FL: Senate keeps prison privatization alive
An effort to block the planned handover of South Florida prisons to private contractors barely failed during hours of contentious debate on Monday. But those leading the charge against the privatization – which has become a top priority of Senate President Mike Haridopolos – predicted that they would have just enough votes to kill the measure when it comes up for a final vote on Tuesday. “Our 20 are solid,” said Republican Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland, referring to the current votes against privatization. With 20 votes against and 20 for, the bill (SB 2038) would lack a majority in the 40-member Senate and die. With the plan drawing Democratic support and Republican opposition, every vote counts. An amendment brought by another opponent, Republican Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey, was debated Monday and ultimately died 21-19. It would have killed the plan, believed to be the largest prison privatization in United States history, in favor of more legislative study. Miami Herald

FL: Don’t rob reeling school districts to pay charters – editorial
Charter schools currently get tax money based on each student they have, but when it comes to the separate pot of construction and maintenance money, school districts get to decide whether and how much to give charter schools. A bill introduced by Sen. Stephen Wise, a Jacksonville Republican, would do away with that local discretion. District school boards would be forced to proportionately share property tax revenue for construction and maintenance on a per-student basis with charter schools. About a $140 million windfall for charter schools. Backers say the move simply balances the funding scales. Earlier this week, a Florida TaxWatch analysis revealed a funding disparity. Charters get only 70 cents for every dollar per student that traditional schools receive. Wait. Rewind … Didn’t charter school prophets pledge to do more with less? Wasn’t less regulation supposed to deliver greater efficiency?Now, Wise’s bill would poke another stick in taxpayers’ eyes. For-profit charter management companies could take the money and build schools and lease them to the charter schools. Should the school fold, taxpayers are out the money — and the building. Unacceptable. We’ve supported charter schools in the past, but traditional public schools aren’t in shape to absorb the blow they’d take from Wise’s bill. In many districts, much of the property tax is already dedicated to servicing debt for construction to accommodate growth and class-size mandates. Districts could be left scrambling to pay their debt — which could sink their bond ratings. Orlando Sentinel

New law could make it easier for airports to privatize security screening
Until now, airports that wanted to contract private companies to provide security screening services had to apply to the TSA under its Screening Partnership Program (SPP) and prove there would be “a clear and substantial advantage to transition to privatized screening.” However, the FAA authorization bill, which the Senate approved on Feb. 6 and President Obama is expected to sign it into law soon, shifts the burden of proof from the airport to the TSA, which would now have to prove the advantage of privatization does not exist. TSA Administrator John Pistole…said that privatized screening at airports that participate in the SPP have in the past cost between three percent and nine percent more than if the TSA had operated screening services at those airports. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), ranking member of the transportation security subcommittee, baited Pistole, asking him to agree that shifting the burden of proof to the TSA would make securing the country more difficult. Pistole deftly avoided the prompt with a non-committal answer: “Well, Congress has passed this law and the president intends to sign it, I believe, so I look forward to working with the committee to figure out the best way forward on this.” Security Director News

Working people speak out on attacks on public employees
,,,One thing California might have gotten a clue about is furloughs for public workers. Furloughs are basically forced days off. That’s exactly what happened in California. State workers were forced to sacrifice every other paid Friday of work to help balance the state budget. The state workers furlough officially ended October 2010 but now we are still suffering from a $26 billion deficit. Local governments are now considering furloughs as a solution. Some of my coworkers are even forced to take their children to work because the schools are closed down every other Friday. Didn’t we learn our lesson? There’s this strange rationale swooping around that if funding were reallocated and controlled by local government that would solve the problem.  I’m no economist but a redistribution of a $26 billion deficit still equates to a $26 billion deficit, doesn’t it? I recently caught up with a couple of state workers to ask them what they thought about the furloughs and their effect on the economy. AlterNet

Headlines
MI: Detroit crisis may force sale of crucial assets
OH: Interstate rest areas gets privatization look
FL:Senator says DOC records show private prisons aren’t cheaper
LA: Jindal budget ticks off many
WI: Voucher enrollment jumps after rules are relaxed
Veterans Admin accused of excessive outsourcing of vets’ jobs
The big money behind state laws – editorial
Diane Ravitch: Why states should say ‘no thanks’ to charter schools

