Headlines
On campus, new deals with banks
States want to add toll roads to fund repairs
Romney’s plan seems certain to hasten privatization of public schools – opinion
MI: Roger Penske urges privatizing Detroit’s lighting, transportation systems
OH: Ohio State action expected on parking privatization bids
NC: N.C. Democrats, Republicans oppose I-95 toll project
CA: Laguna residents sue toll road agency, Caltrans, cities for flood damage

On campus, new deals with banks
College campuses have long been attractive hunting grounds for financial institutions looking for new customers.  In recent years, however, their efforts to woo students have gotten banks and other financial institutions in trouble with regulators. They are now effectively prohibited from providing gifts to students who sign up for credit cards. And the colleges themselves can no longer be paid by the lenders to steer students to student loans. But many colleges, struggling to offset cuts in state funds and under pressure to keep tuition down, are finding new ways to strike deals with financial institutions, by turning student IDs into debit cards and allowing lenders to take over disbursement of financial aid. Consumer advocates worry that financial firms are again profiting from unsuspecting students, by charging them fees and even gaining access to their financial aid funds. Now a prominent consumer group has tried to document the extent of the practice.  In a report released on Wednesday, the group, the United States Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, found that nearly 900 colleges and universities have card partnerships with financial institutions; in some instances, the colleges receive hefty payments from banks for the exclusive access to students; in other instances, the schools save money by outsourcing financial functions to banks or other vendors.  New York Times

States want to add toll roads to fund repairs
High fuel prices may not be the only factor adding to the cost of driving — you could soon be paying tolls to use public highways. In the past, drivers have paid at the pump for infrastructure improvements, since fuel taxes have traditionally funded road and bridge construction and repairs. But with fuel tax revenues dropping and raising taxes currently a political hot potato in Congress, some states are considering adding tolls to highways in order to make up for transportation-infra​structure repair shortfalls. Toll-accessed turnpikes have existed in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest, since before the advent of the Interstate system in 1956. And 2,900 miles of the 47,000-mile Interstate system have “grandfathered” authorization to collect tolls. But restrictions currently preclude other states from enacting tolls on federally funded highways except in certain circumstances. Now, however, states are increasingly asking Congress to loosen the rules on their ability to charge tolls. While tolls are an imperfect solution for several reasons — including an increase in bottlenecks and potential mismanagement by private toll collectors — for many states it’s the best and perhaps the only option to pay for keeping aging transportation infrastructure in shape. MSN Auto

Romney’s plan seems certain to hasten privatization of public schools – opinion
Romney is advancing a pro-choice, pro-voucher, pro-states-rights education program that seems certain to hasten the privatization of the public education system. In a Romney-run education world, the parents of poor and special-education students would choose a school – public or private, based on standardized test scores and other data – and then a specific amount of public money would follow the child to the school. Salt Lake Tribune

MI: Roger Penske urges privatizing Detroit’s lighting, transportation systems
Business and racing powerhouse Roger Penske didn’t profess to have all the answers of how to revitalize Detroit, but this afternoon he certainly shared some strong opinions on what needs to be fixed. Penske, speaking at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference, said the city’s lighting and transportation systems need to be privatized and a regional rail line need to become a reality. Detroit Free Press

OH: Ohio State action expected on parking privatization bids
Bids for the proposed privatization of the university’s parking assets were due to the Office of Business Wednesday. The plan, if approved by President E. Gordon Gee, provost Joseph Alutto and chief financial officer Geoff Chatas, would turn over operations of all permit sales, parking lots and parking garages to an outside vendor for up to a 50-year period…Jordyn Hornyak, a third-year in international business, said she drives and parks on campus, and is concerned about the parking rates rising, not only for students, but for faculty. “I’ve heard many concerns about the price range in the future,” Hornyak said. Several cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis have moved toward parking privatization, but no public universities have made the switch. Enrico Bonello, an OSU professor in plant pathology and another member of faculty council, said the administration is moving forward with this deal without regard to the impact on people. “They (administration) are acting along those lines that they are only interested in cash flow. With disregard with what happens or what that means to actual people. And I just feel like they talk down to us like we don’t understand what’s going on,” Bonello said. “But we do and we know that this is not a smart move for the university.” OSU

NC: N.C. Democrats, Republicans oppose I-95 toll project
Legislators on both sides of the aisle, and both sides of Interstate 95, are throwing roadblocks in front of a thoroughly unpopular proposal from the state Department of Transportation to finance a $4.4 billion widening project by collecting tolls from I-95 drivers. State House and Senate members who represent I-95 counties have introduced bills to require an economic study on how the electronic tolling might hurt residents and businesses in Eastern North Carolina, and a traffic study on how U.S. 301 and other alternate routes might be overburdened by cars and trucks trying to dodge the tolls. Winston-Salem Journal

CA: Laguna residents sue toll road agency, Caltrans, cities for flood damage
Residents and businesses in a Laguna Canyon neighborhood are placing blame on construction of the 73 toll road and other upstream development for the December 2010 floods that devastated their properties and threatened lives. Orange County Register

Headlines
CA: UCLA faculty votes on privatizing business school
NC: NC House wants to go slow on prisoner health care
NJ: Opinion: The conservative case to save traditional public schools
PA: New push to privatize wine, liquor sales
ME: East-West Highway: savior or albatross?
IN: Commentary: Toll road deal took decisions out of hands of Hoosiers

CA: UCLA faculty votes on privatizing business school
A controversial proposal that would privatize the University of California Los Angeles’ business school but allow it to remain affiliated with the state university is moving ahead. Sacramento Bee

NC: NC House wants to go slow on prisoner health care
Legislators are trying to prevent North Carolina prison officials from privatizing inmate medical care for all of the state’s adult prisoners unless they get the express approval of the General Assembly. Business Week

NJ: Opinion: The conservative case to save traditional public schools
..What was odd about the scene — and what makes Ravitch so powerful an advocate for pre-privatized public schools — is that she is an apostate. The New York University historian worked for three right-wing think tanks. She was an official in the administration of the first President Bush. She embraced choice, testing and accountability…Public education, she says, is “an institutional essential to American democracy” and, in cities across the country — and in the state — it faces dismantling. The closing of traditional public schools and the reopening, in their stead, of privatized charter schools.
Ravitch does not consider charter schools to be public schools. In an interview, Ravitch said, “I have problems thinking of charter schools as public schools. They have private management and, just because they have public money, it doesn’t make them public schools. If that were the case, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton would all be public schools. They receive public funds.” Star-Ledger

