Headlines
1. GAO: Failing contractors still getting work in Iraq
2. Editorial – Privatization: State targets local government services
3. Congress may throw wrench in Texas public assistance privatization plan
4. NY State takes steps to privatize lottery
5. Manhattan ballfields stay public – judge
6. Indiana keeps control of state hospital
7. Penn: Allegheny county exec. seeks to privatize parks
8. Editorial – Another mark against former CT Gov. Rowland
9. Indiana toll road opponent to run for governor
News Summaries
1. GAO: Failing contractors still getting work in Iraq
ITT Federal Services International, a defense contractor hired to maintain battle gear for U.S. troops in Iraq, repeatedly failed to do the job right, according to a GAP audit and reported by the AP. Formal "letters of concern" were sent to the contractor. Still, the Army didn’t fire ITT. Instead, it gave the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company more work to do. Since October 2004, ITT has been paid $638 million through the Global Maintenance and Supply Services contract. The Army’s ongoing arrangement with ITT, detailed in an audit from the Government Accountability Office, shows how captive the military has become to the private sector for overseas support. Even when contractors don’t measure up, dismissing them may not be an option because of the heavy pace of operations.
2. Editorial: Privatization: State targets local government services
Today’s Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial examines the state’s efforts to privatize many local government services: "In the past, state lawmakers have only considered privatizing services provided by the state, like prisons and the state mental hospital. But now they’re turning their guns on local governments, and attempting to usurp the power of local elected officials. It has municipal officials worried, including recreation managers in Salt Lake County, where the public can swim, golf, skate or exercise at 38 separate facilities."
3. Congress may throw wrench in Texas public assistance privatization plan
In a direct response to problems in Texas, Congress is considering new limits on the role that private companies can play in states’ public assistance programs, according to the Austin American Statesman. A provision in a major farm bill approved by the U.S. House would bar states from allowing employees of private firms to interact with people who are applying for food stamps or to decide someone’s eligibility for the program. The measure could force Texas to rework its plans to privatize food stamp enrollment. The author of the provision, U.S. Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., said it was inspired in part by problems in Texas, where some eligible families were improperly denied food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance during a 2006 privatization test in the Austin area. "The disastrous attempt to privatize food stamps in Texas was a large reason behind my anti-privatization provision in the House farm bill," Baca said. "The Texas project was a complete fiasco."
4. NY State takes steps to privatize lottery
State officials have formally started the process to hire an independent investment adviser to guide Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal for privatizing the state lottery.
Spitzer wants to open the lottery to private investors, using money made on a potential lease to start and sustain an endowment funding the State University of New York system. Spitzer has said any offer must include at least $4 billion in upfront payments, reports the Business Journal.
5. Manhattan ballfields stay public – judge
A Manhattan judge blew the whistle on a city plan to turn public ballfields on Randalls Island into playgrounds for students at the city’s most elite private schools, reports New York’s Daily News. The decision by Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich voids a controversial deal first reported by Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez. Under the failed plan, 20 private schools, including Dalton, Spence and Chapin would have been granted near-exclusive use of the fields during peak after-school hours, in exchange for paying millions to the city. The judge sided with East Harlem activists and parents who sued, ruling that the city sidestepped the proper land-use review process when it cut the deal to build new ballfields and rehab existing ones on Randalls Island.
6. Indiana keeps control of state hospital
A plan to privatize the operation of Indiana’s Richmond State Hospital has been shelved for financial reasons, the secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration said Friday and reported in the Richmond Palladium. The state hospital, which employs 600 people and cares for 300 patients from across the state, will remain open as a state-operated facility, Mitch Roob said. No employees will lose their jobs, he said.
7. Penn: Allegheny county exec. seeks to privatize parks
As skiers and sledders careened down Boyce Park’s snowy hills Saturday morning, Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato told a crowd of about 150 people gathered in the ski lodge that the slopes could be better operated by a private group than the county. In three to six months, the county plans to seek bids from private businesses to operate the slopes along with golf courses, horse stables, tennis courts, boat houses and other amenities in the county’s nine parks, according to an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Yesterday, Onorato conducted a town hall-style meeting to ask park users for suggestions on other facilities that could benefit the parks. "What we’re going to start doing is looking at all nine parks," Onorato said. "We’re going to rethink the way we’re running our parks."
8. Editorial: Another mark against former CT Gov. Rowland
An editorial in the Connecticut Post responds to the recent report from the sate attorney general’s office finding that a privatization contract under former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland’s watch cost the state upwards of $80 million: "It’s a right-wing dream to privatize as many aspects of government activity as possible, with the theory that private industry has to answer to the market, while government work is bloated and unaccountable. But this is another instance that shows how a lack of oversight can make matters far worse that whatever problem was supposed to be solved to begin with. Privatization can work only if people actually watch what’s happening."
9. Indiana toll road opponent to run for governor
One of the leading opponents of the Major Moves toll-road lease that funded Interstate 69 construction is planning to announce his candidacy for governor, according to the Evansville Courier & Press. Steve Bonney is scheduled to announce in Indianapolis that he is running for governor in 2008 as an independent and is starting the process of collecting petitions to get onto the ballot. Bonney, an Army veteran and self-employed organic farmer, was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit brought against the state in 2006. It challenged the constitutionality of the Major Moves lease of the northern Indiana toll road, a funding program that Gov. Mitch Daniels advocated.