News summaries
MI: Detroit crisis may force sale of crucial assets
..Now, the city of Detroit’s most venerable assets — from Belle Isle to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel — could end up on the auction block as the city fights for its financial life. Facing mounting debt and the prospect of a state-appointed emergency manager, the city is looking at all options to shed expenses and raise revenue. If city officials can’t come up with a viable budget plan, an emergency manager would have the power to sell assets as part of a financial takeover of Detroit. The Detroit News

OH: Interstate rest areas gets privatization look
A study of the privatization of the Ohio Turnpike will also weigh the possibility of leasing rest areas along the state’s freeways. In his State of the State speech Tuesday, Gov. John Kasich (KAY’-sik) mentioned leasing rest areas as a way to address a recently discovered gap in the transportation budget. The Republic

FL:Senator says DOC records show private prisons aren’t cheaper 
With the Florida Senate poised today to return to a contentious prison-privatization debate, one critic of the proposal to outsource prisons in 18 southern counties says the Department of Corrections’ own calculations on incarceration costs show currently private prisons aren’t necessarily cheaper than public ones. Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, has been railing on the lack of serious policy analysis surrounding the push by Senate President Mike Haridopolos and Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander to enact the most sweeping prison privatization move in the country. While they say the push to hand over the prisons and some 19,000 inmates to a private vendor like Boca Raton-based GEO Group would save the state money, the DOC records Dockery has unearthed suggest the savings from the seven currently private prisons in the state isn’t substantial. Specifically, the records compare per diem costs per average prisoner between the private prisons and their most comparable public-prison (a type of analysis the department itself uses internally, but which it has not released publicly during the debate). The results: mixed.The privately run Bay Correctional Facility, for example, had an average per diem of $48.70 per prisoner in the 2010-11 fiscal year, compared to the $43.78 per diem at the New River prison. The publicly run New River, also had to incarcerate “close management” prisoners that are more dangerous, while the private Bay prison did not. Orlando Sentinel

LA: Jindal budget ticks off many
The governor’s proposed budget, with its privatization of education, prisons, health care and state employee insurance, angers a huge number of people. Some are angry because they would lose their jobs. Some don’t want their relatives moved from one medical facility to another. Doctors and medical facilities don’t want to provide services for less.Some view the governor’s desire to create more charter schools and sending far more kids to private schools as giving up on trying to reform public education.  The News Star

WI: Voucher enrollment jumps after rules are relaxed
Voucher student enrollment grew significantly as a result of legislation signed by Gov. Scott Walker that relaxed income limitations and eliminated enrollment caps in the school choice program, according to a report released Monday by the Public Policy Forum…The report also found that overall enrollment growth in the private schools that participate in the Milwaukee and Racine school choice programs was a direct result of the expanded voucher program, in which qualifying students receive a taxpayer-financed subsidy worth $6,442 to attend a private school…Critics of the program and its expansion say it drains resources from MPS. They argue students in the voucher program haven’t shown better overall results than their peers in MPS. Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, points to voucher students’ failure to top MPS students’ reading and math scores.”This is not about improving education in Milwaukee,” Peterson said. “It’s about transferring students to private schools.” “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a failed social policy that ultimately is undermining the public schools and privatizing education,” he said.  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Veterans Admin accused of excessive outsourcing of vets’ jobs
The Veterans Affairs Department is being accused of undermining its own goal of hiring more veterans by expanding its outsourcing practices that eliminate many federal jobs currently, or historically, held by veterans, according to the union representing 205,000 employees at the VA. In November, President Barack Obama signed into law the “VOW to Hire Heroes Act,” which included language to set up an expedited process for hiring returning solders for federal jobs. But the VA’s own outsourcing, which began to grow under the Bush Administration and are continuing to expand, are abolishing many federal jobs currently held by veterans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), an AFL-CIO union, said in a Feb. 8 news release. For example, the Veterans Benefits Administration recently entered into a $54 million three-year contract with ACS Government Systems to perform claims processing work. That work currently is being performed by “large numbers of veterans,” the union said. “To add insult to injury, the VBA employees are being asked to volunteer to train the contractors to do their work.”Federal Computer

