Headlines
Report: US states’ financial woes eroding services
CBO Examines Toll Road Bank
FL: Florida DOC to go ahead with prison privatization plan
OH: Audience pan Gov. John Kasich’s plan to lease Ohio Turnpike
The Army Occupying America’s Public Schools – opinion

Report: US states’ financial woes eroding services
U.S. states face long-term budget burdens that are already limiting their ability to pay for basic services such as law enforcement, local schools and transportation, a report released Tuesday said…Those challenges are made worse by a lack of planning by many states and the repeated use of one-time accounting gimmicks to cut costs, the report added. The report was issued by the State Budget Crisis Task Force, a non-profit co-chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch. It focused on six states that encompass about a third of the U.S. population: California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Virginia…Increased spending on health care and pensions are crowding out other funding. Many states have already cut spending on public universities and infrastructure such as roads and public transit, Ravitch said at a press conference Tuesday…Diminished aid from states has pushed up tuition. Concerns are rising that some leading public universities, such as the universities of Michigan and Virginia, “are moving toward de facto privatization with high fees that effectively exclude many highly qualified lower income students,” the report said. AP

CBO Examines Toll Road Bank
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Thursday released a report on the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal to create a national infrastructure bank. The bank idea has grown increasingly popular among transportation officials and politicians because it allows them to raise more money from motorists to fund transportation projects. CBO calculated that annual spending on highways, transit and passenger rail has averaged $50 billion at the federal level and $150 billion at the state and local level. Private railroads also spend $12 billion on their infrastructure. Using the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) wish list of existing projects, another $83 billion more could be spent per year. To create more funding for such projects, the infrastructure bank would allow federal government officials decide which local projects should receive a taxpayer-subsidized loan or loan guarantee. The loans would be repaid from a dedicated revenue stream, which is why the infrastructure bank is only likely to be used to provide profit for the companies that construct and operate toll roads. The Newspaper.com

FL: Florida DOC to go ahead with prison privatization plan
The Florida Department of Corrections said Tuesday it will move ahead with plans to privatize all health care for the nation’s third-largest prison system, even after a stalemate in court and the expiration of legislative budget language that authorized the sweeping change…The Legislature last year ordered the agency to privatize all health care as a money-saving move by inserting budget language known as proviso and requiring a savings of at least 7 percent over 2010 costs. In April, Tucker announced a decision to tentatively award contracts to Corizon Health in most of the state and Wexford Health Sources in South Florida. Two unions filed a lawsuit. A state judge in Tallahassee did not rule in the case, and on June 30 the fiscal year expired. The proposal also required approval by the Legislative Budget Commission, which never took action on the outsourcing. However, attorneys for the state contend that privatization can be done by the agency without a legislative mandate. Tampa Bay Times

OH: Audience pan Gov. John Kasich’s plan to lease Ohio Turnpike
If the first public hearing on the issue of leasing the Ohio Turnpike is any indication of how people feel, Gov. John Kasich won’t like the outcome. Of the 77 people in attendance Tuesday, 75 raised their hands to say they are against the governor’s idea of privatizing the 241-mile toll road that spans Ohio from Indiana to Pennsylvania — and many made strong statements for keeping the status quo. The vast majority in attendance at the Lorain County Transportation and Community Center agreed with the analysis of the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study that concluded the turnpike is an efficiently run, revenue-producing asset and, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Ernie Peto of Olmsted Falls said leasing the turnpike would be like pawning it. “Once you pawn a valuable watch and then spend the money, what do you have left?” he said. “We can’t give away this asset.” The Plain Dealer

The Army Occupying America’s Public Schools – opinion
When a nation is invaded by an occupying army, there are multiple responses from those whose communities have been occupied. Some resist openly, at great risk; some decide to collaborate; others grimly go about their business in sullen compliance; still others decide to feign compliance, but take their resistance underground. Such would be a good description of the varied resistance to the corporate takeover of American schools, which has many of the elements of a foreign invasion. Those who have coordinated the campaign of privatization, testing. and union busting that has swept through America’s public schools — Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Arne Duncan, Michael Bloomberg, and the like, none of whom have a background in teaching — have used the shock and awe tactics employed by invading armies to overwhelm opposition. Beyond Chron

Headlines
Lifeguard’s ordeal is parable about outsourcing – column
Are Profit Seeking and Market Domination a Public Service?
UK: G4S’s Olympic struggles should derail the drive towards more privatisation
PA: Charter school founder gets 2-year term for fraud
AL: Judge in Alabama Halts Private Probation
NC: Pending toll road projects less a sure thing
IL: Midway Airport’s privatization prospects still unclear
NH: Surprising stand by Lamontagne

Lifeguard’s ordeal is parable about outsourcing – column
By now you’ve probably heard the story of the young Florida lifeguard, Tomas Lopez, who was fired earlier this month because he left his station unmanned to help with a rescue in an unguarded section of the beach, in violation of his company’s standard operating procedures….From another angle, this is also a parable about outsourcing and how it is reshaping large swaths of the economy….If you want discretion and judgment, if you want workers who really understand and relate to customers, if you want the flexibility necessary to respond to individual needs or unforeseen circumstances, then you can go back to paying twice as much to have your own, longtime employees doing the work. That’s the outsourcing trade-off. It may be a good trade-off — most of the time I suspect it is. But it is an unavoidable trade-off, no matter how good the contractors or their systems. Washington Post

Are Profit Seeking and Market Domination a Public Service?
The Gates Foundation favors a charitable model known as a public-private partnership, which appears at first to be an enlightened model for corporate engagement. For-profit ventures are “partnered” with the government for funding, to drive positive social change. The problem is that apparent charities are actually spending public funds, often without our knowledge or consent, and public private partnerships in education have shown themselves to be vulnerable to outright fraud as well as wasteful insider dealing. There’s no open or democratic mechanism to determine public benefit, or regulation to protect public education funding from financial pillage for services it doesn’t want or need. Some for-profit corporations directly set up their own non-profit intermediary to divert government funding. For example, the Pearson Education Foundation is a philanthropy which is under investigation for its work as an intermediary on behalf of its parent corporation, global giant Pearson Education, whose 2010 US sales totaled £2.6 billion (British pounds). Ed Week

