Toward a More
Perfect Union

By Tristan Bonn
The mayor and the police and firefighter unions are congratulating themselves for agreeing to end spiking –
padding hours to push up the base pay on which a pension is calculated. They ought to be embarrassed, not triumphant.

Spiking produced the spectacle of some police officers and firefighters retiring with pensions at or above the base pay they received for most of their working lives. It was never spelled out in a contract. Neither politicians nor union members wanted to be “on the record” supporting such a violation of the public trust. It was done with a nod and a wink, out of public sight. Taxpayers all over the country have been caught unaware by such manipulations. By the time they figured out what was going on, it was too late to act.

Historically, American policing (and to a lesser and more recent extent, firefighting) has been all about trying to raise the level of professionalism. Dating back to the “spoils system,” where key policing positions were doled out to the victorious politician’s family and friends as payback for political support, policing and politics have been a bad mix.  By the 1960’s, public employees were granted the authority to organize for the purpose of becoming more professional. However, despite the warnings of President Franklin Roosevelt and others that collective bargaining was not appropriate in the public sector because the interest of the taxpayer was not safeguarded, unions found accommodating politicians willing to negotiate overly generous pay, benefits, and pensions – including turning a blind eye toward spiking – in return for campaign donations and volunteers, and votes delivered on election day.

I have heard people say it’s “legal” to spike your salary. That’s what Wall Street con artists say about their junk
bonds or credit default swaps – they’re “legal,” they don’t violate the letter of the law. We get angry at public employee unions (and the spineless politicians who accommodate them) for the same reason we get angry at financial wheeler-dealers – they cheat the system.  Which is to say they cheat people – investors in the private sector, taxpayers in the public sector. Just because a contract does not close a loophole doesn’t mean it is right to use that loophole!  That’s why we call it a LOOPHOLE!  Professionals with integrity don’t jack the system.  The fact that unions have agreed to stop doing something they shouldn’t have been doing in the first place is not really much to celebrate, if you ask me.

Over these past forty or fifty years, union bases within public service departments have calcified into political leviathans. The police and fire unions curry great favor with politicos and cause any comers to quake in their boots if they dare cross them.  As Omaha has learned, once this machine has become entrenched in your community, it is nearly impossible to reform the system.

And so here we are – in California, New Jersey, Illinois (click on Illinois to check out more pensions) and other places around the country as well as Omaha, Nebraska.  But it cannot last.

The end of spiking, while welcome, is only the beginning of the revisions needed to bring fairness to taxpayers when it comes to police and firefighter contracts.  The question for unions is: Are you going to be the automaker’s union in Detroit and destroy your host city, or are you going to be a smart union, like Southwest Airlines, and help your employer succeed?  Because one thing is for sure, you can’t keep biting the hand that feeds you.

A TRUE SUMMIT:

A Review of the

Platte Institute’s Education Summit

By Tristan Bonn

Tuesday, Platte Institute for Economic Research held its “2011 Education Summit” at the Scott Conference Center on the UNO South Campus.  The variety of speakers – ideologically, geographically, and politically – was widespread.  Noticeable enough for John Cavanaugh, Executive Director of “Building Bright Futures” and one of the day’s presenters to call it a, “true summit, like the meeting of Regan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik,” which drew a laugh.  And while it is true that the topic of education reform brought out much passion and a few emotions, it was by far a very thorough, thoughtful, and professional discussion of a difficult topic.

As a lifelong independent, but not necessarily a moderate, I care much less about ideology and more about “what works.”  Give me good solutions and spare the rhetoric any day.  Thankfully, that is what this summit presented:  a number of good ideas, a variety of approaches, and lots of facts and data – that’s what I want.  While this information does not necessarily make some of the decisions needed to be made by policy makers easier, it cuts through so much of the politics, posturing, and hyperbole that has frozen so many of our important problem-solving processes at local, state, and federal levels.

With all due respect to both sides, the arguments for reform shaped up basically this way:  one side is in favor of a more holistic approach, one that deals with the consequences of poverty, to education reform.  They posit that you cannot solve education reform without first addressing how kids present in a classroom.  In this regard, teachers cannot be as effective until serious distractions caused by poverty are removed.  That is a child must be fed, healthy, and show up to school with the proper early childhood education in order to be able to learn.  Teachers are dedicated professionals, but they cannot be responsible for all of society’s ills.

The other side responds by saying – you have to be able to find ways to teach kids even under these new and more difficult circumstances.  Teachers need to be more innovative and responsive to these changes in the schools and teachers must be held accountable for their performance. The best way to do this is by offering choice and incentivizing teachers’ performance based on their demonstrated results.  Reintroducing free market principles to the schools will address performance problems for both teachers and students.

The holistic approach has been criticized as more social engineering, a power grab, and another way for teachers unions to protect their poor performing teachers.  The market based approach has been attacked for its oversimplification, short-term gains, and attacks on teachers.  Obviously, more devoted participants probably would disagree with even this characterization, but I think I am a fairly neutral observer on this topic.

