

The bill would require assessors to go back through old deeds. The bill would affect all land transactions to December 8, 2006.

“If you want it done according to what this bill says, we definitely would have to put on more staff,” Spencer said.

The Michigan Assessor Association does not yet have a position on the bill, said Swayne McLachlan, president of the group. The organization typically opposes such exemptions because local governments want the additional revenue created by sales or property owners’ deaths.

“It gets into the question of fairness and inequality,” McLachlan said.

But Pettalia said that it is the large tax burden on a family inheritance that is unfair.

“It’s Michigan’s family heritage to keep these properties with families,” he said.

06 October 2011

Ferris State University Offers Technology Degrees

Story first appeared on CBSDetroit.com.
Ferris State University is one of those schools that isn’t afraid to let its nerd flag fly. Especially with their Michigan Honors Programs.
Its roots are in a private vocational school, and it’s still in the two-year associate’s degree business in some technologies that are important to society but rarely degreed — rubber engineering technology, for instance.
My visit to Bulldog Country started with a presentation from Carl Shangraw, professor of surveying engineering. He walked me through all the stuff people know surveyors do — establishing legal boundaries — to the stuff people have no clue surveyors do, from setting up a local geocache to position offshore oil rigs to manage sophisticated geographic Information systems to helping design everything from tall buildings to freeways to railroads. They offer a considerable amount of Michigan Honors Courses, as well.
Surveying can be used to remote-control farm and road building machinery — something that Shangraw said has not yet taken off in Michigan but apparently has elsewhere.
Of particular interest to Ferris is hydrographic mapping — surveying the bottom of bodies of water. Gone are the days of guys in small boats with weighted ropes measuring depths. These are the days of stereoscopic sonar. Ferris is working with Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City to create a hydrographic surveying system out of NMC’s maritime academy boat.
Shangraw said he and a couple of Ferris students spent last summer for the National Park Service, mapping the bottomlands between Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Manitou Islands. Among their discoveries — what appears to be an ancient river bottom in Good Harbor Bay, marking a river that emptied into a smaller ancient Lake Michigan when the shoreline was several miles farther west than today’s lake. This can be a part of Michigan Honors Classes, as well.
Shangraw said the Ferris surveying engineering degree program now has 75 students, down from 125 a few years ago. He blamed the state’s poor economy. But even so, he said the program gets three offers for every graduate, with starting salaries all above $50,000. Most of them, though, have to leave Michigan.
The next presenter, Joel East, a senior in surveying engineering, related how he worked surveying a particle accelerator, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, in Newport News, Va.
East said he and his crew were brought in to make sure the accelerator’s huge racetrack still lined up as the atom smasher prepared for a power upgrade from six billion electron volts to 11.
My next presentation came from Brian Holton, a professor of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration at Ferris. These days, he’s working on something called the Legacy HVAC Equipment Field Evaluation and Performance Testing research project. These projects can be part of Michigan Honors Programs.
This U.S. Department of Energy funded effort aims to bring scientific rigor to quantify just how quickly appliances and heating and cooling systems lose their efficiency. It’s such a new idea that Ferris had to develop its own testing equipment and methodology to do the work.
Holton said the effort should give the federal government an idea of how much efficiency a 10-year-old furnace originally rated at 90 percent efficiency has lost. That will guide the government’s recommendations on replacing old appliances.
There’s also a second federal contract that will test energy-saving retrofit measures for their cost-effectiveness.
They will take three test homes, one control and the other two experimental, install different retrofit measures, and test them, to determine their cost effectiveness.
And that means designing algorithms and new technologies to simulate human occupancy of a house — everything from lights going on and off to refrigerators opening and closing to ovens going on and off to thermostats going up and down. Interesting stuff for Michigan Honors Programs.