UK: G4S’s Olympic struggles should derail the drive towards more privatisation
Private companies have one aim: profit maximisation. So expect cuts in staffing levels and everything done on the cheap. G4S was given a £284m contract to supply more than 10,000 security staff to work at the Olympic Games. The next time you meet one of those free-market ideologues who tells you private companies are always more efficient than the public sector, don’t bother to get involved in a lengthy argument. Instead just use the example of G4S. G4S, which describes itself as “the world’s leading security solutions group”, was given a lucrative £284m contract to supply more than 10,000 security staff to work at the Olympic Games. Now, two weeks before the opening ceremony, G4S tells us it needs additional help to meet its obligations. The testimony of those who tried to get a job suggests incompetence on an enormous scale….Meanwhile, a whistleblower who worked with G4S has claimed there is a “50%” chance of a bomb being carried into an Olympic venue when the Games begin because of insufficient training of staff. G4S, for its part, denied there was a problem and said that all staff would be prepared for the Games.The Guardian

PA: Charter school founder gets 2-year term for fraud
A former board president and founder of a Northwest Philadelphia charter school was sentenced in federal court today to 2 years in prison for stealing $522,000 in taxpayer money to prop up a restaurant, a health-food store, and a private school he controlled, and for other business and personal expenses. In April, shortly before he was scheduled to go to trial, Hugh C. Clark, pleaded guilty to all 28 criminal counts related to his role in a scheme to drain funds from the New Media Technology Charter School…The sentencing memorandum from the U.S. Attorney’s office described Clark as an Ivy League lawyer “who stole funds intended for the public school children of Philadelphia. No amount of money was too large or too small for defendant Clark to steal.” The thefts included bogus $25,000 “loan” checks made out to the private Lotus Academy, which Clark controlled; $500 per month to pay bills of his failed Internet company; and a $339,000 bank fraud connected with the Black Olive Restaurant in Mount Airy. The crimes took place over a four-year period from about May 2005 and June 2009. Philadelphia Inquirer

AL: Judge in Alabama Halts Private Probation
A county judge in Alabama has temporarily shut down a system in a town near Birmingham where people fined for speeding and unable to afford the ticket are handed over to a private probation company and sometimes sent to jail, where additional fees are imposed. Judge Hub Harrington of Shelby County issued the order this week, saying that he was “appalled” by what he characterized as a “debtors’ prison.” “From a fair reading of the defendants’ testimony, one might ascertain that a more apt description of the Harpersville Municipal Court practices is that of a judicially sanctioned extortion racket,” he added. “Most distressing is that these abuses have been perpetrated by what is supposed to be a court of law. Disgraceful.”…The New York Times reported on the lawsuit this month as part of an article about the aggressive use of fees and private companies by towns and court systems seeking income. Judge Harrington ordered a preliminary injunction against the town and company, calling their officials to a hearing on Aug. 20. He also barred any further detention in local jails of those placed on probation without his written permission. He ordered that anyone convicted in Harpersville Municipal Court be given 30 days to pay the fine without further fines or fees being imposed by the probation company.  New York Times

NC: Pending toll road projects less a sure thing
An unusual probe by North Carolina Republican legislators into edited state Department of Transportation letters on funding for two divisive toll projects raised howls among Democrats who believed it was designed to embarrass Governor Bev Perdue…Republicans defended their investigation as neither about politics nor the merits of the Garden Parkway and Mid-Currituck Bridge projects — but rather ensuring that lawmakers get factual information from state officials.However, the investigation raised more questions about if or when shovels of dirt will be turned over for the bridge and parkway construction, which was mandated by the Legislature when it was in Democratic hands. A new crop of elected GOP lawmakers in the majority have questioned the efficacy of going through with the projects, giving hope to project opponents. Rocky Mountain Telegram

IL: Midway Airport’s privatization prospects still unclear
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has awarded a new five-year, $53.6 million contract to the joint-venture hired in 2008 to manage Midway Airport, raising questions about the future of the Midway privatization deal that collapsed for lack of financing. Chicago Sun-Times

NH: Surprising stand by Lamontagne
Republican gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne is a fan of privatization – but not when it comes to New Hampshire’s prisons. After the Republican Executive Council voted last week to continue Democratic Gov. John Lynch’s push to explore prison privatization, Lamontagne spoke in opposition to the idea during a debate Thursday…”I think it’s important that we make sure that, as a state, we have the proper, humane treatment given to these incarcerated individuals, our prisoners,” Lamontagne said. “And unless you can show me a substantial savings, a maintenance of quality in a privately-run prison, I would not support privatization of prisons.” Concord Monitor

Headlines
NY: Nassau County sees minimum of $700 mln for sewer plant
TX: Eminent domain abuse & monopolies: TxDOT resurrects the Trans Texas Corridor
TX: Texas’ recent track record with privatization gloomy
PA: Prisons for profit on the rise
Public Education Is for the Common Good
A Long Way From Cinderblock
A year after new regulations, for-profit colleges still a bad deal

NY: Nassau County sees minimum of $700 mln for sewer plant
New York’s cash-poor Nassau County received 13 responses from companies interested in privatizing its sewer and waste water authority for at least $700 million, a spokesman for County Executive Edward Mangano said on Thursday.  A state overseer Nassau’s troubled finances and some board members have fiercely opposed a public-private partnership which they consider a one-shot that would fail to solve the county’s long-term gap between spending and revenue…Located just east of New York City, Nassau is home to many Manhattan commuters. The county has a median income of $93,613, but its strong property tax base has not been sufficient to offset poor financial management. In 2000, the state created a control board to prevent the county from going bankrupt. Though investment banks and hedge funds have raised hundreds of million of dollars to invest in public-private partnerships, credit analysts say they should be reserved for new and high-risk projects, such as highways, bridges and tunnels. Reuters

TX: Eminent domain abuse & monopolies: TxDOT resurrects the Trans Texas Corridor
On July 11, TURF warned the Texas House Joint Committee of Government Efficiency and Reform and State Affairs that controversial public private partnerships (P3s) that sell-off Texans’ public infrastructure to private corporations represents eminent domain abuse and grants state-sanctioned monopolies….When it comes to infrastructure projects like roads and public buildings, it involves eminent domain that forcibly condemns private property in the name of a ‘public use.’ With P3s, that land, including any amount of adjacent property a developer claims it needs to re-coup its investment, is handed to a private developer for private gain.So in the case of the City of Bee Cave, Texas, the developer built its city hall building, but gained hundreds of acres of adjacent private property under the guise of a ‘public use’ that they turned into a massive shopping mall for private profits. That’s a deplorable abuse of property rights.  Examiner

