FL: Lawmaker: Sick inmates moved before privatization
FL: Privatizing made easy
FL: Privatizing wastewater a whole new spin on cash flow
MI: For-profit virtual charter schools given poor ratings
CO: Groups say Pinnacol ads touting privatization violate lobbying moratorium
AZ: Senate approves raising private-school donation tax credits
NY: A complex at Aqueduct is risk-free, Cuomo says
News summaries
FL: Lawmaker: Sick inmates moved before privatization
A Florida lawmaker says prison employees in his district told him the Department of Corrections last year had moved sicker, more-expensive inmates out of facilities the state was trying to privatize…Private prisons in other states have negotiated deals that limit which kind of inmates they will take. Those who are older or have AIDS, diabetes or other illnesses usually cost more to care for than younger and healthier inmates. The state is trying to privatize about 30 state prisons in South Florida. That plan was struck down by a judge but is under appeal. Kreegel said some of the corrections officers at Charlotte Correctional Institution are his patients; the Punta Gorda Republican is a physician. “What they tell me is that shortly after the budget was passed last year, there began a concerted effort of transferring (to north Florida) inmates who were … expensive health-wise, HIV positive, et cetera,” he said. “They were getting as replacements people who were younger and healthier, without the costly medical illnesses.”
Kreegel said the officers jokingly referred to these new transfers as “jaywalkers.” “I guess the insinuation here is that they were filling up the prisons to be privatized with people who are relatively inexpensive to take care of, and leaving the more expensive prisoners to the state,” he added. If so, any savings to the state from privatizing prisons could be just “bureaucratic sleight of hand,” Kreegel said.
Miami Herald
FL: Privatizing made easy
A bill to allow lawmakers to privatize any function of state government without justifying the move emerged this week in Tallahassee. The bill comes after last year’s plan to privatize 18 state prisons was ruled unconstitutional. To legally privatize a government function under current law, a cost-benefits analysis must be conducted. Police Benevolent Association spokesman Matt Puckett says this bill eliminates the analysis. “There is a deliberated process in place to make sure that before we privatize we have all the facts and we are making an informed decision. This guts that. There is no reason to do it. Nothing has changed. And we are adamantly opposed to that,” said Puckett. The bill was introduced alongside a renewed effort to privatize the prisons lawmakers were unsuccessful in outsourcing last year.
Capitol News Service
FL: Privatizing wastewater a whole new spin on cash flow
We seem to be in the constant state of hostile takeovers of public assets. Schools. Prisons. Roads. Apparently, we’ve been missing out on some good opportunities to introduce more cash flow into the state’s water flow. But that’s being addressed in a proposed law that would strip public control over water once it’s treated at a wastewater treatment facility. Under existing law, all of this reclaimed water is considered “waters in the state.”..House Bill 639 gives wastewater treatment facilities ownership of the water they treat…In the short run, yanking state control from reclaimed water would be a boon to city governments, who would be able to sell all the water they treat to their customers…But environmentalists worry that turning a public resource into what may end up a commodity controlled by private-for-profit businesses in the future will spell trouble in the long run for Florida. “Utilities don’t have any responsibility for the protection of the environment,” Draper said. “This is one of those situations where you have to look at the what-ifs. And if down the road, if the state needed the water, we’d have to pay through the nose to get it.” Palm Beach Post
MI: For-profit virtual charter schools given poor ratings
The report by the National Education Policy Center says 27% of for-profit companies operating virtual schools met the adequate yearly progress standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law. That compares with 48% of traditional brick-and-mortar charter schools and about half of all public schools nationwide. Charter schools are considered public schools. The report comes as the Michigan legislature considers a bill—part of sweeping legislation that would give parents more choices for their children’s education—that would expand virtual charters in the state. State law enacted in 2010 allows only two to open and restricts enrollment to 400 in the first year. The bill—passed in the Senate late last year and now before the House—would remove those barriers. Detroit Free Press
CO: Groups say Pinnacol ads touting privatization violate lobbying moratorium
Business groups in Colorado are fuming mad over TV and print ads that ran over the weekend touting the claimed benefits of privatizing Pinnacol Assurance, the state-chartered workers’ compensation insurance fund. The organizations say Pinnacol’s ads,one of which ran on TV during the Broncos-Patriots playoff game Saturday night, while the other appeared in The Denver Post on Sunday, violated an agreement by all groups involved to not lobby on the issue while a task force is examining the merits of privatization…Under the privatization proposal, the state would retain a 40 percent ownership stake in Pinnacol, which would become a mutual assurance company owned by its policyholders and which could eventually turn into a company with publicly held stock…A number of business organizations have balked at the deal, saying Pinnacol’s present quasi-governmental status seems to work well, and it is unclear that privatization would benefit them…Some members of the task force have questioned whether the state is getting the best deal. Denver Post
AZ: Senate approves raising private-school donation tax credits
State senators have approved a bill expanding Arizona’s tax breaks for donations to private school scholarships. The bill creates a second tuition tax-credit program with the same limits, essentially doubling the amount Arizonans can deduct…Another bill approved by the Senate Thursday removes a requirement that schools accepting the donated money conduct annual tests for student improvement. The Arizona Republic
NY: A complex at Aqueduct is risk-free, Cuomo says
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, stung by widespread doubts about his support for the privately financed construction of the country’s largest convention center at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens, offered a full-throated defense of the proposal on Thursday, saying the only cost to the state if the project failed would be “an empty building.” The New York Times