Forum tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2010-11-19:/forum//2 2012-05-17T19:40:39Z Movable Type 5.02 Slow growth, high debt states worry Washington GOP tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1166 2012-05-17T19:24:23Z 2012-05-17T19:40:39Z The staff of the Republican Joint Economic Committee of Congress digs into the fiscal and economic performance of states in a new report that raises concerns about the diverging paths of states, with some states enacting significant reforms to deal... Steve Malanga Green Bay seeks to save money by privatizing crossing guard jobs tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1164 2012-05-16T21:24:18Z 2012-05-16T22:37:22Z Per the Green Bay Press-Gazette today: The City of Green Bay is now looking to hire a private security firm to provide school crossing guards; currently, crossing guards are employed by the city, represented by the Teamsters Union, and are... Christian Schneider The political problem of the "Wimpy" state tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1163 2012-05-16T15:34:15Z 2012-05-16T18:30:31Z Remember Wimpy? His famous line was: "I'll pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today." That is, in effect, the practice of states and local governments who have been offering citizens more public services (schools, roads, police protection, etc.) today and... Daniel DiSalvo Risky business: Pension valuations tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1162 2012-05-16T14:27:04Z 2012-05-16T17:38:22Z More and more people are coming to understand that the huge pension mess confronting more and more state and local governments is at least in part a result of unrealistically high estimates of investment returns, often projected at 8 percent... Steve Malanga New Jersey or California: a fork in the road for government reform tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1160 2012-05-15T20:33:37Z 2012-05-15T20:47:00Z Here in California, it used to be commonplace for disaffected voters to long for a figure like Rudy Giuliani, who could sweep into office and restore the tarnished luster of the Golden State. In fact, that's what many Californians thought... Troy Senik In San Francisco, struggling schools hit hardest by seniority-based layoffs tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1158 2012-05-14T17:15:08Z 2012-05-14T18:27:38Z The decline of California's public education system -- once one of the country's finest, now near the bottom in most national rankings -- owes to a wide variety of wayward public policy choices. One that has a particularly deleterious effect... Troy Senik In corrupt California city, public workers being paid six times for the same work tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1156 2012-05-11T21:13:03Z 2012-05-15T15:49:04Z Two years ago, the Los Angeles Times made waves with an investigate report that revealed that the tiny Los Angeles County city of Vernon was a hotbed of public sector venality and corruption. The apotheosis of this trend was former... Troy Senik Question for next mayor: Bloomberg or Faulkner? tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1155 2012-05-11T19:44:00Z 2012-05-11T20:16:24Z New York will (one presumes) have a new mayor come January 2014. One question for that mayor will be whether he or she chooses the past or the present. The (future) present: the new mayor likely will face a deficit... Nicole Gelinas Shining a light on release time tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1154 2012-05-11T16:03:21Z 2012-05-11T17:29:10Z A new report by New Jersey's State Commission of Investigation exposes a common practice of "official" or "release" time and has rightly made headlines. See here, here, here, here, and here. The practice entails paying public employees to work for... Daniel DiSalvo Conflict among unions on infrastructure investments tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1152 2012-05-11T01:02:30Z 2012-05-11T14:38:17Z My second article from the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems convention highlights a difference of opinion between private- and public-sector unions. The building trades support private infrastructure investments, but public-sector pension officials were skeptical.... Zachary Janowski WWTBD: What Would Tom Barrett Do? tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1151 2012-05-10T19:19:29Z 2012-05-10T20:53:33Z Christian Schneider Government pension convention starts with a combative tone tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1150 2012-05-10T18:22:46Z 2012-05-11T00:47:55Z Zachary Janowski Tackling the pension "transition" issue tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1148 2012-05-09T17:00:00Z 2012-05-11T14:37:38Z Proposals for fundamental reform of public pension systems around the country frequently have run into one version or another of the same technical objection: closing the traditional system will somehow impose a steep "transition cost" on taxpayers. For example, the... E.J. McMahon What small businesses think about their states tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1145 2012-05-08T16:15:21Z 2012-05-09T14:57:58Z Daniel DiSalvo Legislators do little to reform their pensions tag:www.publicsectorinc.com,2012:/forum//2.1144 2012-05-08T14:43:47Z 2012-05-09T14:59:31Z Revelations that former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley used loopholes in Illinois pension rules for legislators to juice up his own final pension has led to calls for reform of the retirement benefits that state and local lawmakers give to themselves.... Steve Malanga