TX: Texas’ recent track record with privatization gloomy
..In places like Republican-controlled Texas, where bumper sales tax reports are a monthly event, the recent track record of privatizing state services has been dismal. Earlier this year the state and IBM finally walked away taking heavy losses from an $863 million contract that utterly failed to modernize data services for more than two dozen government agencies. Three years earlier, the state and Accenture divorced after a nearly $900 million contract to provide Medicaid and food stamp services that was to have saved the state $646 million brought instead nothing but misery to both parties. Tough to figure out just why the partnerships didn’t work out. IBM, the company that practically invented the computer industry. Accenture, one of the most successful technology services companies in the world. And the state of Texas, which brought us the stimulus weatherization program and driver’s license renewal centers. Still, some like Talmadge Heflin, the former Houston lawmaker now with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, say the state should consider giving private enterprise another chance. Texas Watchdog

PA: Prisons for profit on the rise
…Whatever the interrelated reasons, the United States has emerged as the nation with the highest number of adults and juveniles serving time — approximately 2.5 million people. The costs of housing these men and women have become so high that many states are looking for alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders, or to the private prison industry to help defray the expenditures. Since the 1990s the rise of for-profit prisons have emerged as a major facet of the nation’s corrections system — and companies like Corrections Corporation of America and the Geo Group have seized upon a lucrative opportunity to provide needed services, especially to cash-strapped state governments looking for ways to reduce the cost of corrections. Philadelphia Tribune

Public Education Is for the Common Good
Public education advocates welcomed the news that Change.org recently decided to drop Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and Jonah Edelman’s Stand for Children as paid clients. Change.org is a powerful platform for individuals trying to correct the injustices they see in the world. Whether it’s a young woman angry at her bank over new fees, a bullied high school student taking on an industry association over censorship issues or grieving parents trying to find some sort of redress or justice for their loss, Change.org has proven to be a vitally important tool…The last line is incredibly important: they do not accept clients for sponsored campaigns that “seek private corporate benefit that undermine the common good.” After examining the two groups more critically, Change.org joined a growing number of people and organizations nationwide who are rejecting Rhee and other Astroturf groups who undermine the public good by lobbying to privatize schools, profit off of our nation’s students, and limit or eliminate the rights of working people. Many of these groups choose deceptive names and use carefully crafted language to appeal to wider audiences. The two groups in question, StudentsFirst and Stand for Children, can look great at first glance. But when you look more closely at the policies they push, and who pays to push them, you have to take pause. Huffington Post

A Long Way From Cinderblock
…So McGuire joined dozens of other bases across the country in taking advantage of the Military Housing Privatization Initiative passed by Congress in 1996, which opened the door for private developers to upgrade the housing stock. Under the initiative’s rules, the developers build or renovate military homes, which they own and rent out to military personnel, and continue to manage and maintain for the next 50 years. As of February 2012, there were 105 of these privatized housing projects nationwide, with a total 191,905 homes, according to the Department of Defense. New York Times

A year after new regulations, for-profit colleges still a bad deal
About a year ago, the Education Department started cracking down on career colleges — community colleges, vocational institutions and other schools that offer non-degree certificate programs intended to prepare students for a specific career or trade — that left students in excessive debt and without gainful employment. The first round of data on whether such programs are living up to the new standards came out a couple weeks ago and it’s pretty ugly. Washington Post

 

Headlines
TX: Texas lawmakers consider privatizing state programs
TX: Trinity Toll Road Doesn’t Add Up – column
NJ: State aims to improve higher education with privatization, bonds
NH: Private prison consultant hired
VA: Deadline for Va. port operation privatization proposals extended
PA: School District, blue-collar union reach tentative deal
Army privatizing base hotels
Wake Forest Law Review to host education privatization symposium

TX: Texas lawmakers consider privatizing state programs
Expecting another budget shortfall in the next session — perhaps as much as $15 billion — for most of this year, Texas Legislature committees have considered various cost-cutting measures. The latest possibility two House panels discussed Wednesday is privatizing some state services. But if the state decides to turn some services to the private sector, don’t expect it to happen right away,” said Rep. John Frullo, R-Lubbock. “I think the main thing we need to look at is kind of open our eyes to all the pluses and minuses not just of the items we are looking at implementing but of the process of privatizing,” said Frullo, a member of both committees holding the joint hearing: State Affairs and Government Efficiency & Reform. Amarillo.com

TX: Trinity Toll Road Doesn’t Add Up – column
From the beginning of the Trinity River toll road debate 14 years ago, one of the biggest hurdles faced by critics of the road has been the unwillingness of urban planners and other so-called experts to publicly speak ill of a project with so much money and power behind it. Apparently moral courage is not a part of anybody’s urban-planning curriculum. But that may not be all bad. It leaves it up to us. We ordinary citizens can tell whether the emperor is naked, can we not? Maybe the silence of the lambs in the urban planning community has tricked us into thinking we have to be lambs. Dallas Observer

NJ: State aims to improve higher education with privatization, bonds
Overshadowed by fights over the state budget and the merger of state colleges late last month were two bills that could have their own broad effects on New Jersey’s higher education system. Both seek to spur new construction on college campuses: one uses a privatization arrangement to encourage private organizations to pay for construction at public colleges; the other authorizes $750 million in bonds to pay for new buildings. The privatization bill, which the Legislature passed June 28 but the governor has not yet signed, seeks to encourage private entities – including for-profit companies – to pay for new construction on public college campuses. In exchange for financing the construction, the firms could lease existing dormitories or other revenue-producing buildings at the colleges. The companies would have to pay for the dorms’ management and maintenance but would receive the buildings’ revenue and could make a profit until their leases with the colleges expire. NorthJersey.com

NH: Private prison consultant hired
The Executive Council voted unanimously yesterday to pay a Florida company $171,350 to help state officials evaluate the eight proposals four companies have submitted to privatize the state’s prisons. Linda Hodgdon, commissioner of the state Department of Administrative Services, told councilors the contract with MGT of America Inc. does not commit the state to handing its prisons off to a private company. Instead, Hodgdon said, it will give policymakers more expertise when they decide whether to privatize. “We have put in thousands and thousands of additional hours in staff time already (reviewing the bids),” Hodgdon said. “I am actually comforted by another set of eyes coming in, a fresh set of eyes coming in, especially (a set) that has expertise in other states looking at this. I think you’re going to get better information when you try to make your public policy decisions.” Concord Monitor

VA: Deadline for Va. port operation privatization proposals extended
The state Department of Transportation issued a request for alternative proposals following an unsolicited one by APM Terminals Inc., a division of global shipping company Maersk. Ryan Pedraza, program manager for the Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships, said the deadline was extended because several groups said they needed more time to complete their submissions. So far, no other companies have submitted proposals. The APM Terminals proposal calls for a 48-year agreement to operate state ports in the Hampton Roads region as well as the Virginia Inland Port in Warren County. The proposal is valued between $3.2 billion and $3.9 billion.The Port of Virginia is currently the third-largest port on the East Coast, but state officials have been frustrated that it hasn’t rebounded from the recession as quickly as its competitors in New York and Savannah, Ga. have. Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell replaced 10 of the port authority’s 11 commissioners last year in an effort to spur growth. The Republic

