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Meet Richard Montoni, America’s Highest Paid “Caseworker”. “The outsourcing of health and human services operations to private for-profit firms raises significant concerns for sick or at-risk populations who depend on them, as well as for taxpayers who all too often foot the bill for substandard service,” said Lisa Graves Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy.  PR Watch

Who’re You Rootin’ for – Team Public or Team Private? Probe a bit deeper, though, and some privatization proponents take their position in support of free-market competition as efficient, while governments are monopolies and inherently inefficient. Few people in the United States hold an equally strong opposite view – that all infrastructure and services should be socialized. However, many people do support public employees and their work as in the public interest. Meanwhile, a third group may not give the issue much thought but may be reflexively pro or con.  Truth-Out

MI: Overstanding Detroit. In a brilliant retelling of the destructive history of the neoliberal era that got us here, Andrew Levine notes that before its wholesale privatization, deregulation, and tax cutting frenzies, “the idea that a major city like Detroit would go bankrupt seemed about as likely as that a meteor would flatten it.”  CounterPunch

IN: Airport authority takes first step to approve privatization deal. The Gary airport authority approved privatization term sheets Monday by a 6-1 vote, but the final approval cannot take place until at least Jan. nwitimes.com

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US Department of Defense’s public domain archive to be privatized, locked up for ten years. Archivist Rick Prelinger sez, “The U.S. Department of Defense has entered into a contract with T3 Media to get its gigantic still and moving image collection digitized at no cost to the government. In exchange, T3 Media will become the exclusive public outlet for millions of images and videos for ten years. Unlike most other developed nations, the U.S. Government does not claim copyright on video, film, photographs and other media produced by its workers. The immense number of works in the U.S. public domain have enabled countless researchers, makers and citizens to read, view and make many new works. True, those wishing to use modern military materials (1940s-present) in DoD’s archives often need to negotiate their release with military public affairs, but these materials have traditionally been available for just the cost of duplication. This is soon to change.” BoingBoing.com

Ted Mitchell, Education Dept. Nominee, Has Strong Ties to Pearson, Privatization Movement. Ted Mitchell, the chief executive of the NewSchools Venture Fund, was nominated in October by President Obama to become the Under Secretary of the Department of Education. As the administration continues to reshuffle its team, and confront new regulatory challenges, some view Mitchell’s nomination as a move towards greater privatization. In the coming months, the Department of Education will release “gainful employment” rules to rein in for-profit colleges, an experiment in proprietary education that many see as an unmitigated disaster.  The Nation (blog)

Coast-to-Coast, Outsourcing is Out of Control. Local and state governments too often outsource important public services without strong standards, public transparency, and rigorous oversight. Without these protections the results are predictable. A new report “Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations” highlights similar failed experiences with privatization of states and communities across the country. Huffington Post

NJ: State Praises Privatized Cleanup of Hazardous-Waste Sites. If you listen to the state Department of Environmental Protection and some lawmakers, the efforts to privatize the cleanup of contaminated hazardous waste sites has been pretty much of an unqualified success…..Environmentalists question whether the most serious pollution sites are being cleaned up, many of which have been awaiting attention for decades. Others asked whether private contractors hired by polluters would ensure cleanups as stringent as those formerly overseen by the DEP, which was not answerable to outside firms.  NJ Spotlight

LA: LSU hospital deals may run into financial trouble after Gov. Jindal leaves office, report says. The current financing structure for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s privatization deals for the LSU network of hospitals and clinics is risky and may run into shortfalls within five years, according to a nonpartisan report released Friday.  The Republic

TN: Privatizing Bellefonte: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. You might think that if some prominent power brokers pitched a plan that promised to shut down more than twenty coal-fired power plants owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, that an organization like the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy might sign on without hesitation. But we did hesitate, and what we have found as we reflected on this plan is that it seems to be driven by political and profit opportunism.  Choosing to privatize Bellefonte, and letting that choice drive TVA’s financial and infrastructure priorities for the next decade, would be a disaster for the Valley.  Clean Energy News (blog)

PA: Opinion: No. 12 – The fizz goes out of liquor privatization.  As he pursued liquor privatization, Corbett was following in the footsteps of two of his Republican predecessors: former Govs. Dick Thornburgh and Tom Ridge. Despite the passage of so many years, Corbett ran into the same obstacles that faced both Thornburgh and Ridge. Namely, a potent coalition of organized labor and social conservatives.  Patriot-News