The big money behind state laws – editorial
It is no coincidence that so many state legislatures have spent the last year taking the same destructive actions: making it harder for minorities and other groups that support Democrats to vote, obstructing health care reform, weakening environmental regulations and breaking the spines of public- and private-sector unions. All of these efforts are being backed — in some cases, orchestrated — by a little-known conservative organization financed by millions of corporate dollars. The American Legislative Exchange Council was founded in 1973 by the right-wing activist Paul Weyrich; its big funders include Exxon Mobil, the Olin and Scaife families and foundations tied to Koch Industries. Many of the largest corporations are represented on its board.ALEC has written model legislation on a host of subjects dear to corporate and conservative interests, and supporting lawmakers have introduced these bills in dozens of states. A recent study of the group’s impact in Virginia showed that more than 50 of its bills were introduced there, many practically word for word. The study, by the liberal group ProgressVA, found that ALEC had been involved in writing bills that would:…Encourage school districts to contract with private virtual-education companies. (One such company was the corporate co-chair of ALEC’s education committee.) The bill was signed into law. The New York Times

Diane Ravitch: Why states should say ‘no thanks’ to charter schools
Former D.C. school chancellor Michelle Rhee has sent her followers to Alabama to promote charter schools, but Alabama should say “no, thanks.” The District of Columbia is no model for school reform. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is the gold standard of education testing, shows that Washington D.C. has the biggest achievement gap between black and white students in the nation, double the size of Alabama’s. Alabama should not take lessons from one of the nation’s lowest performing districts. Charter schools haven’t helped other states and they won’t help Alabama. Here are the reasons why:* Numerous national and state studies have shown that charters on average don’t get better results than regular public schools. A small percentage get high scores, more get very low scores, most are about average in terms of test scores. Why kill off a community’s public school to replace it with a privately managed school that is no better and possibly worse? * Charter schools weaken the regular public schools. They take money away from neighborhood public schools and from the district budget. As charter schools open, regular public schools must cut teachers and close down programs to pay for them. The Washington Post

Headlines
FL: Senate takes another swipe at privatizing prisons next week
OH: Dems rap Ohio turnpike lease
CA: UC system shows why privatizing higher ed is not the solution
CA: Inglewood looks to outsource parking enforcement

News summaries
FL: Senate takes another swipe at privatizing prisons next week
Senate President Mike Haridopolos will next week resurrect a prison privatization plan he set aside twice, indicating he may have garnered enough support to pass the controversial measure. Haridopolos said today the Senate will take up the privatization plan (SB 2038) and amendments on Monday, including a proposal that prompted Haridopolos last week to put the brakes on the bill that would privatize all Department of Corrections operations – including prisons and work camps – in an 18-county region in the southern portion of the state. Haridopolos stopped debate before an amendment that would have stripped out the privatization and instead ordered a study of the outsourcing. Palm Beach Post

OH: Dems rap Ohio turnpike lease
Local Democratic officials from northeast Ohio who are opposed to Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to lease the Ohio Turnpike said last week they would launch their own study of the privatization plan. Officials from five counties met in Youngstown last Friday for the first of a series of press conferences opposing the plan. They said it would lead to higher tolls, lower worker wages and the deterioration of local roads. “The Ohio Turnpike is a tremendous asset; it is not an asset of the state of Ohio though to be bought and sold or leased,” Mahoning County Commissioner John McNally told local reporters. Ohio in late November tapped KPMG LLP to act as lead advisor for the plan. The firm has until July to recommend the best way to wring cash from the Turnpike, one of the country’s largest toll roads and one with the highest ratings. Bond Buyer ($)

CA: UC system shows why privatizing higher ed is not the solution
While tuition is rising all across the nation, the University of California (UC) system serves as a great case study for understanding what is broken about public higher education in the U.S. and the problem with how we are trying to fix it. Tuition increases are not only reflective of states’ budget crises, but a change in the attitude that a good public education should be funded by the state. The recent move toward privatization by using alternative sources to fund public higher education, such as tuition and private endowments, is the wrong step in finding a permanent solution. Instead, we need to guarantee funding from the state through a constitutional amendment that would institutionally prioritize higher education. PolicyMic