PA: School District, blue-collar union reach tentative deal
A tentative deal has been struck between the Philadelphia School District and its blue-collar workers’ union, officials said late Wednesday. The deal – which must be ratified – appears to avert layoffs and the privatization of 2,700 jobs of members of SEIU 32BJ Local 1201: bus aides, mechanics, cleaners, building engineers, and other workers. Union officials confirmed the deal, but said they would release no specifics – including the number of layoffs averted – until members saw the terms. The potential agreement comes after months of negotiations and protests over the possible layoffs. About 500 employees were to have lost their jobs Sunday, with the rest laid off by the end of the year. Philly.com

Army privatizing base hotels
The Army is privatizing its hotels, turning their renovation, development and operations over to the private sector in an effort to improve their quality and consistency. The move — which began with a 2009 lease agreement and is to be ongoing for many years — is part of a broader Army effort to seek new ways to make use of its existing land and assets. The service has also privatized most of its U.S. housing and has allowed builders to construct commercial office space on some bases. Washington Post

Wake Forest Law Review to host education privatization symposium
The Wake Forest Law Review will host the symposium, “Privatizing the Public Good:  Emerging Trends in K-16 Education,” on Friday, Oct. 26. The symposium assembles a range of perspectives and topics in order to explore privatization trends in education policy at both the K-12 and higher education levels.  These privatization trends challenge the traditional view of education as a public good and raise interesting questions concerning the role and shape of education reform. For more information, click here.

Headlines
States Face Tough Choices Even as Downturn Ends
CO: Fracking: Aurora votes to “lease” water to Anadarko Petroleum
NJ: Trenton Lawmakers Plan Review of Halfway Houses
IN: Hoosier Lottery seeks bids for privatizing some of agency’s work
VA: Slow down plans to privatize port
NC: The privatization scam
MO: Input on roads favors taxes over tolls
FL: Two political insiders to survey Florida’s big landowners about toll road routes
NY: Madison County considers privatization to combat growing budget pressures
ID: Supporters of liquor privatization look forward to 2013 legislative session

States Face Tough Choices Even as Downturn Ends
As state governments begin to emerge from the long downturn, many are grappling with a difficult choice: should they restore some of the services and jobs they were forced to eliminate in the recession or cut taxes in the hopes of bolstering their local economies? The debate over the proper balance between taxing and spending has been raging in Congress, on the presidential campaign trail and in statehouses around the country, and no two states have settled it more differently this year than Maryland and Kansas, whose fiscal years began July 1.  New York Times

CO: Fracking: Aurora votes to “lease” water to Anadarko Petroleum
Gaylord Entertainment dumped its plans for a giant hotel/convention center/resort in Aurora, and GE has postponed its big new plant in Aurora — if not ditched it entirely. But at least Aurora had control over one business deal: It had no problem selling its water to an oil and gas company.  Despite recent rains, much of Colorado has been declared a drought disaster area, and parched Weld County farmers just to the north are begging for water. Still, last night the Aurora City Council voted to “lease” water to Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which will use it for hydraulic fracturing…possibly the only practice less controversial than opening the city tap to give a hotel a $300 million subsidy, as Aurora was willing to do for Gaylord.  Denver Westward

NJ: Trenton Lawmakers Plan Review of Halfway Houses
New Jersey lawmakers stepped up their calls for more scrutiny of the state’s troubled halfway house system on Tuesday, announcing plans for hearings and demanding that the Corrections Department explain its “disturbing history of mismanagement and neglect.” State Senate leaders said they would conduct a hearing on July 26 to examine oversight of the sprawling network of large, privately run halfway houses, which contract with the state to hold inmates who are finishing their sentences and parolees who are re-entering society. Senate officials said they would invite halfway house executives to testify, along with corrections officials, independent experts and others with insight into the system, which houses about 3,500 inmates and parolees, and has been plagued by escapes, gang activity, sexual attacks and rampant drug use.  New York Times

IN: Hoosier Lottery seeks bids for privatizing some of agency’s work
Its eyes on privatizing some of its functions in hopes of boosting revenue, the Hoosier Lottery is asking companies to lay their ideas out in binding bids that are due by the end of August. The move comes after 10 companies responded to the lottery’s initial inquiry to see whether there were ways to tweak its functions to make more money. The final round of bids allows companies to make proposals along two lines — their base bid, which just deals with the lottery’s current structure, and enhanced bids, which can involve new games, platforms, delivery mechanisms and more. Evansville Courier & Press

VA: Slow down plans to privatize port
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the state’s renewed interest in privatizing port operations in Hampton Roads is also the most arbitrary: A 50-day, state-imposed window for companies to submit proposals that compete with the unsolicited bid earlier this year from APM Terminals Inc.  That period is set to expire Thursday. Fortunately, several prospective bidders have complained that they need more time, and state officials are weighing whether to extend the deadline another 30 days. They should. The Virginian-Pilot

NC: The privatization scam
We’ve written a lot on this website about the ways in which corporate overlords are gradually buying up our core public structures and converting them into private assets that can be squeezed and otherwise manipulated to maximize profits. Still, it’s always powerful to learn of new, brazen examples of this process in action. Take for example this story on Blue NC this morning documenting the relationship between a leading candidate for Governor and a private “infrastructure” company with a less-than-stellar record in a neighboring state. The formula is startlingly simple and works well with politicians of both parties:Establish a company that performs some kind of service(s) that government ordinarily provides (e.g. road maintenance, mental health care or even running a school or a prison).  The Progressive Pulse

MO: Input on roads favors taxes over tolls
Several who spoke before a citizens committee on transportation yesterday in Columbia expressed support for tax increases as a way to generate new money for Missouri’s roads, but few defended the idea of charging a toll on state highways. The feedback was given during a meeting of the Blue Ribbon Citizens Committee, formed by Missouri House of Representatives Speaker Steve Tilley, R-Perryville, to gather input on transportation. The panel visited Columbia yesterday to hear from Mid-Missourians about how they benefit from the state’s roadways and how the Missouri Department of Transportation might be better funded….State Rep. Bart Korman, R-High Hill, testified that toll roads could have negative economic effects on residents in his district, which encompasses Interstate 70 between Fulton and Wentzville. “They would take a tax over a toll road,” Korman said of his constituents. Columbia Daily Tribune