PA: New push to privatize wine, liquor sales
Their efforts stymied a year after they made a high-profile push to get the state out of the wine and liquor business, privatization supporters led by House Majority Leader Mike Turzai are offering a new plan that would make beer distributors exclusive one-stop shops for beer, wine and liquor. But there remain serious doubts as to whether the reconfigured proposal, which continues to undergo tweaks and changes as supporters seek votes, will do any better at garnering the support needed to end nearly 80 years of state wine and liquor sales. Allentown Morning Call

ME: East-West Highway: savior or albatross?
The proposed road runs through a very sparsely populated part of Maine and would compete for Canada-to-Canada freight traffic with an existing railway that could be upgraded for a fraction of the cost and environmental impact. Given border delays, the proposed route isn’t even a slam-dunk shortcut for most Atlantic Canadian truckers and motorists. Add in the steep tolls that may be necessary to pay for construction, maintenance and plowing, and many may think twice about using it.  New York Daily News

IN: Commentary: Toll road deal took decisions out of hands of Hoosiers
The state plowed that $3.8 billion into road work on a large scale, but less than a decade into that 75-year lease, word comes that the money will be gone and we have lost control of the asset that is the toll road for the next three to four generations…In a self-governing society, taxes are supposed to be something a free people pay to themselves – an investment in building the infrastructure that supports them all. When government runs a budget surplus, it is a savings account that we can draw upon to build things that will benefit everyone – or return the funds to the individual taxpayers. When government runs a deficit, it is, by and large, a debt we owe to ourselves. Either way, the choices remain ours, because we’re supposed to control the process through our votes – and the votes of the people we elect to represent us. In this case, if the state had hiked the tolls, the funds for the next 70 years would have gone to helping the people of this state. Instead, the hikes that will come for the next three to four generations will benefit the shareholders and employees of the company. The Statehouse Files

Headlines
Colleges for profit are growing, with federal help
IL: $50 million parking ticket
OH: County stresses stake in turnpike
NY: Nassau’s sewer plan sounds too good
MN: Minneapolis city council ok’s Vikings stadium plan,

Colleges for profit are growing, with federal help
While state and local governments spend less on higher education, the volume of federally guaranteed loans to students at commercial colleges continues to grow….In Washington, the Obama administration has been trying to write rules that would stop loans going to students at the most exploitative of the schools, ones whose students are most likely to default on the loans and least likely to get jobs if they graduate. The Department of Education is expected to announce within a few weeks which programs at which schools are failing, but that determination will have little immediate impact. The earliest that any school will lose financing is 2014…. All those profits would dry up and vanish were government support to wither away, but so far there is little sign of that. In the 2010-11 academic year, the government guaranteed nearly $24 billion in loans to students at proprietary schools and provided almost $9 billion more in grants. All that money went to the schools.  New York Times

IL: $50 million parking ticket
Chicago Parking Meters, LLC has sent another bill to the city, totaling $22 million, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. To date, the parking meter company has sought reimbursement of almost $50 million for lost revenue due to street closures and disabled parking….Just imagine if the City of Chicago decided to replace the meters and raise the rates on its own! The scariest part of this whole ordeal is that there is still no law on the books protecting taxpayers from getting taken to the cleaner’s again. Certainly, asset privatization has become more unpopular than ever. But the Infrastructure Trust was unpopular too, and we saw that sail right through the City Council. So until there is a law on the books to protect taxpayers from bad deals, Chicago taxpayers should assume that anything can happen. Illinois PIRG

OH: County stresses stake in turnpike
Lorain County has a major stake in the future of the Ohio Turnpike, county commissioners told representatives of the Ohio Department of Transportation and a Texas consulting firm that is studying whether the toll road should be privatized.  The county has six exit ramps off the Turnpike, the most of any county the road runs through, and any change would have a significant impact locally, the commissioners said. Commissioner Ted Kalo said one of his chief concerns is whether leasing the Turnpike to a private company will lead to increased tolls that could force drivers, particularly truckers, off the toll road and onto free highways. That would lead to higher traffic rates on local roads and mean more upkeep will be required to maintain those roads, he said. The Chronicle-Telegram

NY: Nassau’s sewer plan sounds too good
Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano may be on to something with his proposal for a public-private partnership to operate its sewage treatment facilities…As Mangano described the deal on Thursday, ot would be a fabulous deal for the county.In fact, too fabulous, which is why we are skeptical. To hear Mangano describe the plan, United Water would step in and using its efficiencies, immediately be able to operate the system for 30 to 40 percent less than it costs now….But what if you could finance the improvements, pay off all your outstanding debt and even have some left over to pay down the $3 billion debt? And what if you could do all of this at absolutely no risk and not even giving up ownership of your assets (the sewer system)? Woweee, that would be a financial genius…The problem is, why would anyone invest $1 billion, and be limited in the rate of return, not own any of the assets, and if they miss the mark, would have to walk away from their investment?  Indeed, how would the investor even recoup the investment, let alone make profit, when the investor has to pay United Water to actually operate the system (that would mean there would also be two layers of profit).  The Island Now

MN: Minneapolis city council ok’s Vikings stadium plan
The $1 billion public-private plan to build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings took one of its final steps toward reality Thursday, as a slim majority of the Minneapolis City Council voted in favor of a sales tax shift to help pay for it…With Mayor R.T. Rybak pushing hard for the stadium, opponents on the council appeared resigned to their loss. But they used the meeting as something of a last stand, blasting the project as corporate welfare disproportionately funded by Minneapolis taxpayers and arguing that residents should have had a voice in a citywide referendum.  “To me this is a very sad day for our city,” said Councilwoman Lisa Goodman, who said the stadium’s costs to her constituents outweigh its benefits. Goodman said she was ashamed that fellow Democrats, led by Gov. Mark Dayton and Rybak, took the lead in getting the deal done. INFORUM

Headlines
Romney to propose voucher-like education overhaul
States looking to new tolls to pay for highways
WI: County officials: State push for W-2 privatization threatens Job Center efforts
VA: Virginia State Fair sold for $5.7M
FL: Judge to weigh Florida prison health privatization
TX: Armed with new data from toll road critics, Mayor wants answers
NC: NC House wants to go slow on prisoner health care
CA: Oceanside City Council rejects outsourcing public works services

Romney to propose voucher-like education overhaul
Shifting from the economy to education, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was proposing a voucher-style system that could significantly alter the public school system and revive the debate over school choice…The plan is line with GOP reforms aimed at giving students more educational choices. But it’s unclear how schools in areas that depend on the federal funding would fare. The proposal was not expected to include any new federal money for education.  AP