CA: Inglewood looks to outsource parking enforcement
The city’s ongoing precarious financial situation — despite closing a $17 million budget shortfall last year — has been brought back into focus with the possible outsourcing of its parking enforcement services. The prospect came following a Jan. 31 meeting when the council voted 3-2 to initiate an “Request for Proposal” (RFP) process, asking staff to return with recommendations for selecting a qualified parking enforcement and meter operations provider….Paul Hawkins, a 22-year special enforcement officer who attended the council meeting, voiced his disappointment at the decision. “I was really shocked, a lot of the public spoke against it, and we’ve been rallying for the last couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ve looked at the paperwork, and to us it just doesn’t add up. The money they’re talking about saving, about $450,000 is based on eliminating our jobs alone.  Los Angeles Wave

Headlines
Florida prison privatization push stalls despite big spending
CA: Big cities cautious about privatizing parking after Chicago’s effort
OH: Ohio DOT talks about privatizing rest stops
CO: Gov: Slow down privatizing workers comp insurer
AZ: Publishers, lawmakers wrangle over future of printed public notices
NH: Legislature directs agencies to use open source databases
How privatizing government shovels cash to parasitic corporations

News summaries
Florida prison privatization push stalls despite big spending
Millions of dollars in campaign contributions from for-profit prison companies may not be enough this year to push through a prison privatization plan that is a priority of Gov. Rick Scott and Republican legislative leaders.The push to privatize one-fifth of the state corrections facilities along with all inmate health care could net prison companies hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts, and those companies have spent millions in the past year trying to win support for the plan. But Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, who made the prison outsourcing one of his top goals, put the bill on hold twice last week because he lacked the votes within his Republican caucus to pass it. Research by The Palm Beach Post shows that Boca Raton-based GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, have contributed nearly $2 million to candidates and political parties since Scott’s election. Palm Beach Post

CA: Big cities cautious about privatizing parking after Chicago’s effort
Sacramento doesn’t have many role models to follow as it tries to auction off its parking garages and meters to help finance a new sports arena. Just two major U.S. cities – Chicago and Indianapolis – have completed such privatization deals. And the biggest one, in Chicago in 2008, was a public relations nightmare. Chicagoans were outraged when meter rates soared and the machines briefly malfunctioned. The city’s inspector general said the $1.15 billion price the city received was way too low. While the operating company says citizen anger has abated, the deal is still viewed in political circles as a mistake.
That fallout has spread around the country. Pittsburgh and several other cities backed away from privatizing their parking, partly out of fear of duplicating Chicago’s experience…Sacramento, though, is pushing ahead. Indeed, after a decade of false starts and botched initiatives, city officials have settled on the parking program as the foundation of a new arena that would keep the Sacramento Kings from fleeing…City officials saw what happened in Chicago and contend they can craft a deal that generates a lot of cash while protecting the interests of taxpayers, motorists and downtown businesses. Sacramento Bee

OH: Ohio DOT talks about privatizing rest stops
Last week, an Ohio Department of Transportation advisory panel voted unanimously to move forward on its plan to delay dozens of new construction projects throughout the state. The decision comes in the wake of a two billion dollar ODOT funding deficit. For now, ODOT said they will not raise the gas tax, the department’s primary source of revenue…The move would make Ohio the first state in the nation to privatize rest areas, something that could generate a significant annual income source…”My vision is that we would literally bulldoze down what is currently there and have so many acres of land available and we would have the private sector come in and put their stores in,” Wray explains. “We would have requirements that they would have to mow, put in restrooms, but we are trying to turn what is currently an expense into a revenue.” For now, any move to privatize the turnpike or rest areas is probably not going to come this year, an election year…And again, the public can weigh in on all of this during ODOT’s 45 day public comment period. Many have already spoken out. In fact, a separate citizen Facebook page has been created to generate support for the building of the second Innerbelt Bridge. NewsChannel5

CO: Gov: Slow down privatizing workers comp insurer
John Hickenlooper and Colorado’s only state-chartered workers compensation insurer have agreed to delay a proposal to privatize the company. Hickenlooper said Thursday more work needs to be done on the plan for Pinnacol Assurance…Pinnacol has had a rocky relationship with the state since it was challenged in 2011 over reports of lavish spending and excess profits, which some lawmakers said came from denying claims from injured workers. The company has denied those allegations. Last month, Pinnacol was criticized for running ads touting the benefits of privatization. KJCT8