04 October 2011

Internet Secret Lairs

Story first appeared in USA TODAY.
From the outside, the Gothic brick and limestone building a few blocks south of downtown almost looks abandoned.
Plaques identify it as a landmark completed in 1929, a former printing plant that once produced magazines, catalogs and phone books. The sign over the main door says "Chicago Manufacturing Division Plant 1."
There are hints, though, that something is going on inside. Cameras are aimed at the building's perimeter. A small sign at the back entrance says "Digital Realty Trust."
Sturdy gates across the driveway keep the uninvited out.
There's good reason for the intentional anonymity and security: The Internet lives there.
Editor of Data Center Knowledge, which tracks the industry, and, senior vice president of portfolio management for Digital Realty, which owns the 1.1 million-square-foot former R.R. Donnelley printing plant, say it is the world's largest repository for computer servers.
He won't identify its tenants, but he says the building stores data from financial firms and Internet and telecommunications companies. The 'cloud' that you keep hearing about … all ends up on servers in a data center somewhere.
There are about 13,000 large data centers around the world, 7,000 of them in the USA. Growth stalled during the recession, but estimates show about $22 billion will be spent on new centers worldwide this year.
The need for data centers is increasing as demand for online space and connectivity explodes. Some are inside generic urban buildings or sprawling rural facilities. For all of them, security is paramount. Inside, after all, are the engines that keep smartphones smart, businesses connected and social networks humming.
Some data centers have "traps" that isolate intrusions by unauthorized individuals, technology that weighs people as they enter and sounds an alarm if their weight is different when they depart, bulletproof walls and blast-proof doors.
When Wal-Mart opened a data center in McDonald County, Mo., a few years ago, County Assessor says she signed a non-disclosure agreement promising she wouldn't discuss anything she saw in there. She hasn't.
Although the rapid growth of data centers has diminished their ability to hide in plain sight many owners and occupants are very secretive and … sensitive about the locations.
That makes sense. "hese facilities are critical to the financial system and the overall function of the Internet.
Making new use of the old
Some data centers — sometimes called carrier hotels because space is leased to multiple companies — are in large urban buildings where they can tap into intersecting networks.
Old manufacturing facilities such as Chicago's Donnelley printing plant often are repurposed because they have high ceilings and load-bearing floors to support heavy racks of servers.
They are interesting examples of the new economy rising up in the footprints of the old.
Giant companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and Amazon often build their data centers in rural areas. They're looking for cheap power and cheap real estate. While the number of private centers grows, the federal government is consolidating. It has more than 2,000 data centers and this summer announced plans to close 373 by the end of 2012.
Communities such as Quincy, Wash., population 6,750, and Catawba County in western North Carolina want to become data center hubs. Catawba and neighboring counties dubbed themselves "North Carolina's data center corridor.
Apple last fall opened a 500,000-square-foot, $1 billion facility in Catawba County. Google and Facebook have data centers in nearby counties and more are under construction.
Catawba County is building a second data center park in hopes of attracting more. Because data centers don't require many employees, most of the permanent jobs are created by contractors who provide electrical, cooling or security support. About 400 people work at the giant Chicago data center; many employ far fewer.
The Apple data center is pretty secretive. No signs indicate what the building holds, but everybody knows what it is.
James Lewis, a senior fellow in technology and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a public policy research group in Washington, D.C., compares the evolution of data centers to changes in the way electricity is generated.
A century or more ago, he says, factories and other companies operated their own electric plants to power their lights, elevators and other functions. Those with spare capacity began to sell it to their neighbors.
Instead of maintaining computer servers in their own facilities for rapidly growing data storage needs, some businesses locate their servers or backup servers in data centers, he says. They can save money because the centers minimize energy consumption, ensure security and allow computers to share tasks. Data centers also give companies places to store backed-up data that is crucial to their businesses.
The amount of data in the world doubles every couple of years and people … are willing to pay for it to be stored.
He doesn't think it's essential to conceal the centers' locations, though, because hackers won't try to come in through the front door. The main source of risk isn't physical, it's cyber. If hiding the location … is all that they're doing, they're not doing enough.
Tall building, low profile
Keeping a low profile is just the beginning of the security measures at Digital Realty Trust's massive Chicago data center.
The exterior is embellished with terra cotta shields depicting printers' marks. The building occupies almost a full block, is nine stories tall and has a 14-story tower. Inside, there are visible and unseen protections, some of which the company won't talk about publicly. There are guards at both entrances, cameras inside and out, motion sensors and much more. To access the rooms where rows of servers live, a card must be scanned and a fingerprint recognized.
The interior of the building is a mix of old and new. Because it is a landmark, its wood-lined two-story library, which has been used for photo shoots, must be kept intact. Some corridors feature stone arches overhead, and some offices are paneled in English oak.
Other hallways are sterile and silent. Inside the locked doors of the individual data centers are locked metal-grid cages and, inside them, rows of black shelving with the blinking lights of servers visible through the doors. The only sound is an electronic buzz. Cameras scan every square foot of the room.
Between the rows of servers are "cooling aisles" with thousands of round holes in floor tiles feeding cool air into the space. Over the server shelving are ladder racks that suspend "raceways" — yellow plastic casing enclosing fiber optic cables. The shelving doesn't extend to the ceiling; air must circulate above the servers to keep temperatures down.
Caron says it costs $600-$800 per square foot to build a data center and often less than $70 a square foot for a normal industrial building, including the land. The giant printing presses that once filled space in the former Donnelley building made it ideal for conversion to data center use, he says. A data center floor must be able to handle at least 150 pounds and as much as 400 pounds per square foot. By comparison, most office buildings are built for 70 pounds per square foot.
Huge amounts of electricity power all those servers, he says: 100-150 watts or more per square foot, compared with 3-5 watts for each square foot of an office building. To keep the servers running, there's more than one electrical feed into the building and backup systems and generators ensure there's never an interruption in power. The Chicago facility has 63 generators.
Digital Realty Trust, which bought the building in 2005, owns 96 properties, most of them data centers, in the USA, Europe and Asia, Caron says. There is, he says, "a lot of demand" and the company expects to spend up to $500 million this year on acquisitions. Last year it spent more than $1 billion.
'You have no idea what's here'
Not every data center is a fortress. The one owned by the city of Altamonte Springs, Fla., is a former 770,000-gallon water tank next to City Hall.
Information services director in the city of 40,000, says he relocated the city's servers after being forced by three hurricanes to pack everything up to keep them out of harm's way. The tank has 8-inch-thick walls. It did a great job holding water in so they knew it could keep water out.
Even a small-scale data center needs security, though. One is protected by video surveillance, requires dual authentication to enter and a biometric lock limits access to the server room.
It's even harder to get into the five data centers 200 feet deep in a former limestone mine in Butler County, Pa.
The facility affords a very high level of security, not only physical — armed guards, steel gates, layers of security, biometrics — but also we're protected from the elements, civil unrest, terrorist-type things, Vice president of the Underground, as it's called, for Iron Mountain, an information management company.
Except for the cars parked outsideyou'd have no idea what's here. Besides 7 million gigabytes of digital data, including e-mail, computer backup files and digital medical images such as MRIs, the Underground is home to documents, film reels and computer backup tapes owned by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Sony Music and Universal, among others.
Doughty worked for years on Room 48, an experiment in making data centers more energy-efficient and reliable, and is working now on ways to utilize some of the cold water in the mine to cool the computer space without using chillers or cooling towers. He hopes to begin construction next year.
The security of data centers, Doughty says, is becoming increasingly important for companies and governments not only because of the situation in the United States with terrorism, but because of the world situation.
Lewis says one of the lessons of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the importance of having data stored in more than one place. As more data centers are built, he says there will be more debate about legal issues: What happens if law enforcement has a warrant for a server that also contains data owned by other companies? Should there be standards for protecting consumers, including requirements that they be notified of breaches? Should data centers be regulated by the government?