States looking to new tolls to pay for highways
Driving onto an Interstate highway? Crossing a bridge on the way into work? Taking a tunnel under a river or bay? Get ready to pay. With Congress unwilling to contemplate an increase in the federal gas tax, motorists are likely to be paying ever more tolls as the government searches for ways to repair and expand the nation’s congested highways. Tolling is less efficient and sometimes can seem less fair than the main alternative, gasoline taxes. It can increase traffic on side roads as motorists seek to evade paying. Some tolling authorities — often quasi-governmental agencies operating outside the public eye — have been plagued by mismanagement. And some public-private partnerships to build toll roads have drowned in debt because of too-rosy revenue predictions. Boston.com

WI: County officials: State push for W-2 privatization threatens Job Center efforts
Dane County officials say the state has quietly put in motion a plan to privatize its W-2 program that will cut assistance to the jobless and destabilize coordinated services such as those at the county’s Job Center. “With the economy the way it is, we need these services more than ever, and we can’t afford to take apart a system that works,” County Executive Joe Parisi said Wednesday. “The speed at which they are doing this and the fact that it is flying under the radar causes me concern.” The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families has set a June 11 deadline for proposals from counties and private businesses that want to administer the W-2 “welfare to work” program. Wisconsin State Journal

VA: Virginia State Fair sold for $5.7M
The owner of a Tennessee-based amusement company placed the winning bid for the State Fair of Virginia, buying both the 150-year-old fair and the event site, which includes where Triple Crown winner Secretariat was born. Washington Post

FL: Judge to weigh Florida prison health privatization
Eight months after a judge tossed out a controversial prison-privatization plan, attorneys will argue next week about the constitutionality of a state decision to contract with companies to provide inmate health care. Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll will hold a hearing Tuesday focusing on budget fine print that lawmakers approved last year directing the Florida Department of Corrections to privatize prison health services. Opponents, including the Florida Nurses Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed lawsuits early this year challenging the move. Like in the prison-privatization case, they argue that lawmakers improperly used the budget fine print — known as proviso language — to require the health care changes. The News-Press

TX: Armed with new data from toll road critics, Mayor wants answers
Council members Angela Hunt, Sandy Greyson and Scott Griggs have shown him data and other information from state officials they believe prove that the toll road is both more expensive and less effective than improving Interstates 30 and 35, Rawlings said. The new information contrasts with the answers he got when he was forming his opinion of the Trinity toll road, Rawlings said. As a result he has given TxDOT 30 days to present a simple matrix with the two approaches’ costs and benefits side-by-side. Dallas Morning News

NC: NC House wants to go slow on prisoner health care
Legislators are trying to prevent North Carolina prison officials from privatizing inmate medical care for all of the state’s adult prisoners unless they get the express approval of the General Assembly. House leaders, some of whom have heard state workers’ objections to privatization, amended the measure earlier in the day in their budget-writing committee to include a provision that would restrict what actions the Department of Public Safety could take on the issue of prisoner health services through June 2013. Daily Reflector

CA: Oceanside City Council rejects outsourcing public works services
City Council voted against outsourcing city trash removal, weed abatement and landfill maintenance services on May 16. Outsourcing city street sweeping services and recreational custodial services also failed in a split vote…“We’re talking 18 cents per month per household by eliminating four positions that will have a catastrophic effect on the rest of the department,” Chip Brust, president of Oceanside Employees Association, said. “We’re just nickel and diming what’s really the problem, furlough pay reductions across the board,” Councilman Jack Feller said. “I want to go in that direction, not in this direction.” Over 30 public works division employees came to the council meeting and half a dozen employees addressed city council. They said they wanted to keep their jobs and spoke in support of fellow workers…Loss of city control if work was outsourced was also discussed. The Coast News

Headlines
Where is the water?
Mica claiming progress in privatizing airport screeners
IN: As Indiana Toll Road funds wind down, state looks to more transportation P3s
CO: Bill Koch’s 5000 acre Bear Ranch may see more drive-by visitors
TX: Are you paying for toll roads already paid off?
PA: Are critics justified in accusing Philadelphia schools of privatization?
MI: CMU event honors former Gov. Engler for boosting charter schools
MI: Allen Park Council votes to outsource police and fire

Where is the water?
Bottling companies come into communities and drain their water sources and take the water elsewhere. Citizens fearing a collapse of local water systems like the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation are fighting to oust bottlers like Nestlé from their communities. “It has been seven years since the residents of Mecosta County, Michigan were made aware of Nestlé’s plans to pump over 210 million gallons of spring water per year from a private hunting preserve, divert it through a 12 mile pipeline that crosses streams and wetlands to its plant, bottle it, and then truck it outside the Muskegon River Watershed and Great Lakes Basin under the brand name Ice Mountain. As Nestlé moved into Michigan to privatize our water for its own profit, it announced there would be no adverse resource impact to the natural resources,” Terrill Sweir said in a public testimony against Nestle’s bottling operations in Mecosta County the United States Congress’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Sweir went on to claim that Nestle’s bottling operations have led to severe lake and stream drainage of waters that used to provide recreational opportunities for locals and habitats for native wildlife. Huffington Post

Mica claiming progress in privatizing airport screeners
In the decade since U.S. Rep. John Mica helped create the Transportation Security Administration, the veteran Republican has gone from reluctant father to outright critic — once describing the airport security agency as his “little bastard child.” Few areas of TSA have dodged Mica’s scorn; he’s attacked the $7.8-billion agency on issues ranging from wasteful spending to the intrusive pat-downs of passengers by airport security workers. But only recently has the Winter Park legislator made progress on his top goal: eliminating the roughly 52,000 TSA screeners nationwide in favor of those hired by private security companies. An airline law passed earlier this year included language — inserted by Mica — that makes it easier for airports to make the switch by removing barriers that give TSA broad power to deny privatization efforts. Orlando Sentinel

IN: As Indiana Toll Road funds wind down, state looks to more transportation P3s
As Indiana spends down $3.8 billion generated by its 2006 lease of the Indiana Toll Road, the state has a series of new public-private partnerships in the pipeline that underscore its continued reliance on the technique to provide financing for transportation infrastructure projects.The Hoosier State has three major privatization deals in the works under a P3 program launched by Indiana Department of Transportation for the state’s largest infrastructure projects. The transactions include the state’s participation in a bi-state effort with Kentucky  to build a new $2.4 billion bridge spanning the Ohio River, a planned 47-mile expressway that connects to Illinois, and a major revamp of a highway that runs north of Indianapolis. Bond Buyer