 

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Meet Nicholas Moore, America’s Highest Paid Road Worker. Macquarie Group Limited is a publicly traded banking, financial, advisory, investment, and fund management services headquartered in Sydney, Australia. In the United States, it has pushed for the privatization of public infrastructure and assets and operates major toll roads including Chicago’s Skyway, Indiana’s Toll Road, and the Dulles Greenway in Virginia, where area residents complain that higher tolls are pushing traffic into residential areas. The firm also owns a stake in Acquarion, a private, for-profit water service provider in New England, and is a major investor in K12 Inc., a for-profit provider of poorly performing “cyberschools.” K12 Inc. receives 86% of its revenue from taxpayers.   PR Watch

DC: J.C. Hayward: A long-time local benefactor and WUSA anchor awaits a legal resolution…. As chairwoman of Options Public Charter School, the complaint said, Hayward allegedly signed off on lucrative contracts that funneled local and federal tax dollars to two for-profit companies founded and run by school managers. Hayward allegedly helped incorporate one of the companies named in the civil lawsuit, a company that according to several people familiar with the investigation is now under federal scrutiny.  Washington Post

OR: Liquor privatization battle heads to Oregon. Big retail stores in Oregon will push to privatize state-controlled liquor sales on the ballot next year, duplicating an effort by retailers in Washington State that led to one of the most expensive political battles in history. Washington Post (blog)

VA: Dulles Toll Road drivers will pay more starting Jan. 1. Check your E-Z Pass balances and if you don’t have an electronic pass, your cash on hand – tolls on the Dulles Toll Road will increase to $2.50 beginning Jan. 1 for passenger cars at the main toll plaza. That’s an increase of 75 cents. Washington Post (blog)

 

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CA: Private foster care system, intended to save children, endangers some. Those living in private agencies’ homes are a third more likely to endure physical, emotional or sexual abuse, a Times analysis found. Los Angeles Times

NY: Should New York Regents Privatize the State’s Research Function? New York established a privately funded “Research Fellow” group to implement the Race to the Top agenda of Common Core implementation and testing. This group was funded by the Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the chair of the Regents, Merryl Tisch. “Two of the charities bankrolling a controversial $18 million education fellowship program also gave millions to a data company to which the state Education Department plans to send personal student information, despite parents’ objections. Diane Ravitch’s blog

PA: Lawmaker Lets Traffic Camera Companies Police Themselves. Pennsylvania state Senator Michael J. Stack (D-Phil) is a big fan of traffic camera companies. Last week he introduced legislation enabling any small town in the state to hire a for-profit firm to set up speed cameras on a freeway or heavily trafficked road in return for a cut of the revenue collected. The measure would also put the photo radar companies in charge of verifying that the tickets they issue are accurate. TheNewspaper.com

DC: Officers nab 116 ‘backtrackers’ at Dulles Airport….With tolls expected to rise on the Dulles Toll Road in January to $2.50 from $1.75 at the main toll plaza, more drivers may be tempted to drive airport roads to avoid paying the higher rates. But they might consider this: Backtracking is considered a moving violation with fines that start at $92 in addition to a penalty of three points on the person’s drivers license.  Washington Post (blog)

VA: FHA seeks public comment on proposed Va. toll road. The Federal Highway Administration is seeking public input on Virginia’s plan to build a 55-mile tolled highway through western Tidewater. Washington Post

NJ: Don’t privatize our jobs, toll collectors tell NJ Turnpike Authority…. Van Wart, who has been a toll collector for 22 years, with a 6-year break for motherhood, showed up at the monthly meeting of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to put a human face on the toll collectors whose jobs the authority wants to privatize.  The Star-Ledger

IL: Sources: Mayor will withdraw Quincy garbage privatization plan. Quincy Mayor Kyle Moore will announce at a press conference Wednesday morning that he will withdraw his plan to privatize the city’s garbage and recycling program. ConnectTriStates.com

TX: Charter school’s Houston ties under scrutiny. Repercussions from legal troubles at a Louisiana charter school have reached Texas because of the school’s business ties with Houston-based Harmony Public Schools, the state’s largest charter operator. Houston Chronicle