FL: Two political insiders to survey Florida’s big landowners about toll road routes
Two developers who played a role in dismantling growth management laws in Florida are getting paid by the Department of Transportation to consult on what could be the largest state road project in history. The project is Future Corridors, a series of at least four toll roads that would crisscross the state’s rural areas to spur economic growth, create jobs and birth another generation of suburban communities. Billy Buzzett and Chris Corr were hired in March to conduct up to 20 interviews with major landowners who own large tracts where the roads could go. After interviewing the landowners, the two would come up with a strategic memo based on the discussions. The contract is worth $106,000; potential land deals could be worth much more. Both Buzzett and Corr have close ties to Gov. Rick Scott’s administration. Miami Herald

NY: Madison County considers privatization to combat growing budget pressures
With an eye on the growing pressure of state mandates, Madison County officials and other Central New York lawmakers are looking to the private sector to take over traditional county programs. County officials issued a request for proposals last month for their Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment program, known as ADAPT, which provides psychiatric evaluation and treatment for individuals and families. The inquiry comes on the heels of last year’s sale of the county’s 44-employee certified home health agency to Home Care of Rochester Inc. – a transition that will save county taxpayers $750,000 in next year’s budget, said Madison County Administrator Mark Scimone. Syracuse Post Standard

ID: Supporters of liquor privatization look forward to 2013 legislative session
An initiative that would have privatized the distribution and sale of liquor in Idaho failed to gather enough signatures to be placed on the November ballot, but supporters of the effort are already planning to work with the 2013 legislature in the hope of achieving the same goal.. The Northwest Grocers Association (NWGA) met with Idaho officials in late December to determine the steps they would need to take in completing a privatization initiative, before deciding to wait. Ultimately, the Idaho Federation of Reagan Republicans (IFRR), a group based in north Idaho, came forward a month later to announce their own initiative effort, but that too was abandoned after the Idaho attorney general’s office released its report on the text of the measure, expressing legal concern regarding some of its provisions. IdahoReporter.com

Headlines
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Under Cover of Darkness, a Corporate Coup Is Underway
Legislation would end mail delivery on Saturdays
SC: South Carolina clamps down on municipal Wi-Fi menace
TX: Charter School Chain Uses Taxpayer Money to Proselytize Students?
FL: Privatizing prison healthcare remains stalled amid court fight
FL: Work-release centers quietly going private
NY: At Fireworks, Not All Seats Are Created Equal
NH:  N.H. towns privatize some services to save cash
CA: OC toll roads to stop taking cash, cut toll-booth jobs
CA: Oakdale weighs privatizing Public Works

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Under Cover of Darkness, a Corporate Coup Is Underway
The highly secretive pact, dubbed “NAFTA on steroids,” is so invasive it would even limit how governments can spend tax dollars…With the direct participation of 600 corporations and shocking levels of secrecy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is rushing to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Branded as a trade agreement (yawn) by its corporate proponents, TPP largely has evaded public and congressional scrutiny since negotiations were launched in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration. But trade is the least of it. Only two of TPP’s 26 chapters actually have to do with trade. The rest is about new enforceable corporate rights and privileges and constraints on government regulation. This includes new extensions of price-raising drug patent monopolies, corporate rights to attack government drug formulary pricing plans, safeguards to facilitate job offshoring and new corporate controls over natural resources. Also included are severe limits on government regulation of financial services, zoning and land use, product and food safety, energy and other essential services, tobacco, and more. The copyright chapter poses many of the threats to Internet freedom of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was stalled in Congress under intense public pressure. The proposed pact is so invasive of domestic policy space that it would even limit how governments can spend tax dollars. Buy America and other Buy Local procurement preferences used to reinvest our tax dollars in the American economy would be banned and sweat-free, human rights or environmental conditions on government contracts would be subject to challenge in closed-door foreign tribunals. AlterNet

Legislation would end mail delivery on Saturdays
Unionized postal workers are not happy about federal legislation that would reduce mail delivery from six to five days a week. Paul Nyman, secretary-treasurer of Branch 50, National Association of Letter Carriers, said the bill, if passed by Congress, could hurt senior citizens and disabled veterans who depend on home mail service. He and other postal workers are getting the word out to local businesses and groups, urging them to speak out against the legislation, which would, in effect, end Saturday mail delivery. Sun Gazette

SC: South Carolina clamps down on municipal Wi-Fi menace
Ars Technica has a steller report on the South Carolina state legislature’s recent passage of a bill that “effectively makes it difficult, if not impossible” for town and city governments to create their own municipal Wi-Fi networks — networks that are aimed at giving citizens taxpayer-funded, free-to-use Internet service. The two big powers behind the legislation, Ars reports, were AT&T and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that creates corporate-friendly model legislation for state legislators to pass. ALEC’s primary objection to municipal Wi-Fi, it seems, is that it might compete with private Wi-Fi services and put the squeeze on incumbent carriers’ profitability. YahooNews

TX: Charter School Chain Uses Taxpayer Money to Proselytize Students?
An investigation by Americans United for Separation of Church and State suggests that Shekinah Radiance Academy schools, using public money, operate as religious institutions….Evidence gathered as of press time indicated that the school promoted weekly chapel services, offered weekly Bible study classes and used a religious name and logo, all of which could be violations of the Constitution’s First Amendment. Alternet

FL: Privatizing prison healthcare remains stalled amid court fight
It has been more than a year since the Legislature ordered the agency to privatize inmate healthcare to save money, the largest project of its kind ever attempted in the U.S. It still hasn’t happened, leaving unfulfilled Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign promise to “competitively bid healthcare contracts” to cut costs. In the past year, Scott ousted the corrections secretary who initiated the project, and two unions filed suit to derail the outsourcing. Miami Herald

FL: Work-release centers quietly going private
When Gov. Rick Scott and legislators tried to privatize South Florida prisons, the state Senate rejected it. When the state sought to privatize health care for inmates, two unions filed suit, stalling it. Undeterred, the Department of Corrections is pursuing privatization on a new front. The agency will seek bids to privatize all 20 of its work-release centers, including three each in Pinellas County and South Florida, even though the Legislature didn’t mandate it. The state has not made the privatization plan public. The prison system says it has the authority under state law, but the Teamsters union that represents state correctional officers is threatening a lawsuit. Ken Wood, acting president of Teamsters Local 2011 in Tampa, calls the latest venture “highly suspect” and says: “We’re reviewing our legal options.” Miami Herald