CO: Bill Koch’s 5000 acre Bear Ranch may see more drive-by visitors
Hikers are being encouraged to check out a trail head into the Ragged Mountain Basin that some believe has been intentionally kept secret.  A brochure specially dedicated to the Deep Creek Trail and Ragged Mountain Basin was released this week by a group opposing a Federal land swap involving billionaire Bill Koch’s property in Gunnison County.  Koch, a part-time Aspenite, is a proponent of the Central Rockies Land Exchange Bill that would trade a public road on the periphery of his Bear Ranch that provides the preferred access into the Ragged Mountain wilderness area…Critics of the land swap, who this year have grown more organized, want to raise awareness about the trail and gold medal hunting grounds they say would be lost through a formal land exchange. The brochure is one way they are spreading the word about the Deep Creek Trail. Aspen Business Journal

TX: Are you paying for toll roads already paid off?
Do you use the toll roads? Half a million of you do every day and tonight we have some bad news for you: you may be paying forever, even if the roads were paid off a long time ago….I didn’t see that in the fine print. Did you? But leave it to politicians to welch on a deal. It happened in September 2001 at a Harris County Commissioners Court meeting, way down on the agenda. Look at H, a bunch of gobbygloop about bond stuff and then “a resolution for pooling of a list of toll road projects as component facilities.” Translation: you’re going to pay tolls forever.  abc13.com

PA: Are critics justified in accusing Philadelphia schools of privatization?
Among the hot topics will be a dramatic reorganization proposal that critics call privatization. District officials don’t like that word, but the details of their long term plans are far from clear. Newsworks.org

MI: CMU event honors former Gov. Engler for boosting charter schools
As the state prepares to lift the 255 cap on public charter schools, some advocates urged a closer focus on making existing charters academically superior to traditional public schools. The quality of public charter school education has been mixed in Michigan. In July 2011, a Detroit News analysis of 2011 test score data found just six of 25 charter schools in or near Detroit had math or science proficiency scores higher than the Detroit Public Schools average. The Detroit News

MI: Allen Park Council votes to outsource police and fire
In a desperate move to balance the budget, the council voted to eliminate the city’s fire and police departments and outsource emergency services. The city is drowning in debt after the failed investment into Unity Movie Studios. Now its millage didn’t pass. With a $4-million budget shortfall, city officials don’t have enough to pay its bills and even into the pension fund, let alone police and fire. MyFox Detroit

Headlines
Public scholarship money finds its way to private schools
MS: Guard killed in riot at private immigration prison
NH: State proposes to hand off its prisons to private company
OH: Ohio Turnpike limiting pay and benefits to save $4 million yearly
OH: Helium: Inflated prices
VA: County auditor calls for parking ticket quotas

Public scholarship money finds its way to private schools
A growing number of states have passed laws that allow taxpayer-supported scholarship funds, but they have been twisted at the expense of the neediest. Spreading at a time of deep cutbacks in public schools, the programs are operating in eight states and represent one of the fastest-growing components of the school choice movement. This school year alone, the programs redirected nearly $350 million that would have gone into public budgets to pay for private school scholarships for 129,000 students, according to the Alliance for School Choice, an advocacy organization. Legislators in at least nine other states are considering the programs.  New York Times

MS: Guard killed in riot at private immigration prison
Sixteen prison employees and three inmates were hurt during the incident. The prison is owned and operated by the Correction Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company. The Natchez facility houses around 2,500 adult males, most serving sentences for returning to the United States after being deported…CCA houses around 75,000 offenders and detainees in more than 60 facilities around the country, 44 of which are company-owned. The company employs nearly 17,000 people. The ACLU, which has been highly critical of CCA and the rest of the private prison industry in the past, released a statement Monday saying that this weekend’s incident “should make clear to Mississippi and every other state that for-profit incarceration must end.” “The riot this past weekend at the Adams County Correctional Center is indicative of what can happen at facilities run by private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America, who have incentives to cut corners even at the expense of decent and safe conditions,” the statement said. “Staff and guards are too often poorly paid and trained, conditions of confinement are often woefully inadequate and levels of violence can be higher at for-profit facilities.” TPM

NH: State proposes to hand off its prisons to private company
If outside bidders make a high enough offer, New Hampshire may be the first state with the dubious distinction of privatizing its entire male prison population. Think Progress

OH: Ohio Turnpike limiting pay and benefits to save $4 million yearly
Executive Director Rick Hodges denied the cost cuts are aimed at boosting the turnpike’s revenue and enhancing its appeal to companies that might one day lease the 241-mile toll road. A lease of the turnpike or a takeover by the Ohio Department of Transportation are among options consultants are studying for Gov. John Kasich’s administration. Kasich has pitched the idea of leasing the turnpike in exchange for several billion dollars in up-front cash. Hodges said the moves are part of a “complete reorganization” and in keeping with the turnpike’s mission of providing the best service at the lowest cost. Cleveland Plain Dealer

OH: Helium: Inflated prices
Local florists already contending with high gas prices are now seeing the cost of helium float upwards, too, forcing them to blow up not just balloons but also their prices. The inflated prices are a result of a nationwide shortage of helium, the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen…According to the Associated Press, helium is in short supply because of the 1996 Helium Privatization Act that called on the government to sell off most of its helium reserves by 2015…According to media reports, the Helium Privatization Act was passed in an effort to save the federal government money. It orders a sell-off of the government’s helium reserves in the Hugoton-Panhandle Gas Field that spans Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. The Marietta Times

VA: County auditor calls for parking ticket quotas
Just outside the nation’s capital, Fairfax County, Virginia depends heavily on motorists to prop up its annual budget. Speed traps help generate $7.7 million in revenue through the courts and another $3.1 million from parking citations. In a quarterly report to the board of supervisors, the county Office of Financial and Program Audit (OFPA) raised the alarm that meter maids have not sufficiently productive. The county employs 18 full-time meter maids, but police officers, fire marshals and police volunteers are all expected to help. Duncan Solutions, a private vendor, handles processing, billing and adjudication of tickets in return for a cut of the profits that totaled $1,075,000 in 2010. The company’s “AutoProcess” software creates a chart tracking which police districts generate the most citations over time. The current champion is the Mason District with 8088 citations, but five years ago it was the Fair Oaks District with 4839 tickets. The Newspaper.com

