Headlines
Public-private deals seen boosting road projects
Community colleges: Privatization without angst
Conservative nonprofit acts as a lobbyist for business
MO: Interstate 70 toll proposal hits roadblock
MI: Unions say charters, privatizing contribute to state employee pension problems
NJ: Privatized paraprofessionals may mean many in middle schools unemployed
Public-private deals seen boosting road projects
With tight budgets at the federal and local levels reducing the availability of public funds for new infrastructure projects, some planners will turn to private investors. “There is ample capital available to invest in revenue-backed U.S. infrastructure projects,” said Little, noting some of the $12 trillion of pension funds could become available for infrastructure investments. However, the partnerships cannot replace public funding, experts at the conference said. “One point is funding, and another is financing,” said Joung Lee of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which represents state transportation departments.Gasoline taxes, both federal and state, account for the bulk of funds for building and maintaining highways, and revenue from these is in decline in real terms. More fuel-efficient vehicles and a federal gasoline tax long set at a flat rate of 18.4 cents per gallon are pushing this primary source of road revenues down. “We presented the Congress with a wide variety of financing options,” said Lee, showing a wide matrix including endless possibilities, such as drivers’ license surcharges or other taxes and fees. “What is lacking is the political will to implement any of these options.” Reuters

Community colleges: Privatization without angst
…By such measures, Curtis said, his college is private. By next year, he said, the college will be close to having two-thirds of its revenue come from tuition revenue. But Curtis stressed that his college is embracing many other characteristics of privatization “and they are not all bad.”..But even in the audience of administrators here, not everyone seemed entirely comfortable with the idea of simply embracing privatization as a model…There were also some philosophical questions — although no one challenged the idea that traditional means of financing community colleges are likely dead or dying. One administrator asked how, if such a vision were to be embraced, community colleges would be different from for-profit colleges. Another asked how the idea of community colleges competing for contracts with businesses, creating new profit-making ventures and looking for new markets might make them all competitors with one another. The AACC meeting is one where community college leaders today share ideas and talk of shared values, not one where people talk much about competition with one another. “In the private world you do not necessarily share your best innovations with those who you begin to see as competitors,” said one official here. He asked Glasper if he thought about “the impact on collegiality as we begin to see each other as competitors.”  Inside Higher Ed

Conservative nonprofit acts as a lobbyist for business
The American Legislative Exchange Council, whose members include lawmakers and corporations, drafts legislation on which 1,000 bills introduced annually in state legislatures are based.Despite its generally low profile, ALEC has drawn scrutiny recently for promoting gun rights policies like the Stand Your Ground law at the center of the Trayvon Martin shooting case in Florida, as well as bills to weaken labor unions and tighten voter identification rules. Amid the controversies, several companies, including Coca-Cola, Intuit and Kraft Foods, have left the group…But a review of internal ALEC documents shows that this is only one facet of a sophisticated operation for shaping public policy at a state-by-state level. The records offer a glimpse of how special interests effectively turn ALEC’s lawmaker members into stealth lobbyists, providing them with talking points, signaling how they should vote and collaborating on bills affecting hundreds of issues like school vouchers and tobacco taxes. The documents — hundreds of pages of minutes of private meetings, member e-mail alerts and correspondence — were obtained by the watchdog group Common Cause and shared with The New York Times. Common Cause, which said it got some of the documents from a whistle-blower and others from public record requests in state legislatures, is using the files to support an Internal Revenue Service complaint asserting that ALEC has abused its tax-exempt status, something ALEC denies. The New York Times

MO: Interstate 70 toll proposal hits roadblock
..State Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, said last week that he would be ‘shocked” if the Missouri Legislature passes a bill authorizing tolls as part of a public-private partnership to rebuild a 200-mile stretch of I-70 across the middle of the state…The Missouri Department of Transportation said converting I-70 to a toll road would involve adding lanes and replacing interchanges at a cost of $2 billion to $4 billion. The idea was to have a private consortium finance, rebuild and operate the highway. MoDOT leaders suggested the toll road proposal would not likely require a public vote. The proposal faced fierce opposition from the trucking industry, gas station and convenience store owners, and others…Convenience store owners along I-70 voiced concern that a significant percentage of drivers would use free highways to drive across the state and would deal a blow to their bottom lines. The powerful trucking industry decried imposing tolls without a public vote. Post-Dispatch

MI: Unions say charter schools, privatizing have contributed to state employee pension problems
The growth of charter schools and privatizing school jobs is contributing toward a potential crisis in the state’s school employee retirement system because there are fewer workers paying into the plan, union leaders testified Thursday.  Mlive.com

NJ: Privatized paraprofessionals may mean many in middle schools unemployed
Over 200 people came en masse Thur. April 19 to listen and make their case before the Middle Township Board of Education to keep the district’s paraprofessionals as employees of the school district. The board is considering privatizing the district’s 52 regular aides, 13 bus aides and 290 substitute teachers in what it calls a possible cost-savings measure….One issue brought to the fore throughout the meeting was the need to have aides in the schools that supply consistency to their charges along with a level of caring that will only be found in community-based employees who are committed to the district and the children it educates. “Do you have any idea what we do?” Middle School aide Debbie Avicolli asked the board. “We’re with these children six hours a day, longer than any one teacher or administrator. We get to know their strengths and weaknesses. We know what they eat, and in a lot of cases, that they don’t eat at all. We provide them with consistency. We help them be the best they can be so they are receptive to learning.” Privatization of paraprofessionals would result in those employees no longer covered by the state pension plan. Instead, by working for a private company, employees could contribute to other retirement plans such as 401Ks and IRAs. According to sources, it would also eliminate sick and vacation days. Cape May Herald