OR: Seven Arrested Fighting to Keep the Postal Office Alive in Oregon….. The Gateway mail processing center employs 169 people and is slotted to close sometime after February as a result of the Republican ALEC-led push to privatize the post office by bankrupting it. The closures of processing centers are part of the “cost-cutting” measures imposed upon the post office. PoliticusUSA

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TX: When Public Money, Private Firms Intersect in Schools. Redactions on the publicly available online version of the application often extend for pages at a time. They include sections on the school’s plan to support students’ academic success, its extracurricular activities and the “extent to which any private entity, including any management company” will be involved in the school’s operation. The “shaded material,” according to footnotes, is confidential proprietary or financial information.  Texas Tribune

TX: First foreign-owned toll road hits Dallas. The first foreign-operated toll lanes became fully operational in Dallas over the weekend. Interstate 635 known as the LBJ opened the first 3-mile stretch of the public private partnership toll project to the public on Saturday. The expensive price tag won’t hit commuters immediately, since it opened at a big discount for the first six months as drivers get used to the variable pricing. To use the 3.5-miles of phase one it will cost anywhere from 15 cents up to 95 cents depending on time of day. However, the regular toll rates will cost between 10 cents PER MILE up to 75 PER MILE in peak hours.  San Antonio Express (blog)

DC: Options DC charter school’s Medicaid billing is at center of investigation. Federal investigators are looking into whether former leaders of the District’s Options Public Charter School committed Medicaid fraud by, among other things, exaggerating the needs of its disabled students and paying students with gift cards to ride school buses, according to several people familiar with the criminal investigation.  Washington Post

WI: Bill would allow charter schools to expand free of districts, unions. Wisconsin could see a dramatic rise in the number of charter schools operating outside of districts and without teachers unions, under a new Assembly bill brought by Republicans that would take independent charters statewide. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

WI: UW-Madison alums decry Teach for America’s connections to charter schools. Some former participants — most of whom did not study education formally before participating in Teach for America’s five-week boot camp — have claimed the program failed to sufficiently prepare them for the problems they would encounter in classrooms. Others say the program has betrayed its initial mission, and is now a destabilizing force in public education through ties to charter schools that are publicly funded but privately run. Isthmus Daily Page

ID: Commission approves expansions that could add 990 charter school seats in coming years. The Idaho Public Charter School Commission has approved up to 990 new charter school seats in the state in the coming years, under proposals from three charter school groups. The Spokesman Review

WA: Inslee seeks more mental-health privatization. Washington’s experiment with privatizing the oversight of mental-health treatment could expand from Pierce County to other parts of the state. Bellingham Herald

LA: Audit: No performance review of $363M DHH contract. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration hasn’t done an independent performance review of its $363 million privatization contract for mental health and addictive disorder treatment services, according to an audit released Monday.  Seattle Post Intelligencer

OR: Liquor Privatization Battle Could Be Headed For Oregon. Oregon voters could have the chance to follow Washington’s lead next year when it comes to liquor sales. A grocery industry group filed a slate of initiatives Monday to end the state monopoly on selling liquor. OPB News

KY: Steve Frank to caution lawmakers against tolls. Covington City Commissioner Steve Frank will speak to lawmakers on Thursday about the dangers of tolling….. Many toll roads have teetered on the edge of bankruptcy as it diverts drivers to other areas, he said. Frank and others in Northern Kentucky fear tolls on the Brent Spence Bridge would divert too much traffic onto the area’s four other bridges.   Cincinnati.com (blog)

NE: Among parking changes, Omaha weighs privatizing meter attendants. A private company could soon be handing out tickets in downtown Omaha, as the city gears up for several shifts in the way it handles parking enforcement. Omaha World-Herald

VT: Education chief’s report fuels debate. As Education Secretary Armando Vilaseca leaves his job at the end of this year, one of his final reports is sparking debate between the Ethan Allen Institute, a think tank that promotes free-market policies, and the Public Assets Institute, which champions publicly funded education. Rutland Herald

MI: Mich. prison food switch brings mixed reviews. One week after the launch of one of state government’s largest privatization moves in decades, prison officials said a contractor is doing a good job providing meals to Michigan’s 45,000 prisoners, but union leaders said the transition has been a rocky one. CorrectionsOne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Private Toll-Road Investors Get Low-Risk Deals From States. Private companies that invest in highways have typically shouldered the risk that income from tolls might not be enough to make the deal pay. Now, after at least 11 projects have struggled financially since 1995, the companies are persuading states to make fixed payments so it’s taxpayers who roll the dice. Businessweek