AZ: Publishers, lawmakers wrangle over future of printed public notices
Continuing a string of similar bills in recent years, Rep. David W. Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, has proposed removing the requirement that statutory public notices be published in newspapers. HB 2403 would provide the option of putting a notice instead on “a designated site” online…Rick Edmonds, who researches business and journalism issues for the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., said newspaper publishers in many states face efforts to remove print requirements for statutory public notices. “The history though is that many of these things are proposed but there has never been a broad exemption to the requirement that notices be published [by newspapers],” he said. Arizona’s law, which predates the Internet, calls for notices authorized by law to be published in an English-language newspaper of general circulation. If a newspaper is printed daily, the notice must run four consecutive days. In a weekly newspaper, the notice must run for two consecutive weeks. Ginger Lamb, vice president and publisher of the Arizona Capitol Times, told lawmakers Thursday that running notices in print provides an independent third party to verify legitimacy as well as a permanent, secure archive of ads. Cronkite News

NH: Legislature directs agencies to use open source databases
The New Hampshire legislature voted in favor of requiring state agencies to use open source software to allow for better public access to government information. NH Liberty Alliance

How privatizing government shovels cash to parasitic corporations
Rather than solving problems with government, privatization often amplifies those issues to new extremes. Instead of unleashing market innovation, it often introduces new parasitic partners into the decision-making process. Instead of providing a check on the power of the government, it allows the state to circumvent constitutional and democratic accountability measures by merging with the private sector. And ultimately, the practice replaces the set of choices and constraints found in democracy, with another set found in the marketplace. Today’s political conversation is blind to these problems out of a mistaken faith in the efficiency and fundamental equality of markets, contrasted to the ineffectiveness and corruptibility of the state. What advocates miss is that the logic of markets creates private-sector coalitions capable of extracting just as much from taxpayers as the state. Corporations, lobbyists and other market actors can have just as much political agency as the government, and privatization can mobilize businesses to rewrite market practices. AlterNet

Headlines
OH: Dem leaders protest plan to privatize Ohio Turnpike
FL: Controversial Lincoln Road outsourcing bid attacked again
UT: No liquor privatization this  year
ALEC education ‘academy’ launches on island resort

News summaries
OH: Dem leaders protest plan to privatize Ohio Turnpike
Democratic elected officials from Northeast Ohio gathered in Youngstown for the first in a series of news conferences in opposition to Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to privatize the Ohio Turnpike to generate revenue for the state. The Democrats said the privatization proposal could result in higher tolls, a decline in turnpike maintenance and lower wages for turnpike workers…The creation of the Ohio Turnpike Commission, which operates the road, was authorized in 1949 by the Ohio Legislature, and the road opened in 1955. The commission, not the state, issued more than $326 million in revenue bonds to fund its construction, McNally said. “No state general-revenue funds have ever been appropriated by the state of Ohio to support the Ohio Turnpike,” McNally said. “The turnpike is funded by tolls, profits from concessions and other items sold in turnpike shops.” If the sale or lease of the turnpike were put out to bid, state Rep. Ronald Gerberry of Austintown, D-59th, said there’d be no way to prevent a foreign corporation or government from owning or leasing the 241-mile-long toll road, which traverses Northern Ohio, including Trumbull and Mahoning counties. A Spanish company leases the Indiana toll road, he noted. Youngstown Vindicator

FL: Controversial Lincoln Road outsourcing bid attacked again
Miami Beach commissioners could vote Wednesday to negotiate a no-bid contract that could be worth around $25 million for a private company to landscape and maintain the Lincoln Road mall for the next decade. The contract would go to a company managed by Robert Wennett, the developer of 1111 Lincoln Road, the stylish, Swiss-designed parking garage that has become the chic spot for parties and weddings. Wennett’s UIA Management maintains the new 1100 block of Lincoln Road, which he developed with millions of dollars in city funds, as part of a public/private partnership. The new deal would extend Wennett’s current contract, valued at $158,000 annually through the beginning of 2020, to cover the maintenance of the entire mall at a cost estimated around $3 million a year. Wennett’s management fee is 15 percent. In September, an anonymous letter alleged the proposal to have Wennett oversee the mall was an attempt to funnel millions of public dollars into the developer’s pockets. Commissioners turned the matter over to the State Attorney’s Office, which confirmed its open investigation in December…Nonetheless, Miami Beach’s largest public employee union has launched a scathing commercial on cable television, attacking Gonzalez and calling Wennett’s original contract a “Trojan Horse” crafted with the intention of him eventually running all of Lincoln Road. Miami Herald