NY: At Fireworks, Not All Seats Are Created Equal
They are an expression of democracy, liberty and equality, a pyrotechnic celebration of the ideals on which the United States was founded. But this year’s Fourth of July fireworks on the Hudson River will offer a new tier of premier viewing — a V.I.P. section in Hudson River Park where spaces will go for $200 a pop. But the elite viewing platform has struck some parks observers as, well, elitist. “Any time you section off or privatize or limit access to the general public, it’s against the grain of what a public park is supposed to be,” said Melissa Mark-Viverito, a member of the City Council who is chairwoman of the parks and recreation committee. “It’s symbolic of what we’re seeing at the city and state level, where we’re not allocating enough resources to keep our parks in a state of good repair.”  New York Times

NH:  N.H. towns privatize some services to save cash
With municipal budgets squeezed to a maximum, Southern New Hampshire towns are trying to get the most out of taxpayers’ dollars. That’s why some are turning to more privatization of town services…Salem recently eliminated its four-member information technology department and hired a private contractor to do the work…Derry hires a company to process tax bills. Londonderry contracts out welfare services, saving thousands of dollars each year…Privatization of community services isn’t a new concept, but it’s becoming more popular, local officials said…Towns are cutting costs in any way they can, even if it means laying off longtime employees…Like privatization, sharing community resources also isn’t a new concept. It’s just becoming more popular during tight times, according to Christopher Porter of the New Hampshire Local Government Center in Concord. The municipal organization’s 2011 survey showed at least 60 percent of New Hampshire communities rely on surrounding towns for services, he said. O’Neil said towns should also consider sharing police and fire services, like in other parts of the country. The Eagle-Tribune

CA: OC toll roads to stop taking cash, cut toll-booth jobs
The county is looking to save money by eliminating toll booth operators and phasing out cash payments, in addition to raising toll rates. Los Angeles Times

CA: Oakdale weighs privatizing Public Works
The Oakdale City Council could decide Monday night on a proposal that would lead to eliminating its Public Works Department and outsourcing its functions to the private sector. Modesto Bee

Headlines
Segregation Fear Sinks Charter School
NH: What’s driving prison privatization?
FL: Horrors continue in privatized lockups – opinion
FL: State: Too Late for Prison Privatization
IN: Indiana Toll Road raises fees for some drivers

Segregation Fear Sinks Charter School
Nashville school officials have rejected a proposal to open a charter school in a middle-class part of the city, highlighting a broader national battle over efforts by operators of such publicly financed, privately run schools to expand into more affluent areas….But as the charter movement expands, and more middle-class parents become disenchanted with local public schools, charter operators have pushed to open schools in middle-income and suburban communities, triggering battles in such places as New Jersey and New York similar to that seen in Nashville. The share of low-income students in charter schools dropped to 51% in the 2009-10 school year from 62% in 2004-05, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Wall Street Journal

NH: What’s driving prison privatization?
…The generalized claim of cost savings has little or no support unless the intention is to provide even fewer services and substantially reduce conditions in the prisons… So, if cost saving is not the goal, what is going on? There is reason to suspect that there are those in the Legislature who wish to reduce the size of government regardless of the consequences and others who believe that the private sector can always do things more efficiently than the government can. In the case of prisons, New Hampshire should have learned by now that constitutional constraints impose standards that cannot be ignored. Those constraints do not permit reductions in staffing and conditions that are required to make the operation “profitable.” It defies logic to believe that an institution can be operated at cost plus profit for less than it can be operated at cost alone. Therefore, if cost saving and efficiency are the legislative goal, the search should be for a more efficient operating system rather than a new operator with a profit motive. That is especially true when the private operators have a track record of cutting corners which expose the state to liability. Concord Monitor

FL: Horrors continue in privatized lockups – opinion
Yet again, a judge has been tasked to sort through wrenching allegations of abuse and neglect and violence at a privatized juvenile lock-up. …[T]he allegations echo charges in a 2010 federal lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which claimed Thompson staffers “choked and slammed children head-first into concrete walls,” that the young inmates were chronically undernourished and that they were denied access to their attorneys. One kid claimed he had been sexually abused. (The 2010 lawsuit was settled and the records sealed.) It all sounds so familiar in the era of privatization. In a 1998 scandal at the Pahokee Youth Development Center, kids were subjected to a violent and abusive staff. Rehab and education programs were a joke. Classes were canceled, at one stretch, for 13 straight days. And a state monitor charged that the private penal outfit running the joint, Correctional Services Corp., was keeping kids locked up beyond their release date so the company could bill the state for the extra money. Miami Herald

FL: State: Too Late for Prison Privatization
A lawyer for the state urged an appellate court Wednesday to uphold a South Florida prison privatization plan although he conceded it’s too late to carry out before a budget provision authorizing the outsourcing expires Saturday. The three-judge panel also questioned Jonathan Glogau on whether his boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, had the legal authority to appeal a trial judge’s decision saying the budget provision is unconstitutional after the Department of Corrections, the defendant in the case, declined to do so…Circuit Judge Jackie Fulford ruled in Tallahassee last year that the Republican-led Legislature violated the Florida Constitution by using the proviso instead of a stand-alone law to order the prison privatization. A separate privatization bill then was filed earlier this year, but it was narrowly defeated in the Senate. The Police Benevolent Association represented Florida’s correctional officers when Fulford ruled, but the guards voted in a new union, the Teamsters, in November despite the PBA’s courtroom victory. The Ledger

IN: Indiana Toll Road raises fees for some drivers
The cost of vehicles traveling on the Indiana Toll Road for vehicles without an I-Zoom transponder is going up starting Sunday. Private operator ITR Concession Inc. says tolls for all vehicle classes without the devices will go up an average of 3 percent. Motorists in cars and other two-axle vehicles using the I-Zoom will continue to pay the same toll they have since ITR Concession leased the roadway from the state in 2006. That discount ends in 2016. The full toll for cars and other two-axle vehicles running the length of the road will go up to $9.40 from its current $9. Indianapolis Star

Headlines
Public Universities See Familiar Fight at Virginia
Kucinich lends moral support to postal hunger strike
GA: A Georgia Town Takes the People’s Business Private
NY: For City Parents, Frustration Over Rising Cost of Public School
VA: Va. approaches decision on privatizing sex offender program
NV: State mulls plan for toll road system
LA: Outsider shakes things up at Algiers charter schools