States turning to tolls, other fees to boost highway funding. More roadways tolls and other fees are in the works for 2014, according to a forecast report by Fitch Ratings, as state governments try to find ways to fund transportation infrastructure needs as the flow of federal money continues to shrink.  Fleet Owner

The Dangerous Return of Water Privatization. Community waters systems have sustainably provided safe drinking water for generations but corporations are now using local fiscal crises to push for water privatization. Utne Reader

Fox Panelists Continue Push To Privatize The Post Office. It’s deja vu all over again on Fox “news” where trashing unions and pushing to privatize anything and everything are some of their favorite pastimes.  Crooks and Liars

 IN: Indiana planning group signs off on Illiana Corridor. Members of a key Northwestern Indiana planning agency today approved going ahead with the Illiana Corridor, a proposed toll road that would serve primarily as a trucking corridor linking interstates in Illinois and Indiana.  Chicago Tribune

WA: Liquor thefts have tripled in Puyallup post-privatization. Concerned about this rising trend, Puyallup Police did an independent crime analysis. It found that post privatization, the number of people under 21 who are stealing has doubled. KING5.com

DC: DC charter schools have nation’s 3rd-highest market share. Nationwide, charter school enrollment has grown 80 percent during the past five years, according to the annual market share report, produced by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Growth has been particularly strong in urban areas. Washington Post

MI: Michigan prison food switch brings mixed reviews. The deal, estimated to save $12 million to $16 million a year, eliminates about 370 state jobs. Some workers retired, 166 former food service workers enrolled in an eight-week corrections officer school and are expected to stay with the department, eight got monitoring jobs related to the Aramark contract and about 100 were laid off, Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said. Marlan said Friday that the change is going smoothly.   Lansing State Journal

OH: Kasich’s Education Model Gives Private Schools Public Funds With No Accountability. While all EdChoice recipients must take the state’s standardized tests, the schools and the students are exempt from any of the consequences that would arise from the results.  The schools don’t receive letter grades from the state labeling them as failing and, as a key part of yesterday’s post pointed out, the third grade students are not subject to being retained based on Ohio’s new Third Grade Reading Guarantee law.  And it’s a good thing, too, because students using vouchers to attend private schools are performing worse than their public school counterparts.  Plunderbund

FL: Editorial: Too many questions for West Palm Beach to approve CRA outsourcing contract. West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio defends her effort to privatize redevelopment by calling it “transparent.” True enough. It has been clear from the start that the plan was more to give the job to a certain company than to justify the outsourcing.  Palm Beach Post

NJ: Possible privatization of psych ward in Camden triggers worries. Mental health advocates in New Jersey are worried about the possible privatization of the Camden County Health Service Center’s psychiatric ward. The center was sold to Ocean Healthcare for more than $37 million in May, but county officials had planned to lease back the psych ward. There is disagreement about the future of the ward, with a county spokesman saying the original plan will proceed.  Newsworks.org

NJ: South Amboy will privatize rail commuter parking lots. Starting in the new year, South Amboy will no longer operate the four commuter parking lots at the city’s t rain station, according to the Suburban. The Star-Ledger

 

 

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After Setbacks, Online Courses Are Rethought…..Many educators saw the move as an admission of defeat for the idea that online courses would democratize higher education — and confirmation that, at its core, Udacity, a company funded with venture capital, was more interested in profits than in helping to educate underserved students. New York Times

Study Finds Federal Contracts Given to Flagrant Violators of Labor Laws. A new congressional report criticizes the federal government for awarding tens of billions of dollars in contracts to companies even though they were found to have violated safety and wage laws and paid millions in penalties. Issued on behalf of the Democratic senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, the report cited examples over the past six years. New York Times

PA:  Auditor General Urges End to Spending on Lottery Privatization. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale today urged the Governor or the General Assembly to take action by the end of this year to resolve Pennsylvania Lottery management privatization contract negotiations with British-owned Camelot Global Services Inc. The privatization initiative will cost taxpayers an estimated $4.6 million, or more than 11 percent of the Lottery’s annual operating budget. “Enough already,” DePasquale said. “The commonwealth has spent millions on this lottery privatization effort and that number will continue to grow if this contract is not resolved – one way or another – by Dec. 31 when the agreement with Camelot Global Services Inc. expires.  FOX43.com