UT: No liquor privatization this  year
If it wasn’t clear already, Thursday it became official: There will be no attempt to privatize the state’s liquor operations in the 2012 Legislature….Several veteran lawmakers who have dealt with liquor control issues before told UtahPolicy that major changes won’t be happening this session in part because “all the traditional stakeholders” – as one put it – “in liquor control have not been brought together.” In legislative-speak that means leaders of the LDS Church, who historically have had a say in liquor control in Utah, have not been brought into the discussions – at least not to the extent as in the past. Thus without that traditional coalition, no major changes will occur.  Utah Pulse

ALEC education ‘academy’ launches on island resort
Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an island resort off the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise. AFL-CIO

Headlines
CBO: Toll roads are not free money
NY: Gov’s landlord hopes to double its money from privatized state building
FL: Prison privatization plan may be crumbling in Florida Senate
FL: Senator booted off budget panel over privatization
FL: Water privatization proposal scrapped
FL: North Miami teacher called to principal’s office after call from the mayor
LA: State agencies hoping to privatize some services

CBO: Toll roads are not free money
A report released last month by the non-partisan government analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found the purported benefits of this financing mechanism were mostly illusory, as taxpayers end up paying roughly the same amount either way. “The case is sometimes made that using funds from private capital markets to finance roads can increase the resources available to build, operate, and maintain roads,” the CBO report stated. “But the sources of revenues available to pay for the cost of a highway project — whether it uses the traditional financing approach or a public-private partnership — are the same: specifically, tolls paid by users or taxes collected by either the federal government or by state and local governments. Therefore, absent restrictions on governments’ ability to borrow, there is no difference between the amount those governments could raise themselves and the sums that public-private partnerships could raise because the same resources are available to remunerate investors in either case.”…”In order to properly assess the difference in costs between securing financing through the traditional approach (generally as public debt) and obtaining it by private means, it is necessary to account not only for the interest paid on money borrowed for the project but also for the costs associated with the risks borne by taxpayers and the costs of financial transfers — in the form of subsidized interest rates and advantageous tax treatment — from the federal government to states and localities,” the report explained. “If such a comprehensive measure is used, the costs of private and public financing are roughly comparable.” A copy of the report is available here.  The Newspaper

NY: Gov’s landlord hopes to double its money from privatized state building
The landlord for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office in Midtown Manhattan is putting 10 floors in the building up for sale — at twice the price it paid to buy the space from the state just five years ago. Time Equities paid $103 million — or about $540 a square foot — in November 2006 to buy the top 10 floors of 633 Third Ave. from the Empire State Development Corp., a state agency that was moving downtown…The space is now for sale at $1,075 a square foot, says Time Equities’ director of office leasing and sales, Brandon Medeiros…The governor’s lease expires in June 2013…The $3.4 million annual rent bill is by far the highest price per square foot that state government pays to rent space anywhere in New York — and almost double what another state office pays for space in the same building….The comptroller’s deal was reached in 2003, at a down time for the real estate market, she said, while rents had rebounded by the time the governor’s office signed its lease in 2006….“This is just another example of how a state economic development program has benefited a large corporation and not the economy of the state,” Brodsky said. “There is no reason in the world for this company to have a subsidized transaction and not have to share or to repay that subsidy once they make a profit.”  The New York World

FL: Prison privatization plan may be crumbling in Florida Senate
A massive plan to privatize 28 correctional facilities in South Florida appeared to be crumbling Wednesday as opposition to the plan that would cost the region nearly 4,000 jobs rose in the Florida Senate. The plan – scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor Wednesday – was abruptly yanked off the calendar by Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, amid reports that as many as 20  Republicans and Democrats were prepared to kill it. Earlier, Gov. Rick Scott called in two critics in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to change their minds. Haridopolos also stripped one of the plan’s principal critics – Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey – of his chairmanship of the budget committee that oversees prisons, saying he had “he had “lost confidence” in Fasano’s ability to help the Senate come up with a budget for the state. Fasano compared him to a “schoolyard bully.” At the end of the day, the bill was in limbo. “At this point, I’m not ready to bring it up to vote,” Haridopolos told reporters. The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning pulled discussion of a similar plan from its agenda without comment.  Orlando Sentinel