Public Universities See Familiar Fight at Virginia
The tumult at the University of Virginia — with the sudden ouster of President Teresa Sullivan on June 10, and the widespread anticipation that she will be reinstated on Tuesday — reflects a low-grade panic now spreading through much of public higher education…Across the nation, it has been a rocky year for public university presidents: Richard W. Lariviere, the president of the University of Oregon, was fired in November, despite strong faculty support, after pushing aggressively for more independence from the state. Amid similar strains — but voluntarily — Carolyn Martin left the University of Wisconsin to become president of the far smaller Amherst College. At the University of Illinois, a faculty mutiny helped spur President Michael Hogan’s resignation after less than two years on the job. And at the University of Texas this spring, there were rumblings that President Bill Powers was in danger after a clash with the board and the governor over his request for a tuition increase. “Each situation is a little different, but the trend is apparent,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education. “The staggering reduction in financial support from the state puts a lot of pressure on campus. There’s increasing politicization of governance. And there are rising expectations that universities will transform themselves very quickly, if not overnight. Somehow, they’re supposed to achieve dramatic improvement in learning productivity and at the same time reduce costs by using educational technology.”  New York Times

Kucinich lends moral support to postal hunger strike
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Monday helped kick off a hunger strike of postal workers protesting what they say is an effort to privatize and dismantle the cash-strapped United States Postal Service. The strike — which includes 10 postal workers, union activists and supporters, but not Kucinich himself — is the latest in a long saga of efforts to reform the postal service as it faces a dim financial future. While lawmakers generally agree that postal reform is necessary, they disagree on the specifics. “Make no mistake about it, this is an effort to try to privatize even more postal services,” Kucinich said in reference to GOP efforts. The strikers focused on a requirement they say mandates that the postal service pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance, drawing scarce revenues the postal service needs to evolve. “The postal service has adapted to the change in the volume of mail,” said Jamie Partridge, a national coordinator of Communities and Postal Workers United. “That’s not what’s killing the postal service. Not the Internet. Not private competition. Not even the recession. It’s this prefunded mandate.” Kucinich argued that Republicans, by seeking to dismantle the postal service, compromise its effectiveness. That in turn allows conservative critics to point to it as an example of government waste and ineffectiveness, Kucinich said. Politico

GA: A Georgia Town Takes the People’s Business Private
Cities across the United States have dabbled for years with various levels of privatization, but few have taken the idea as far as Sandy Springs, Ga…Applying for a business license? Speak to a woman with Severn Trent, a multinational company based in Coventry, England. Want to build a new deck on your house? Chat with an employee of Collaborative Consulting, based in Burlington, Mass. Need a word with people who oversee trash collection? That would be the URS Corporation, based in San Francisco.  Even the city’s court, which is in session on this May afternoon, next to the revenue division, is handled by a private company, the Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, Calif. The company’s staff is in charge of all administrative work, though the judge, Lawrence Young, is essentially a legal temp, paid a flat rate of $100 an hour. “I think of it as being a baby judge,” says Mr. Young, who spends most of his time drafting trusts as a lawyer in a private practice, “because we don’t have to deal with the terrible things that you find in Superior Court.” With public employee unions under attack in states like Wisconsin, and with cities across the country looking to trim budgets, behold a town built almost entirely on a series of public-private partnerships — a system that leaders around here refer to, simply, as “the model.”  New York Times

NY: For City Parents, Frustration Over Rising Cost of Public School
Despite the long-held ideal that public education should be free, parents in New York City are finding themselves paying for an increasing number of things, like class trips and basic supplies. New York Times

VA: Va. approaches decision on privatizing sex offender program
The nation’s second-largest private prison company says it expects Virginia to make a decision by next month on its bid to expand and operate the.state’s detention facility for sexually violent predators who have completed their prison terms…The detention and treatment of sex offenders represents a growing business opportunity for GEO and its competitors, who hope to score lucrative contracts from state officials looking to keep predators off the streets. The American Independent

NV: State mulls plan for toll road system
Allowing a toll road system in Nevada got a cool reception from the state Board of Transportation on Monday. Gov. Brian Sandoval said the state must look at all possibilities for paying for future road construction, but he and other board members said they wanted to see more financial details. A proposal for toll roads was rejected by the 2011 Legislature. The state uses gasoline and special fuel taxes and federal funds to pay for the road building. The state Transportation Department outlined a proposal from a Florida company called ACS to design, build and maintain improvements such as added lanes in Clark County on Interstate 15 from Sahara Avenue to Rancho Drive at an estimated cost of $400-$500 million. The company would be able to add toll roads but there would still be free lanes. Las Vegas Sun

LA: Outsider shakes things up at Algiers charter schools
Give Aamir Raza this: He’s aware of what a fearful reputation he’s getting. Having taken the reins at one of the city’s biggest charter school operators — the Algiers Charter Schools Association, a group that runs eight schools on the West Bank with more than 5,000 students — Raza has gone about turning the organization inside out. In less than four weeks on the job he has fired central office staff, informed the group’s high-performing principals that they’ll be reassigned to lower-performing schools, stumbled into a legal skirmish with the School Board and inspired protest from community members…What people are making Raza out to be is a hatchet man — an outsider from New York in a town that is wary of outsiders, to say nothing of outsiders who start ordering around some of the city’s most widely respected school leaders. He seems to have been unprepared for the political realities of Algiers.  The Times-Picayune

Headlines
Private prisons lobby for harsher sentences
Broke cities sell naming rights
Ravitch: Will school choice kill public education?
NY: Companies shortchanged preschool special ed: Audit
CA: California fumbling commitment to higher education – editorial
PA: Liquor privatization goes back on the shelf
WA: Wash. faces new lawsuit on liquor privatization

Private prisons lobby for harsher sentences
If you’re looking for one of the reasons why the United States imprisons more people — by miles — than any other nation, you can look to the development of private prisons as a means of making some people rich. Those people spend millions of dollars to lobby elected officials to do two things: Convert government-run prisons to private prisons, and lock up more people for longer periods of time. Because that makes them even richer. A new study by the Justice Policy Institute reaches exactly that conclusion and documents it thoroughly. Trial by Fire

Broke cities sell naming rights
Many governmental entities across the nation are looking at new money-raising strategies to keep from cutting services….Such marketing schemes have long been used by sports teams and some arts organizations. But now, straphangers in Philadelphia buy fare cards blazoned with ads for McDonald’s and ride the Broad Street Line to AT&T Station (formerly Pattison Station), where the turnstiles bear the company’s familiar blue and white globe.  New York Times