CA: California County Says No To Tolling. California’s busiest stretch of freeway will not be tolled. On Monday, the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) agreed with local politicians and members of the public who expressed opposition to the proposed conversion of existing Interstate 405 lanes into toll lanes. TheNewspaper.com

NC:  NC Commerce Talks Privatization. The proposed partnership would privatize many of the agency’s functions and reportedly eliminate dozens of positions, including the directors of the film industry and tourism. WUNC

NC: NC groups representing North Carolina educators sue officials over private school grants law. Public school advocates sued the state Wednesday in a bid to block a new law that would let taxpayer money be used by low-income students wishing to attend private or religious schools…..They contend the new law violates a section of the state constitution which creates a school fund and requires that the money be “used exclusively for establishing and maintaining a uniform system of free public schools.”  The Republic

 

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Meet David Steiner, America’s Highest Paid Sanitation Worker. The Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD) series of profiles on “America’s Highest Paid Government Workers” today puts the spotlight on David Steiner, president and CEO of Waste Management. PR Watch

The 10 school districts with the most charter school students. A new report on charter schools says that charter school enrollment around the country has grown 80 percent over the past five years – but represents only 5 percent of total public school enrollment (a statistic that may seem surprising given all of the attention that school reformers give to charters). Washington Post

The Perils of Privatization (Part One): Not-so-smart-cards in Chicago….. It’s been our own municipal version of the Obamacare rollout—which means everyone should pay attention. For the root problem is exactly the same. Congressman Henry Waxman argued about glitches in the ACA, “if anybody’s head should roll, it should be the contractors who didn’t live up to their contractual responsibility.” But that’s only half right. Consider the sign Harry Truman used to keep on his Oval Office desk: “The buck stops here.” The problem is not just the profusion of private contractors who do the public’s business so poorly; it’s the fact that the public’s business is being so relentlessly privatized by the government executives in charge. Slowly, the perceived imperative to privatize has become the political tail that wags the policy dog. The results are before us.  The Nation

How Wall Street Power Brokers Are Designing the Future of Public Education as a Money-Making Machine…. “This is about corporate control of taxpayers money,” she says. “[The private sector] already has part of the military, some of the roads, that kind of thing. The new money pot is education.” Valued at $1.3 trillion, the U.S. education market is more like a giant cauldron, and many of the individuals stirring it have a long track record of funding pro-charter candidates for state government across the country.  Truth-Out

IL: Protests fail to undo privatization of Long Grove roads. A vote to undo part of Long Grove’s recently approved road-privatization ordinance failed Tuesday night, despite the presence of dozens of residents at a Village Board meeting, many of them there to protest the shift of upkeep and plowing costs to residents. Public outcry had been growing since a deeply divided Village Board approved a plan last month that makes nearly half of the road system private. Chicago Tribune

IL: Editorial: Illiana Expressway is a bad idea….. Across the country, public-private toll roads built in the 2000s are struggling now because they were based on traffic forecasts that came up short. That left investors wary of deals that depend on toll revenue to recover their costs. Instead, they want their government partners to provide fixed payments, regardless of traffic. That doesn’t sound like much of a partnership. IDOT promises the Illiana won’t get built if the numbers can’t be made to work. In the meantime, more than $100 million has been approved for planning, engineering and land acquisition. That’s not chump change.  Chicago Tribune

IL: Committee advances plan for independent city budget office. The ordinance approved by the City Council’s Budget Committee Tuesday would empower the new office to: analyze the mayor’s annual budget and city audit; present aldermen with a report on “budget options reforms and efficiencies;” review privatization deals and asset leases and analyze actions taken by Wall Street rating agencies. Chicago Sun-Times

FL: Florida Senator Pushes For Abusive Youth Prison Company To Face Hearing. A top lawmaker in Florida is calling for a legislative hearing on abuses at the state’s juvenile prisons run by the troubled for-profit contractor Youth Services International. Darren Soto, one of the leading Democrats in the Florida Senate, sent letters Tuesday to fellow lawmakers and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, which oversees the more than $100 million in state contracts held by YSI. The company was the subject of a two-part Huffington Post investigation that documented more than two decades of abuse at the firm’s juvenile and adult facilities across the country. Huffington Post