In fact, to me, the most obvious response to the information presented was – well, why not do both.  I mean removing the barriers to learning presented by poverty is a good long-term goal.  And, I think everyone would agree that using a “community engagement” approach would produce better overall results.  I also think that most people would agree that teachers are critical to the success of schools and they must be held accountable for their performance (every other job I can think of requires this).  If tests and salary incentives cause better teaching results, then we should try it.  If competition provided by vouchers and charter schools help, then let’s do that too.  This is way too big of a problem not to throw everything we have, or, at least everything we can afford, at it.

In all fairness, teachers have to answer for their work – every other working person does and if there is one place where accountability is most important, it is in schools.  On the other hand, the market alone can’t solve all problems.  “The market” is no more predictable than human behavior, so to simply “let the market” decide is too oversimplified. But, using some very directed market-based principles combined with some holistic approaches to the new school reality seems to me to be a way to move forward.

One more striking fact about the summit: the problems presented by rural school populations and the introduction of virtual schools are a match made in schoolyard heaven.  I cannot think of a more perfect solution to the very real and big (and by big, we Nebraskans know we are talking about a lot of wide open space) problem this presents for a big state with a small population.

All in all, it was a great summit and kudos to the Platte Institute for bringing together a truly non-partisan presentation of ideas.  A place where people with very different views could express themselves and learn from each other in pursuit of a sensible solution.  Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Judges Get to Decide Legitimate Options for Whistle Blowers

Whistle blowers, make sure you tell your story to someone drawing a paycheck from a traditional media outlet. A judge has ruled that telling your story to Dave Nabity does not merit whistle-blower protection, and the Nebraska Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of that ruling.

That’s astounding. And chilling.

Nabity and the organization he founded, OmahaAlliance.com, have been sued for slander by the president of the Omaha fire fighters union. At issue are allegations Nabity made on live radio about personnel procedures in the fire department that, if true, would be serious violations of the public trust.

Nabity says the allegations are based on information provided by people with knowledge of the situation who want to see such behavior stopped, but want to remain anonymous for fear of retribution by the union.

If Nabity is wrong he deserves to be publicly scalded, but the issue here is whether judges can limit the flow of public information based on their political sensibilities.

Forty years ago there was a national movement to let journalists refuse to identify confidential sources. One argument for so-called shield laws is that they allow misdeeds in government to come to light. Insiders won’t reveal what’s really happening unless they can remain anonymous.

Shield laws are often described as protection for journalists, but they really are protection for whistle blowers. The journalist already is known to those on whom the whistle is being blown. The whistle blower is the one who needs protection.

Nebraska enacted a shield law in 1973 called the Free Flow of Information Act. The key provision says:

No person engaged in disseminating news or other information to the public shall be required to disclose the source of any information obtained in the gathering, receiving, or processing of information for any medium of communication to the public.

The “findings” section says:

The policy of the State of Nebraska is to insure the free flow of news and other information to the public, and that those who disseminate information to the public shall not be inhibited by governmental restraint or sanction but rather shall be encouraged to disseminate news or other information vigorously so that the public may be fully informed.

The section defining terms says:

Person shall mean any individual, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, association, or other legal entity. (emphasis added)

In the Nabity case, the judge said the language of the Act was “ambiguous,” but it’s actually very clear.

The Nebraska Legislature saw the value of extending the shield law to any disseminator of information to the public. From colonial revolutionary pamphleteers to Internet bloggers, as the U.S. Supreme Court has noted in numerous cases, Americans draw from a variety of sources in the free flow of information, not just from traditional journalists.

The judge said Nabity had to disclose his sources because his dissemination of information was “political” rather than “journalistic.”

The Act does not require that speech be “journalistic.” Nor does it give judges authority to make political evaluations of the speech at issue. That would be ridiculously unconstitutional.

Because the Act applies to any disseminator of information to the public, the question becomes: How many press conferences and newspaper columns are necessary for Nabity to qualify as a disseminator of information to the public? In the last 18 months, Nabity and OmahaAlliance.com have had more than 80 interactions with the public.

If a person calls a press conference and the media show up, or if he is invited to the microphone of the legacy radio station that is number one in the market, that means he is recognized as someone engaged in disseminating information to the public. The World-Herald would not contact Nabity for news stories or allow him space in its editorial pages unless it considered him someone disseminating information to the public.

Certainly information conveyed by Nabity has a political aspect, but that’s irrelevant. What matters is that some whistle blowers in government consider Nabity the best option for getting information to the public.

But apparently judges now get to decide whether some voices in the public conversation are too “political” to be legitimate options for whistle blowers.

Check out this article by Stephen Moore that is in the Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, “Someone may steal from it at night.”

So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?”

So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?”

So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.

Then Congress said, “How are these people going to get paid?”

So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.

Then Congress said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?”

So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, “We have had this command in operation for one Year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back.”

So they laid-off the night watchman.

NOW slowly, let it sink in.

Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter.

Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY….. during the  Carter Administration?

Anybody?

Anything?

No?

Didn’t think so!

Bottom line is, we’ve spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency….the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember!

Ready??

It was very simple… and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977, TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND NOW IT’S 2011 — 34 YEARS LATER — AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS “NECESSARY” DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!

(THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY,

“WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?”)

33 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports.  Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

Ah, yes — good old Federal bureaucracy.

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED OVER THE BANKING SYSTEM,  HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY TO THE SAME  GOVERNMENT?

Hello!!  Anybody Home?