Headlines
NY: Throw grenade, walk away – opinion
NY: Concern over privatization of Nassau sewer system
PA: Thousands to rally Wednesday against school cuts
PA: Privatizing liquor shops divides politicians
IN: Sratching away at the Hoosier Lottery
IN: Governor hopefuls differ on issue of privatization
VA: Road project funding close to running dry in Virginia
CA: Bill would clear path for two-tiered pricing at Calif. community colleges
‎CA: Two northern California cities dump red light cameras
WA: Eleven more state liquor stores shutting down
IL: U.S. 20 group weighs toll detour around Congress
MS: Private prison guard dies, others hurt in ‘disturbance’
MS: Gautier halts plans to privatize public works department
MI: Editorial: Mistaken prison cuts
AZ: Prison health care needs overhaul, not simple outsourcing – opinion
TX: Private group might be chosen to run Austin’s botanical garden

NY: Throw grenade, walk away – opinion
Public education has been a disaster for Andrew Cuomo, and vice versa.  Right from the start of his administration, he’s used the wrong tactics, the wrong strategies and the wrong sequences if he had any intention of actually elevating New York’s public education system and giving especially stressed urban and rural school districts a much-needed boost. In two years of nastiness from his bully pulpit, he has derided teachers, their unions, administrators and school boards, and made them out to be barely competent. Yet, with ashes in his mouth, he portrays himself as the state’s No. 1 advocate for students. And his tearing apart teachers helps students how, exactly? His favorite statistics, to support his education-bashing, have been that New York pays more per pupil than any other state, yet has a 38 percent graduation rate. Those statistics are galling because they are highly misleading. New York yearly jockeys with Connecticut and New Jersey for the highest per pupil cost. They are neighboring states, you’ll notice, a factor that has a bearing on high costs. The low graduation rate is dictated by New York City, where 140 languages are spoken and that has challenges and hardships completely alien to upstate and Long Island education. Albany Times Union

NY: Concern over privatization of Nassau sewer system
The county administration is only saying that a private firm, through a series of complex legal and financial arrangements, will take over from the county the operation, maintenance and improvement of the county’s wastewater management system in what would be the largest public-private sewer partnership in the United States. However, as we experienced when our buses were privatized and the police precincts were reduced, there are no documents for public review. I am concerned that, like the ill-fated effort last summer to borrow up to $400 million for construction of a new Nassau County Coliseum, this project is moving forward without any notice or opportunity for the public’s questions and concerns to be heard in an impartial forum. New Hyde Park Patch

PA: Thousands to rally Wednesday against school cuts
No, the rumor of a district-wide strike isn’t true. But the blue-collar union that represents nearly 3,000 bus drivers, janitors and other Philadelphia school employees is planning a large rally Wednesday in Center City to protest mass layoffs and attempts to privatize public education. Thousands are expected. Philadelphia Inquirer

PA: Privatizing liquor shops divides politicians
While liquor store privatization legislation languishes in the state House, the latest salvo in the debate suggests states with tighter controls on liquor sales have fewer alcohol-related highway fatalities. Altoona Mirror

IN: Sratching away at the Hoosier Lottery
The political football known as the Hoosier Lottery is in play, again. The Gov. Mitch Daniels administration is taking bids from contractors who can help an operation that has seen revenues shrink. Statehouse Democrats are grumbling about another attempt to privatize a part of state government and the money that could be lost and didn’t-Mitch-learn-from-the-IBM-welfare-privatizing debacle and … You get the drift. Journal and Courier

IN: Governor hopefuls differ on issue of privatization
Indiana Democratic gubernatorial hopeful John Gregg said he opposes privatizing state government tasks, while the Republican candidate, Mike Pence, is more open to it. Evening News and Tribune

VA: Road project funding close to running dry in Virginia
The public outcry over tolls planned for the Downtown and Midtown tunnels has illuminated a harsh reality: The state is nearly tapped out of money to build roads…Voters and legislators have resisted raising taxes, which is why the state has turned to the public-private partnerships to build big projects such as the expansion of the Midtown Tunnel. Elizabeth River Crossings, in partnership with the state, will begin construction later this year on a parallel Midtown tube, improvements to the existing Midtown and Downtown tunnels, and extending the Martin Luther King Freeway. Tunnel tolls will start at $1.84 during rush hour beginning in January 2014. Virginia Pilot

CA: Bill would clear path for two-tiered pricing at Calif. community colleges
‎Leaders at Santa Monica College in March unveiled a controversial plan to create a self-supporting private foundation to help meet student demand by offering courses at four times the cost of overbooked state-financed courses. But they shelved that idea in April, after a fierce backlash and the pepper-spraying of protesting students…That could change if Roderick D. Wright gets his way. The California state senator in February introduced legislation that would smooth the way for community colleges to do essentially what Santa Monica’s governing board proposed, by authorizing the creation of “self-supporting” extension programs that offer credit-bearing courses. Inside Higher Ed

CA: Two northern California cities dump red light cameras
In October 2005, city officials granted Redflex Traffic Systems, an Australian company, the right to issue traffic tickets, now worth $449 each. Redflex bills the city $18,576 per month to dish out citations at the corner of Garden Highway and Lincoln Road as well as Gray Avenue and Bridge Street.    For police, one of the most significant time commitments is the requirement that the same officer who presses the button approving violations submitted by Redflex also appear to testify in court. According to the city’s accounting, police spent less than five hours per week on the program, with a quarter of that amount spent preparing for or appearing at a hearing. TheNewspaper.com

WA: Eleven more state liquor stores shutting down
Eleven more state liquor stores in Washington will shut down on May 22 to compensate for staff vacancies, as state liquor employees leave for new jobs during Washington’s transition into privatizing liquor sales and distribution. Bizjournals.com

IL: U.S. 20 group weighs toll detour around Congress
After 30 years of trying in vain to get funding for a four-lane freeway from Galena to Freeport, the U.S. 20 Coalition has started “talking tollway. John Cox, the Galena attorney who has been at the forefront of those efforts, told a meeting Friday of the Tri State Alliance, a regional transportation advocacy group, that the U.S. 20 group wants to ask the Illinois Toll Highway Authority to study the feasibility of building a 47-mile tollway to connect Freeport’s bypass with the bypass that is planned to run north of Galena.  Rockford Register Star

MS: Private prison guard dies, others hurt in ‘disturbance’
A guard at a southwest Mississippi prison died Sunday and several other employees were injured during what the facility’s private operator is calling “an inmate disturbance” that continued into the evening. U.S. News & World Report