OH: Deal to Privatize Parking in Cincinnati Dead. City Council approved the deal, but it was widely opposed. People feared higher rates and longer enforcement. In a release, council member P.G. Sittenfeld says, “This has shown us that the public values its public assets and wants long-term solutions to our financial challenges, not short-term fixes.” WKRC TV Cincinnati

PA: Senate GOP receptive to outsourcing Pa. Lottery’s management but not ready to vote on it. Senate Republicans are showing some receptivity to the idea of privatizing management of the Pennsylvania Lottery but they have some questions. PennLive.com

CA: Sacramento, California To Shorten Red Light Camera Ticket Timing. The Sacramento County, California Board of Supervisors will vote Tuesday on a plan to boost the number of $500 red light camera tickets issued at intersections. County officials quietly changed the wording of its memorandum of understanding with Redflex Traffic Systems, the Australian company in charge of the program, so that the camera flash would trigger in half the time. Under the new proposal, the Redflex camera will issue a ticket 0.1 second after the signal changes — faster than the blink of an eye. Local activists are crying foul. TheNewspaper.com

OR: Oregon board OKs controversial forestland sale. Top state officials on Tuesday agreed to move forward with the sale of scattered tracts of the Elliott State Forest, despite objections from conservation groups that they include nesting trees for a protected bird…..They said they’re not trying to privatize the forest but need to balance conservation concerns against a constitutional requirement that the land generate money for public schools. Kitzhaber said the state needs to go forward with accepting bids to determine the value of the 2,700 acres, whether the land is sold to timber companies or conservation groups. San Francisco Chronicle

 

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Who Should Control Our Water? It is difficult to measure whether state-run water systems perform better than privately run ones. Private water companies tend to raise prices: Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit that opposes water privatization, estimates that water rates increase an average of eighteen per cent every other year after private companies take over, and that private companies invest too much in unnecessary infrastructure. Public ownership, on the other hand, can have hidden costs: critics argue that public water utilities keep prices artificially low and make up for it by cutting investment or raising taxes. In any case, there is little proof that ownership structures affect water quality: in Europe, for example, strict water regulation ensures minimum standards regardless of who runs the system.  New Yorker (blog)

ALEC has tremendous influence in state legislatures. Here’s why.….. So what accounts for ALEC’s legislative success? More specifically, what kinds of legislators and states are most likely to rely on ALEC bills?  I am tackling these questions in ongoing research. Using leaked ALEC records that provide a full listing of model bills that states introduced and enacted in 1995, I examined which states were more or less likely to pass ALEC’s bills. Unsurprisingly, conservatism matters: states with more conservative governments were more likely to pass ALEC bills. But ideology isn’t the whole story. Another major factor was the legislative resources available to lawmakers: states where legislators had smaller budgets, convened for shorter lengths of time, and spent less time crafting policy were all more likely to enact ALEC model bills (even after accounting for the ideological orientation of state governments).  Washington Post (blog)

MO: Emails detail a hidden plan for Kansas City Public Schools. Backed by two of the most influential foundations in Kansas City, Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro and a state-hired consultant are planning the future of Kansas City Public Schools as a slate wiped clean. Revelations in emails obtained by The Star and dating to April show a state education department eager to create a new school system, even as the long-beleaguered but stabilized district was preparing to celebrate its best academic improvement in years. The electronic trail exposes a rushed bidding process, now criticized, that ultimately landed Indianapolis-based CEE-Trust a $385,000 contract to develop a long-range overhaul for the district’s failing schools. The Kansas City Star

IN: Privatization deal landed for Gary airport. The Gary/Chicago International Airport Authority on Monday learned the terms of a privatization agreement that boosters hope will bring $100 million in investment to the airport in the next 40 years. Members of a public-private partnership committee at the authority’s regular meeting Monday briefed members on a contract for airport development and another for airport operations, both of which would go to Aviation Facilities Co. Inc., of Dulles, Va.   nwitimes.com

PA: Keno, lottery privatization could come before Pennsylvania Senate. There is “broad support” among Senate Republicans to give the governor authority for a private company to manage the state lottery and legalize electronic games such as keno to boost state revenue, the Senate majority leader said on Monday. But quick action in the Legislature appears unlikely, said Sen. Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County. He didn’t rule out a vote on Tuesday but noted long odds against that happening. Many senators want further vetting.  Tribune-Review

