News

NC: Research center critical of privatizing economic development
Gov. Pat McCrory and state economic officials remain strongly committed to their goal of privatizing economic development in North Carolina next year. However, a nonpartisan Washington research center, Good Jobs First, offered a warning last week to North Carolina about the strategy’s viability and effectiveness through stark criticism of public-private efforts in eight states.  Winston-Salem Journal

NV: Public policy maker or private lobbyist? 10 state officials play dual roles
Disclosure reports filed with the Nevada Commission on Ethics detail how legislators and members of state boards and commissions often get paid to do business before state agencies, boards and commissions. Their elected or appointed positions likely enable them to build relationships and gain expertise useful in their private enterprise — a fact recognized by lawmakers when they passed the disclosure law in 1991. Las Vegas Sun

ID: Idaho Debates Private Prisons
Corrections policy is at a crossroads in Idaho as government officials decide how to staff the 2,060-bed Idaho Correctional Center now that the country’s largest private prison operator has decided to quit the state.  Wall Street Journal ($)

IN: Pension officials ignore legislative opposition to annuity privatization plan 
State pension officials refused Friday to back off their plan to privatize annuity payments for retired state and local government employees, despite a strong legislative recommendation that they reconsider.  nwitimes.com

FL: Bill Cotterell: Saving money, losing jobs through privatization
…Contrary to Republican rhetoric, Florida government is not a big, bloated bureaucracy. In fact, we have the nation’s smallest personnel system, in terms of employment cost per taxpayer and ratio of state employees to population. So the only way contractors can do something cheaper is by having fewer employees, paying them less, providing fewer employment benefits — or all three. And whether service gets better depends on what you’re satisfied with.  Tallahassee Democrat (blog)

LA: Financial risk of charity hospital ‘privatization’
….Dig deeper into the details and it becomes apparent that the planned “savings” won’t result from lower costs but from getting more money from the federal government through an accounting change. This won’t make the charity hospitals or Louisiana’s Medicaid program, which pays for the hospitals, more efficient. It will just make them more expensive, fueled by additional federal (American taxpayer) money.  Shreveport Times

PA: Lottery privatization pursuit nears another deadline
….Tuesday is the latest deadline for the administration to make a move in deciding its next step with regard to the outsourcing. That is when the bid from United Kingdom-based Camelot Global Services is set to expire….But as the deadline for a decision gets delayed, the consultants’ fees rise. State Treasurer Rob McCord sees that use of tax dollars as a waste. At a news conference in Philadelphia on Monday with the Comcast Building towering in the background, McCord noted that if the $3.4 million to be paid to DLA Piper were a stack of $1 bills, it would be taller than that skyscraper that is the tallest building in Pennsylvania.
Patriot-News

Army seeks to expand public-private partnerships
The Army is looking to expand privatization efforts to nearly all commercial-like services, according to Army officials. Lt. Gen. Michael Ferriter, the Army’s top installations official, told a conference of the Association of the United States Army that the privatization of housing and utilities has been a success and the Army is looking to expand privatization efforts further. “We will partner with anyone who can cut costs,” Ferriter said at a conference of the Association of the United States Army.  Federal Times

CD050: Privatize Water Projects
Now that the government is back up and running and the American public has looked away, the House of Representatives got back to work privatizing our government. H.R. 3080 takes the first steps towards privatization of water projects typically done by the Army Corps of Engineers, using entirely fixable budget issues as the justification.Congressional Dish