MS: Gautier halts plans to privatize public works department
Gautier has halted plans to privatize its public works department. The city council recently voted to stop the process. The move comes as the city began accepting several professional service proposals for the month of May. Some public workers feared privatizing would mean a loss of jobs. But Mayor Tommy Fortenberry said, the change could have helped the city repair critical infrastructure problems faster and save on labor cost. The mayor wants city council members to reexamines the issue. WLOX

MI:Editorial: Mistaken prison cuts
Legislators continue to view privatization as a near-panacea for the state’s budget woes, despite little or no evidence. In Arizona, for example, the Department of Corrections concluded that its private prisons ended up costing $1,600 more per inmate each year. Moreover, a recent federal investigation found a “cesspool” of conditions at a Mississippi youth prison run by the private company most likely to operate a private prison in Michigan. The company, GEO Group Inc. of Florida, also paid a $1.1-million fine for understaffing New Mexico prisons…Everyone wants a state that spends more on educating people than locking them up. To get us there, legislators should focus on proven measures to safely reduce the population instead of cutting rehabilitation programs and giving private, for-profit companies greater control over Michigan’s prison system. Detroit Free Press

AZ: Prison health care needs overhaul, not simple outsourcing – opinion
..A lawsuit filed in March documented numerous examples of extreme indifference on the part of prison officials…Last week, the Arizona Department of Corrections responded to the lawsuit by denying claims that they have ignored the basic health-care needs of prisoners. The response comes on the heels of a prior announcement by the state prison system that it will outsource the delivery of health care to Wexford — a for-profit prison corporation that critics say has a history of incompetence, waste and corruption. As bad as conditions are in the Department of Corrections, the state’s decision to hire Wexford will only make things worse. Wexford’s gross lack of regard for prisoner health is well documented. Mississippi released a report noting that Wexford did not adhere to its own standards in following up on inmates with chronic health problems. In New Mexico, Dr. Ray Puckett, a dentist working in the Lea County Correctional Facility, reported that the Wexford-run prison was so understaffed that inmates waited months to be seen for abscesses, cavities and tooth extractions. Arizona Republic

TX: Private group might be chosen to run Austin’s botanical garden
Austin’s parks department might hire a company or nonprofit to operate Zilker Botanical Garden, saying a private entity unburdened by the department’s budget and staffing constraints might do a better job running the 26-acre oasis. Under Parks Director Sara Hensley, who took over in 2008, the department has pursued more of these public-private partnerships, saying it can no longer rely on tax dollars alone to manage 20,000 acres of parkland. Austin American-Statesman

Headlines
NY: Mayor Bloomberg wants to privatize NYC parking
IN: Toll Road, 6 years later
IN: Hoosier lottery takes steps toward privatization
CA: Did the UC just take a major step toward privatization?
NH: School voucher system approved
NH: Privatizing prisons would be a mistake – opinion
MD: In Frederick, groups want to be heard in public
PA: Opponents exhale as state drops plan to privatize prison nurses
PA: Hostile witness – opinion
IL: Chicago plans 60 more charter schools in 5 years
IL: Nurses defy Chicago mayor, rallying for Robin Hood tax

NY: Mayor Bloomberg wants to privatize NYC parking
Mayor Bloomberg Wednesday said the city will privatize the operation of its parking meters if the price is right. Signing a deal with a private contractor would in all likelihood wipe out many of the jobs of workers who collect money from meters – but the mayor said that should not be the city’s main concern. “The city government and the city taxpayers are not here to run a full-employment agency,” Bloomberg said…But a 75-year deal in Chicago to sell future parking meter revenue to a private vendor has come under criticism, as drivers have seen sharp increases in rates, the Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this month. The private company is also demanding millions of dollars in revenue it claims it lost when Chicago took meters out of service for street repairs and other activities. “What they did in Chicago or other cities has nothing to do with what we’re about to do,” Bloomberg said. New York Daily News

IN: Toll Road, 6 years later
Mitch Daniels’ controversial plan to privatize the Indiana Toll Road through a long-term lease, both advocates and opponents can find evidence to support the views they expressed in 2006. Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

IN: Hoosier lottery takes steps toward privatization
The state will take steps to hire a private company to help run the Hoosier Lottery in an effort to make more money from the games — a step already taken by Illinois and under consideration in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states as well. The Indiana State Lottery Commission voted 3-0 Wednesday to seek information from companies that would be willing to “perform a broad scope of services” for the lottery. Then in September, the state plans to accept actual bids. The Hoosier Lottery generated $791 million in revenue and $188 million in profits during Fiscal Year 2011. ï There are 177 full-time employees working for the Hoosier Lottery. The Courier-Journal

CA: Did the UC just take a major step toward privatization?
Shortly after Gov. Jerry Brown presented his latest budget proposals, which he says will slash $8.3 billion from government spending to close a $15.7 billion deficit, UC faculty delivered a bold response: “UC President Mark Yudof and Governor Jerry Brown are working out a deal behind closed doors that will loosen the most important ties between the university and the state. Although they will both praise the deal by saying that it “stabilizes” funding while granting greater “flexibility,” its essence is that each will let the other off the hook: UC will mute complaints that it does not get enough money from the state and the state will stop holding UC accountable for the money it still gets. The likely result is that UC will dump a larger number of eligible Californians onto the CSU and Community Colleges, which will in turn pass on their overflow to for-profit schools, where students take on inordinate amounts of debt with a very high likelihood of default.” DavisPatch

NH: School voucher system approved
After several rounds of editing over the course of the past year, two bills creating a business tax credit and educational voucher system passed by veto-proof margins in the state House and Senate yesterday. The program would allow businesses to get a credit worth up to 85 percent of their contributions to an approved scholarship organization. It allows up to $3.4 million in business tax credits in the first year, and up to $5.1 million in credits the second year…Gov. John Lynch “has very serious concerns about the impact on revenues and concerns about using public money to fund private schools,” said his spokesman Colin Manning. The governor has not decided whether he will sign the legislation, veto it, or let it become law without his signature. Both houses approved the bill by margins that would override a veto. Concord Monitor

NH: Privatizing prisons would be a mistake – opinion
Before Granite State politicians take this bait, they should study a 2012 report by the American Friends Service Committee, which found Arizona overpaid $10 million for private prison services that were deemed shoddy at best between 2008 and 2010. Among the many questions I have are how can a private for-profit compete with New Hampshire’s frugal prison system without grossly undercutting basic safety and efficiencies? What incentives does a private company have regarding rehabilitation and timely discharge of inmates? Certainly, it is good to periodically debate the effectiveness of public-private endeavors, but the feedback from other states that have already tried privatizing prisons is not very promising. Nashua Telegraph