PA: New Book Claims PASSHE’s Failure to Deliver ‘High Quality Education at the Lowest Possible Cost to the Students’. Angelo Armenti, Jr., the former Villanova University Dean and 20-year President of California University (Cal U), recently announced the release of his new book, Privatization Without a Plan: A Failure of Leadership in Pennsylvania Public Higher Education.¹ In it he describes how PASSHE’s 100% political leadership has watched the privatization—i.e., rapid defunding by the State—of the 14 universities since 2002 without committing to a viable plan for preserving and delivering PASSHE’s statutory purpose: “High quality education at the lowest possible cost to the students,” as called for by law in Act 188.  PR Web

FL: Pasco toll road moves forward, but draws just one bid. A toll road that promises to change how people get around in Tampa Bay drew just one construction bid Monday, delighting some supporters who worried there would be none and fueling opponents’ argument that smart money won’t back the $2 billion project. Lutz engineer Gerald Stanley and his partners were the sole bidders on the proposal for a 33-mile, private toll road along the State Road 54/56 corridor in Pasco County along the Hillsborough County line.  Tbo.com

OH: Progress Ohio questioning OSU, Kvamme investment. A liberal advocacy group says a friend of Gov. John Kasich who came to Ohio to help privatize the state’s economic development efforts could be making millions of dollars from an Ohio State University investment in a new venture capital firm. Wooster Daily Record

MI: Prison Food Service Workers Ask Gov. Snyder to Disclose if Aramark Contributed to Governor’s Secretive Fund….”Taxpayers deserve openness and transparency from our Governor,” said Amy Bradley, a state correctional food service worker.  “We deserve to know whether or not Gov. Snyder’s decision to privatize prison food service was influenced by any contribution to his secretive fund.  Closing the fund without disclosing the donors just raises more questions about conflicts of interest in administration’s decision-making process.  It’s time for Gov. Snyder to clear the air and live up to his campaign transparency pledge.”  Sacramento Bee

MI: Fund Established to Raise Money for Detroit Art Museum and Detroit  Pension Debt….Last week, apparently partly in response to a $5 million pledge by A. Paul Schaap, identified as a “biotechnology engineer” and as president and CEO of a chemiluminescent reagents firm, the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan established the Fund to Support Detroit’s Retirees, Cultural Heritage, and Revitalization. Foundation CEO Miriam Noland described the fund as “a means for anyone who wishes to make a financial gift to assist in addressing these challenges an opportunity to do so.” There’s even an online page, hosted by Kintera, for those willing to make donations to the fund.  The Nonprofit Quarterly

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State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health and tax. Conservative groups across the US are planning a co-ordinated assault against public sector rights and services in the key areas of education, healthcare, income tax, workers’ compensation and the environment, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. The strategy for the state-level organisations, which describe themselves as “free-market thinktanks”, includes proposals from six different states for cuts in public sector pensions, campaigns to reduce the wages of government workers and eliminate income taxes, school voucher schemes to counter public education, opposition to Medicaid, and a campaign against regional efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.  The Guardian

PA: Charter-school bill moving through Pa. legislature. The first major overhaul of Pennsylvania’s charter-school law is making its way through the Legislature. Lawmakers could act in the next few weeks on a bill that sponsors say includes urgently needed reforms, but critics warn it could speed the decline of traditional public schools, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.  San Francisco Chronicle

VA: McAuliffe: Toll-road hold. Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe has declared taxpayers must be assured the new Route 460 project has federal approval before spending their money on it, departing from his predecessor’s undiluted support, but there has been no let up in spending on the limited-access toll road lately….VDOT has said it’s providing $903 million for the $1.4 billion highway, and The Virginia Port Authority is chipping in $250 million. The remainder of the cost would be borne by Mobility Partners, which would also operate and maintain the road, collecting tolls ranging from 6.7 cents a mile for cars to 21.3 cents a mile for trucks. Vehicles traveling the entire 55-mile stretch of highway would pay $3.69 and $11.72, respectively, with annual toll increases of 3.5 percent per year built into the contract.  Suffolk News-Herald

NY: New York City’s War On Artists. Lederman was arrested continuously – prompting Frank Serpico, the renowned NYPD whistle-blower, to describe it as retaliatory “harassment” in a 2000 Village Voice editorial. In Serpico’s opinion, Giuliani and Bloomberg’s push to control where artists set up stem from their efforts to please businesses and is in keeping with their efforts to privatize public spaces. Newsweek