Ravitch: Will school choice kill public education?
A reader posted a comment that I think is profound. The more that people begin to see education as a consumer choice, the more they will be unwilling to pay for other people’s children. And if they have no children in school, then they have no reason to underwrite other people’s private choices. The basic compact that public education creates is this: The public is responsible for the education of the children of the state, the district, the community. We all benefit when other people’s children are educated. It is our responsibility as citizens to support a high-quality public education, even if we don’t have children in the public schools. But once the concept of private choice becomes dominant, then the sense of communal responsibility is dissolved. Each of us is then given permission to think of what is best for me, not what is best for we. Washington Post

NY: Companies shortchanged preschool special ed: Audit
A New York State audit of private contractors who provide one-on-one instruction, speech or physical therapy showed some misused thousands of dollars in government funds….This money was intended to give our most vulnerable children the services they needed,” Mr. DiNapoli said. “Instead, the money was used for contractors to landscape their second homes or for no-show jobs. Special-needs kids were shortchanged by contractors that had figured out how to game the system.” More than 60,000 toddlers with physical, learning, developmental and other disabilities are served by the pre-K special education program across the state each year. Private contractors provide classes in special schools, one-on-one instruction in homes or neighborhood nursery schools, and a variety of treatments like speech, physical or occupational therapy.  New York Times

CA: California fumbling commitment to higher education – editorial
It’s deeply disheartening, but not surprising, to hear that some of the University of California’s graduate schools in business and management are awaiting approval to transform themselves into privately financed institutions. As the state of California continues to defund its once-proud public university system, it makes sense for UC to look elsewhere for support. It’s also part of a national trend, as dramatic budget cuts have left prestigious universities like the University of Virginia (around 6 percent state funding) and the University of Michigan (around 7 percent) public in name only. The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association reports that 2011 state and local support per public university student was at the lowest level in the 25 years that they’ve been keeping data. But none of this makes the news any better for the future of California’s public education system…Unfortunately, privatizing more and more university operations doesn’t guarantee lower tuition, either. In addition to being in direct opposition to the mission of public universities – which are, after all, meant to be “public” – privatization increases the likelihood that a public university will charge students close to what they would pay at a private one. That’s no way to build a well-educated workforce for the future. San Francisco Chronicle

PA: Liquor privatization goes back on the shelf
Union opposition, new language to deal with beer and local enforcement procedures and its last-minute debut contributed to the failure of a bill to privatize state liquor stores. Gov. Tom Corbett and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai plan to try again in the fall, though political analysts say that, realistically, legislators will be loath to vote on a controversial bill before the November election and might push it to next year.  Tribune-Review

WA: Wash. faces new lawsuit on liquor privatization
Supporters of an initiative that privatized liquor sales in Washington state have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s rules for implementing it, claiming that liquor regulators circumvented the measure by arbitrarily restricting wholesale distribution and pricing of wine and spirits. The case marks the latest in a series of lawsuits over how Washington regulates spirits: The state had tightly controlled the distribution and sale of liquor since the end of Prohibition in the 1930s, until voters approved an initiative last fall kicking it out of the business. Seattle Times

Headlines
Prisons, privatization, patronage – Op ed
NJ: Dems seek new reports on NJ halfway houses
CA: Saving Calif. state parks: The end of public funding?
VA: New meeting set on fate of UVA president
TX: Texas A&M awards contract to privatize services

Prisons, privatization, patronage – Op ed
The halfway houses from hell in New Jersey are part of a broader pattern in which essential functions of government are being both privatized and degraded…But if you think about it even for a minute, you realize that the one thing the companies that make up the prison-industrial complex — companies like Community Education or the private-prison giant Corrections Corporation of America — are definitely not doing is competing in a free market. They are, instead, living off government contracts. There isn’t any market here, and there is, therefore, no reason to expect any magical gains in efficiency.  And, sure enough, despite many promises that prison privatization will lead to big cost savings, such savings — as a comprehensive study by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, concluded — “have simply not materialized.” To the extent that private prison operators do manage to save money, they do so through “reductions in staffing patterns, fringe benefits, and other labor-related costs.”  New York Times

NJ: Dems seek new reports on NJ halfway houses
Lawmakers called for stricter oversight of the system of prisoner re-entry centers, saying new requirements would lead to “better safety for our communities.” The plan came in response to articles published this week in The New York Times that examined the privately run system, which has beds for roughly 3,500 state inmates and parolees. The articles detailed unchecked violence, gang activity, drug use and hundreds of escapes from the facilities every year. Democratic lawmakers called for the Corrections Department to issue quarterly reports describing conditions inside the halfway houses, including the number of inmates, the number of escapes, incidences of violence and disciplinary measures taken.  New York Times

CA: Saving Calif. state parks: The end of public funding?
On July 1, 15 California state parks are slated to be closed permanently to the public — the first such closures in the state’s history. They’re the victim of budget cuts in a state with a $16 billion shortfall. …With 135 square miles of spectacular wilderness in the Diablo mountain range, Coe Park is considered one of the Bay Area’s greatest secrets. Its namesake, Henry Coe, was a cattle rancher whose land became a state park in 1958. The park will stay open for at least three years, thanks largely to the generosity of one man: an avid hiker and wealthy businessman named Dan McCranie…Getting the state off the hook for funding parks may also set into motion a slippery slope, says Rob Reich, who is a co-director of Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. [Individual philanthropists] set into motion this dynamic … where suddenly we’re not acting collaboratively or collectively as a public. … And suddenly we don’t have a civic sphere anymore … We don’t have an ‘us.’ We have a bunch of ‘I’s’. On one level, Reich says, McCranie’s donation makes a sweeping philanthropic statement. But Reich is also troubled by the questions it raises: What about parks in areas that don’t have a lot of money? Who saves them? And what about donors who attach all kinds of strings to their gifts? And does private philanthropy replace the common good? NPR

VA: New meeting set on fate of UVA president
The campaign for the reinstatement of Teresa Sullivan as the University of Virginia’s president took a giant step forward on Thursday as the governing Board of Visitors scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday to consider “possible changes in the terms of employment of the president,” the university announced. Since the board forced Dr. Sullivan to resign June 10, the campus has been in tumult, with thousands of faculty members, alumni and students urging that she be reinstated. Although the board voted 12 to 1 on Monday night to appoint Carl Zeithaml as interim president, the calls to return Dr. Sullivan to her job have only grown louder.  New York Times

TX: Texas A&M awards contract to privatize services
Texas A&M University on Thursday announced hiring a private company to run its campus dining, landscaping and building maintenance and cleaning services in a deal officials say is worth about $260 million in cash and savings for the school over the next decade…Sharp’s call to privatize food and other services had created some worries that hundreds of jobs at the A&M system’s flagship campus would be in jeopardy. But Sharp said the company has agreed to keep current workers in their jobs and match their current salaries and benefits. Star-Telegram