MD: In Frederick, groups want to be heard in public
County commissioners won’t budge on budget as opposition groups speak out…If cutting government means cutting jobs, then the county commissioners do have something to crow about. Since January 2011, they have laid off 171 county employees; the county work force sits at 2,128. Some of the jobs lost have been “privatized,” or contracted to private vendors. Commissioners do not know if their actions have saved the county money, because the net results have not yet been “quantified,” according to County Manager Dave Dunn…Privatization “drip by drip” is how Dale terms the county’s actions. Aside from the layoffs, all of the privatization efforts and the small cuts in the budget have not added up to much, she said. Maryland Gazette

PA: Opponents exhale as state drops plan to privatize prison nurses
Gov Corbett announced last summer he would look into privatizing prison health care as a way to cut costs, and similar privatization plans have been floated by past administrations. But Fleck, whose district includes two state prisons, said he’s not convinced privatizing nursing care in prisons isn’t cheaper than having nurses paid and trained by the state.“The turnover rate is incredible,” said Fleck, referring to privately-employed nurses working in prisons.  “The money leaves the area because most of the private, contracting firms are not domiciled in Pennsylvania. WITF

PA: Hostile witness – opinion
The fiscal crisis facing our public schools is being exploited by a movement to privatize public education, break unions and subject students to high-stakes test-prep regimes. But it is a crisis nonetheless — one that requires long-term solutions, immediate band-aids and, critically, a substantial commitment from Philly’s largest stakeholders. Philadelphia City Paper

IL: Chicago plans 60 more charter schools in 5 years
Chicago Public Schools plans to create 60 more charter schools over five years, which would increase the share of privately run charters to about a quarter of all schools in the district. The plan for charter growth, part of a larger proposal for 100 new schools over the same five years, is laid out in an application seeking $20 million for charter schools from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Chicago Tribune

IL: Nurses defy Chicago mayor, rallying for Robin Hood tax
Chicago teachers are threatening to strike over Emanuel’s agenda to close schools, privatize, and force concessions on the union. Labor Notes

Headlines
AZ: Gov Brewer vetoes bill demanding return of federal lands
MI: Commentary: Follow the money in Detroit consent agreement
CA: Company wants to tap Mojave’s public lands for Southland water
‎IL: Chicago’s Daley, a year later— No thanks for the memories
PA: Commentary: Will public education die in Philly?
PA: Move to privatize Pa. prison nursing services fails
PA: Residents voice nearly unanimous plea not to privatize nursing home
MN: Toll roads bill stalled in Minnesota House
VT: State board tables district independent school application
FL: Court moves prison privatization oral arguments
KY: Lawmakers briefed on UK dorm project
‎MS: Gautier council rejects privatization move
CO: CSU chancellor finalist to face privatization challenge
TX: County official nixes idea of outsourcing tax collections
Outsourcing national bison range to tribe

AZ: Gov Brewer vetoes bill demanding return of federal lands
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Monday vetoed a bill demanding the U.S. government turn over millions of acres of its property to the state, dealing a surprise blow to the “sagebrush revolt” against federal control over vast tracts of land in the West. The much-publicized measure, which cleared the Republican-dominated Arizona legislature last month, called for federal agencies to relinquish title to roughly 48,000 square miles (124,000 square km) of land they hold in the Grand Canyon state by 2015. Brewer, a Republican and staunch conservative who had been widely expected to support the measure, said in a statement that the legislation failed to “identify an enforceable cause of action to force federal lands to be transferred to the state.” Huffington Post

MI: Commentary: Follow the money in Detroit consent agreement
Follow the money. It’s good advice in politics. In the case of Detroit’s fiscal crisis the money all flows in the same direction — from the 99 percent to the 1 percent. The consent agreement engineered by the state as a “remedy” to Detroit’s crisis achieves, without an emergency manager, the goal for which EMs were invented: Protecting banks and bondholders from loss. Take a look at Section 18 of the Emergency Manager Law. It requires that the fix for a local government’s finances include “payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes, and municipal securities of the local government.” That means the Wall Street bankers lose nothing — while Detroit’s workers and residents pay more every day. The Detroit News

CA: Company wants to tap Mojave’s public lands for Southland water
‎If the plan succeeds, it will turn ancient desert groundwater, a public resource, into a fountain of private profit, blazing a new — and some warn ominous — path in the state…”It’s taking a public resource that originates on public land, privatizing it and selling it back to the public,” said Seth Shteir of the National Parks Conservation Assn., one of a dozen environmental groups challenging the project. “This water is going to Orange County lawns and swimming pools. The desert is being asked to shoulder the burden.” Los Angeles Times

IL: Chicago’s Daley, a year later— No thanks for the memories
Consider, in no particular order…News that the dreaded privatization of parking meters in 2008 was worse than we thought: Chicago Parking Meters LLC, which has been cheerfully jacking up rates since buying 75-year rights to meter revenue for $1.15 billion, is billing the city $14 million for the offense of taking meters out of service for repairs and other street closings, and pursuing an additional $13.5 million claim related to parking for the disabled. Headlines announcing that Daley, who quickly burned through most of that $1.15 billion parking-meter payout in an effort to conceal a structural deficit in city finances, was hired by Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, the law firm that — wait for it! — billed the city $663,000 for helping negotiate the parking-meter deal. News that under a little-known provision of Daley’s 2006 deal that privatized four Grant Park-area parking garages, the city may owe Chicago Loop Parking LLC some $200 million for allowingStandard Parking Corp. to open a competing lot inside the forbidden zone designed to protect the investors who paid $563 million for a 99-year lease on the city garages. Chicago Tribune

PA: Commentary: Will public education die in Philly?
The Philadelphia plan is the latest manifestation of the idea that the best way to educate kids is to hand them over to private entrepreneurs. It is au courant and wrong. The drive for privatization is driven by multiple ideologies. DianeRavitch

PA: Move to privatize Pa. prison nursing services fails
Critics of a plan by Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections to outsource the work of its nurses to private companies are breathing a sigh of relief. Pennsylvania’s state prisons already contract with private companies for certain medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical services. But the state’s biggest health care workers union is rejoicing over news that nurses won’t be added to that list. NewsWorks