Fiat Credit Rating Goes Down Because Of Chrysler Group

Story first appeared in USA TODAY.
Ratings agency Moody's downgraded the credit rating of Fiat today, saying it did it primarily because of risks associated with Fiats closer combination with Chrysler Group.
Fiat holds a 53.5% of Chrysler and has said it will get 5% more by year-end -- a chunk due from the U.S. government when it meets the final bankruptcy deal goal of building a high-mileage small car in the U.S.
Moody's said increased integration of the companies likely means they'd have to prop each other up if things go south, even though Fiat, under the terms of the takeover, is not on the hook for Chrysler's debts. Moody's expects "that the creditworthiness of Fiat and Chrysler will become more closely aligned over time as the strategy and operations of the two groups becomes progressively more intertwined," including sharing vehicle platforms and powertrains, Moody's lead Fiat analyst Falk Frey told the Associated Press.
In the arcane heirarchy of debt ratings, Moody's cut Fiat from Ba2 to Ba1. The real-world impact is that Fiat will have to pay more for loans. Chrysler already is lower, at B2.
While the rating reflects the risks still inherent in Chrysler's comeback, it also seems to reflect caution about Fiat's financial muscle to handle adverse events at one or both operations.
Fiat has lost money in Europe, where the financial mess, especially as it affects Fiat's home market in Italy, has hurt sales. And Moody's says that Fiat's loss in Europe share is due in part to a slower pace of new models than rivals, a pace CEO Sergio Marchionne said at the Frankfurt show last week may slow further because of Europe's woes. Moody's also cites increased competition in Brazil, Fiat's most profitable market.
Marchionne also at Frankfurt that for now, an IPO for Chrysler is not possible because of market conditions.