FL: Senator booted off budget panel over privatization
Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos on Wednesday removed a veteran GOP legislator from a budget panel after he fought a plan to privatize prisons, saying he had lost confidence in the lawmaker’s willingness to cut government costs. Haridopolos said he was stripping Sen. Mike Fasano of his chairmanship of the Senate budget subcommittee that oversees spending on prisons and the courts. He was also removed from the main budget committee. “I had lost confidence in him to build (on) the mission” of cutting the cost of government, Haridopolos told reporters. “It was a very difficult decision, but I just felt he was not rowing in the same direction. He was not ready to make the tough choices. He couldn’t handle the responsibility.” The move, however, could upset the perceived collegial working atmosphere of the Senate at a time that it is dealing with a billion-dollar budget gap and the once-a-decade job of redistricting. The Florida Education Association and Florida AFL-CIO, which represents many public workers, were swift in firing off press releases criticizing the move as “political payback” for privatization interests. But Fasano, of New Port Richey, said he’d “wear the loss as a badge of honor” for speaking up “for the little guy.” Miami Herald

FL: Water privatization proposal scrapped
Under pressure from environmentalists, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, scrapped a controversial proposal Wednesday to “privatize” the state’s treated wastewater. HB 639 as originally written would have changed the definition of “reclaimed water” to place ownership with local governments and utility companies, something Buckhorn was pushing for to help replenish Tampa’s water supply. Environmentalists objected, saying the resource would no longer belong to Florida citizens, but to governments and utility companies that may be tempted to sell to the highest bidder. So instead Young pitched, and unanimously passed by committee, a version that forbids water management districts, which control water for the state, from forcing cities and utilities to give away water they pay to treat. Tampa Bay Times

FL: North Miami teacher called to principal’s office after call from the mayor
A North Miami science teacher who spoke at a public meeting with her children is incensed after the city’s mayor called her school to complain…The reason: The city’s mayor had called Principal Bernard Osborn after Futterman and her two children spoke out against a controversial waste contract at a recent North Miami council meeting. Futterman, who has one of Mayor Andre Pierre’s children in her class, said she was flabbergasted. “Who is he to call my place of employment?” said Futterman, who lives in North Miami. “I am offended as his son’s educator and as a citizen.” The Jan. 24 meeting drew a packed room, with a spillover audience watching from the lobby as the council heard public comment about a plan to privatize the city’s garbage services. The proposal has been the subject of scandal and controversy for months: The mayors nephew and reelection campaign manager, Ricardo Brutus, was arrested in March for allegedly accepting $4,000 from a local businessman to ensure the ordinance was delayed until after the election. Brutus was caught on tape describing his influence in City Hall, although he has denied wrongdoing and Pierre has sought to distance himself from the case…Pierre said he called the school out of concern for comments made by Futterman’s children — although he said he didn’t realize their mother was a teacher at the school…Futterman’s children, like their mom, had questioned the council about whether the new plan would include recycling.  Miami Herald

LA: State agencies hoping to privatize some services
Two state agencies served notice Wednesday that they want to privatize some of their services by mid-year, moves that could cost more than 200 state employees their jobs. The proposals to outsource some jobs to private contractors were pitched to the state Civil Service Commission by the Office of Student Financial Assistance and three units of the Department of Health and Hospitals. The commission will not act on the proposals until the agencies return with proposed contacts, indicating how much they cost and how much can be saved for taxpayers.  The Times-Picayune

Headlines
FL: Short on support, Senate leader holds off on prison privatizing vote
FL: Study: Fla’s shift to private care means longer Medicaid waiting lists
UT: Commerce Director says no to liquor privatization
DC: DC trust paid out to mystery groups, records show
PA: Editorial: Bounty hunters need not apply in Philly
CO: Panel reacts coolly to Pinnacol privatization proposal