PA: Residents voice nearly unanimous plea not to privatize nursing home
About 230 people attended the forum…Without making a recommendation, the report focused on three changes that would enable the county to save money on the facility: converting it to a nonprofit 501c3, leasing it to a private operator, or selling it. Unionville Times

MN: Toll roads bill stalled in Minnesota House
A plan to create public-private partnerships in finishing major road construction projects stalled in the Minnesota House this session. WJON News

VT: State board tables district independent school application
The matter before the board was whether to approve an independent school. Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca said the application is all the district should consider, but the board agreed it needs to consider the bigger issue of replacing a public school with an independent school. Board member William Mathis, a former longtime superintendent in the state, disagreed that the decision is as simple as approving an isolated application. “The purpose and intent all along was to privatize a public school, pure and simple,” Mathis said. “I think we need to look at the question of, is privatization of public schools a path we want to go down? I suggest that is a very, very important question and a very difficult one and one which I’m not prepared to support today.”  Bennington Banner

FL: Court moves prison privatization oral arguments
The First District Court of Appeal has moved back by two weeks oral arguments in the state’s appeal of a prison privatization ruling. The state is appealing a ruling by Circuit Judge Jakie Fulford that struck down an privatization plan approved by the Legislature after the the Florida Police Benevolent Association sued to block the initiative. Fulford said lawmakers improperly folded the privatization plan into the fine print of the budget. NorthEscambia.com

KY: Lawmakers briefed on UK dorm project
‎The University of Kentucky is moving forward with its plans to privatize the dorms on campus. WTVQ

MS: Gautier council rejects privatization move
On a 4-2 vote the City Council decided to stop advertising for proposals to privatize the city’s public works department at their meeting Tuesday in City Hall. Mississippi Press

CO: CSU chancellor finalist to face privatization challenge
How can the nation’s land-grant universities, founded on the ideas of accessibility and affordability, sidestep privatization as state and federal funding runs dry? The Coloradoan

TX: County official nixes idea of outsourcing tax collections
The possibility of consolidating Cherokee County tax collections with the appraisal district was apparently shot down Monday when Tax Assessor/Collector Linda Little said she would not go along with the proposal…But Little said one reason she opposed the proposal was there were no guarantee any of the estimated $85,750 savings would be passed along to residents by lowering property taxes a half-cent per $100 of a property’s appraised value. Daily Progress

Outsourcing national bison range to tribe
The US Fish & Wildlife Service has unveiled its third attempt at a pact for a Montana tribe to assume operational control over the National Bison Range, considered the crown jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System. YubaNet

Headlines
NY: NYC pondering privatizing parking meters
IL: Chicago privatizing teacher evaluations?
MI: Commentary: Don’t buy the push to privatize Michigan’s prisons
CA: Costa Mesa continues outsourcing efforts
America’s helium privatization fiasco
A radical idea to transform what kids learn in school
Public employees may choose between raises and job protections
Private sector edges deeper in space
Congressman defends call to dismantle GSA
Should states be in the liquor business?

NY: NYC pondering privatizing parking meters
NYC is reportedly looking at different models, specifically ones that would allow the city to continue to control the rates at the thousands of metered parking spaces in the city (as of 2010 there were 31,725 muni-meters in town and 50,150 single space meters). Plus, we aren’t looking to close a budget gap with a lump payment, as Chicago was when it made its deal with the devil.  Gothamist

IL: Chicago privatizing teacher evaluations?
The most controversial teacher evaluation system in Illinois history is moving forward at lightning speed in what appears to be a secret privatization agreement between Brizard’s administration and a controversial Ohio corporation that specializes in public relations work for the controversial “value added” approach to teacher evaluations….Teachers are going to be required to submit what should be confidential CPS information to a private corporation which has not been publicly identified until now. Democratic Underground

MI: Commentary: Don’t buy the push to privatize Michigan’s prisons
What does it say about us as a society that the largest growing expense of state and local governments today is corrections systems? In the Michigan Legislature the drumbeat for privatization has reached a fevered pitch during the past year. Under the auspices of cost savings, an agenda has been set into motion that does nothing to improve the public good, but works wonders for the profit margins of Republican corporate campaign funders.  Detroit Free Press

CA: Costa Mesa continues outsourcing efforts
The Costa Mesa City Council will consider Tuesday whether to outsource five city services, more than a year since the wheels were first set in motion amid furious protests from city workers and local activists. Daily Post

America’s helium privatization fiasco
It sounds funny, but the growing helium crisis in the United States is only partially a laughing matter. The gas is needed for not only party balloons, but also an array of industrial purposes and if we run out it’s a problem. Brad Plumer has the story, but it’s really just a special case of the all-too-common problem of privatization gone wrong…In 1996 when Congress decided that the United States did not need a giant strategic helium reserve, Chris Cox, R.-Calif., and his colleagues passed a Helium Privatization Act that ordered the helium supplies to be sold down at a formula-driven price rather than auctioned. That price has turned out to be way below the market rate. That’s encouraging overconsumption of helium, discouraging new helium production, and all-in-all creating a big helium shortage. It’s a mess. But this kind of thing is a problem you see over and over again. Slate

A radical idea to transform what kids learn in school
Exxon-Mobil is airing education-reform television ads. In the one I’ve seen most often, implicit and explicit messages are simple and clear: (a) We live in a dangerous, technologically complex world. (b) Our lives, liberties, and happiness hinge on our ability to cope with that world. (c) Coping requires mastery of math. (d) On standardized math tests, America ranks 25th in the world. (e) Be ashamed and afraid. (f) Get behind corporate education reform efforts. Washington Post

Public employees may choose between raises and job protections
State employees in a number of states are expecting to soon see their first pay bumps in years. But for workers in Arizona and Virginia, those bonuses or salary increases may come with conditions. Governing

Private sector edges deeper in space
But the new space companies are relying on taxpayer dollars to finance their research and development. The Obama administration requested $830 million for next year to finance the development of passenger-carrying spacecraft. Proponents argue that the investments will jump-start a vibrant new business that dwarfs NASA; Congress has so far remained skeptical. A report by the House committee in charge of NASA’s budget said the program ran the “risk of repeating the government’s experience from last year’s bankruptcy of the solar energy firm Solyndra.” The New York Times

Congressman defends call to dismantle GSA
Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) caused a stir when he advocated abolishing the General Services Administration. But he managed to unite a wide array of GSA defenders in the process. FCW

Should states be in the liquor business?
Several states that tightly control liquor sales are debating whether to turn them over to the private sector. Stateline