03 October 2011

CareTech Solutions Invests $1.5 Million in Hospital IT Help Desk

Company’s Service Desk Undergoes Major Renovation in Preparation for Growth Explosion

(TROY, Mich., Sept. 29, 2011) CareTech Solutions, an information technology (IT) and
Web products and services provider for U.S. hospitals today unveiled its newly re-configured and remodeled Service Desk, a 24x7x365, on-shore medical help desk that currently responds to nearly one million contacts a year from hospital users seeking IT support with clinical and business systems. The $1.5 million investment enables additional growth and hiring for the Service Desk which is on track this year to experience twenty five percent growth in revenue.

“The Service Desk is the fastest growing piece of our business, largely due to the recent explosion of electronic medical records and healthcare technologies,” said Jim Giordano, president and CEO, CareTech Solutions. “Service Desk is more than a call center, it’s a highly-specialized technology support organization with analysts trained to quickly resolve doctors and clinicians’ IT issues so they can get back to what they do best, caring for patients.”

The Service Desk, based in Troy, Michigan, was launched by CareTech Solutions in 1998 with less than 30 employees. In 2008, CareTech added a dedicated physician-only hotline, remote control tools, and a knowledge base that holds over eight thousand answers for all major clinical systems and business applications. Today, the Service Desk staff has grown to almost 160 employees, with more than 45 added this year.

About CareTech Solutions
CareTech Solutions, Inc., an information technology and Web products and services provider for more than 180 U.S. hospitals and health systems, creates value for clients through customized IT solutions that contribute to improving patient care while lowering healthcare costs. From implementing emerging technologies to supporting day-to-day IT operations, CareTech offers clients expert health information management services across the entire patient data lifecycle earning it the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Best in KLAS award for IT Outsourcing (Extensive) as ranked by healthcare executives and professionals in the Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services report.

For more information, please visit www.caretech.com.

Chrysler’s Workers Overwhelming In Favor of National Labor Contract

Story first appeared in the Detroit News.
Workers at Chrysler Group LLC's Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance plant in Dundee, near Splash Universe Dundee, have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a proposal to make their factory subject to the new national labor contract the company is negotiating with the United Auto Workers.
More than 99 percent of the votes were cast in favor of the plan. Only two workers voted against it, according to local union officials.
The vote was prompted in part by Chrysler's decision to implement a controversial rotating shift schedule that would require workers to alternate between days and nights.
Tom Zimmerman, plant chairman for UAW Local 723, said Chrysler has agreed to reconsider that plan now.
A labor expert comment that she thinks it's ultimately better for them to be a part of the national agreement, noting that GEMA workers will now have the right to relocate to other factories if there are job cuts at their facility. She added that it's easier for Chrysler too, because it makes things a lot simpler for the company."
The measure had been endorsed by UAW Vice President General Holiefield, head of the union's national Chrysler department.
The Dundee factory was not previously part of the national agreement because it was originally set up as a joint venture between Chrysler and two Asian automakers: Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co.
Zimmerman said negotiations will begin shortly on a new local agreement that will address the shift schedule, which was due to begin next week.
Workers at Chrysler's Trenton Engine Complex have been working the grueling schedule since last year and are lobbying for it to be rescinded or changed.
If Chrysler and the UAW agree to the same language on alternative shift scheduling that was part of the recently approved contract between the union and General Motors Co., at least some relief could be in sight.
There would still be alternative work schedules allowed, as there is in the GM agreement, but there is a wide range of work schedules made possible by that language.