News summaries
FL: Short on support, Senate leader holds off on prison privatizing vote
A split Senate GOP caucus is threatening a prison privatization effort despite the support of GOP leaders…[Senate President] Haridopolos halted floor debate on the bill Tuesday afternoon and has temporarily postponed a chamber vote, with more than 10 Republicans joining with 10 Democrats in opposition to the plan….Republicans lining up against the bill questioned the true savings involved in the plan to outsource all Department of Corrections operations in an 18-county region in the southern portion of the state…The uncertainty surrounding the vote Tuesday underscored why Senate leaders last year tucked the privatization into the budget rather than bringing it up in a stand-alone bill. A Tallahassee judge threw out that privatization plan, ruling that the way lawmakers went about ordering the outsourcing in the budget was unconstitutional…Haridopolos said he has not yet decided on when to bring up the bill for a full vote. “I’m still debating on that,” he said. “We’ll see how far we get tomorrow.”  Palm Beach Post

FL: Study: Fla’s shift to private care means longer Medicaid waiting lists
When the Legislature decided last year to cap Medicaid funding and turn long-term care over to private managed care companies, some experts warned that growing waiting lists would drive people into expensive nursing homes. A study released Tuesday by the Legislature’s own policy analysts underscores that fear. Florida has three main Medicaid programs that divert people from nursing homes by providing home health care, aides for chores, assisted living and other services. One uses a for-profit, managed care model. Waiting lists for those programs rose 30 percent last year, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability reported. Meanwhile, the cost of the managed care program was significantly higher than the two traditional nonprofit programs. Tampa Bay Times

UT: Commerce Director says no to liquor privatization
The interim director of the Utah Department of Alcohol Beverage Control says she doesn’t want to see the state’s liquor industry privatized, but she does believe the department needs to be restructured. “I don’t think privatization is the answer,” said Francine Giani, executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce. “I think you would lose money coming to the state.” ..Giani reported her efforts to shape up DABC to the Business, Economic Development and Labor Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. She said she has worked with the department to bring budgets in line, keep stores open that were slated for closure and “move people along who shouldn’t be there anymore.” “In the last six months, I believe that in fact the ship has been righted. Is it perfect? It is not,” she said, adding legislative auditors continue to review the agency.  Desert News

DC: DC trust paid out to mystery groups, records show
A public-private trust at the center of former D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr.’s theft scandal doled out more than $100,000 to other groups not registered as nonprofits and others that don’t exist in city records, raising more questions about the oversight of D.C. taxpayer money.  A review of its records shows that the D.C. Children & Youth Investment Trust Corp. disclosed to the Internal Revenue Service paying more than $100,000 combined to several organizations it deemed to be operating as so-called 501(c)(3) nonprofits, but a check of a public Internal Revenue Service database shows no indication that any of the groups obtained nonprofit status.Scrutiny on the trust intensified Tuesday as its former executive director, Millicent D. West, resigned from her job as head of the District’s homeland security agency. She was in charge of the trust when Thomas steered money from it. The trust pays more than $100,000 per year to an employee for grants management. The Washington Times

PA: Editorial: Bounty hunters need not apply in Philly
Philadelphia authorities have to do a better job when issuing Get-Out-of-Jail cards, but needed reforms in the bail system are more complex than merely putting Dog the Bounty Hunter on the case….Yet, the Senate panel last week heard another pitch for privatizing city-run bail procedures. Commercial bondsmen contend their trade has been professionalized since decades ago when corruption led Philadelphia to scrap its private system. Still, even the slightest risk of a repeat is a big obstacle. That’s why both District Attorney Seth Williams and Pamela Pryor Dembe, president judge of Common Pleas Court, wisely favor retooling, not scrapping, the cash-bail system under which defendants must put up 10 percent of their bail to go free…There are no easy fixes, but the city’s bail system can be repaired. Philadelphia Inquirer

CO: Panel reacts coolly to Pinnacol privatization proposal
Even with Gov. John Hickenlooper selling it in person, a proposal to privatize Pinnacol Assurance — the state-chartered workers’ compensation insurance fund — got a cool reception Tuesday from a special panel. The Pinnacol Assurance Stakeholders Task Force didn’t take an official vote on the proposal, but a straw poll of the panel members in attendance — a group composed of civic leaders as well as representives from business associations, labor unions and nonprofits — showed that more than half were either opposed or neutral. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has been pushing hard on the privatization deal, which would turn Pinnacol, a quasi-governmental entity that is a political subdivision of the state, into a mutual-assurance company with the option to become a common-stock company. The Denver Post