August 7, 2011

Privatization Efforts Reach Down to the Local Government Level in Frederick County, Maryland, Except for the Public School System

It is no wonder that Ron Young and his sons kowtow to public labor with collective bargaining power such as teachers and law enforcement. Ron Young, who was elected to the Maryland state senate with the backing of teachers' labor unions, was a teacher in Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) from 1967 to 1973, and his former wife Carol, the mother of Blaine and Brad Young, worked for over 40 years for the FCPS, retiring as a principal. Brad Young is president of the Frederick County School Board. Blaine Young is president of the Frederick County Commissioners and serves as liaison to the school board. FCPS is the single largest employer in Frederick County -- more than half of the more than 5,400 full- and part-time staff are teachers; others are principals, counselors, administrative and instructional assistants, bus drivers, custodians, food service workers, librarians, computer technicians, and more [Source].

Brad Young recently voted to approve the contract negotiated between the Board of Education and the Frederick County Teachers Association (it was not with the usual unanimous vote), agreeing to give Frederick County teachers a one-time pension rebate that will allow them to partially avoid a new state mandate requiring teachers to pay 2 percent more (making the total 7 percent rather than the 5 percent they already pay) for their pension next fiscal year (FCTA members will get a 1.5 percent reimbursement of the 2 percent increase they will pay toward their state retirement plan). This sets teachers apart from and above the rest of Frederick County Public Schools employees. [Source]

While Brad is rewarding public school teachers, his brother Blaine is taking swift and decisive action to cut local government jobs [the average salary for FCPS teachers is $67,150 (note that teachers work 10-months vs. 12 months); the average salary for Frederick County public workers is $45,344; the median income for county employees in fiscal 2010 was $47,090; $6,500 more than the median pay for other county residents older than 16.]. He is also exploring ways to form public-private partnerships to privatize county programs and services (the Board of County Commissioners reorganized and consolidated the Fire and Rescue Services, Interagency Information Technologies, Planning, Permitting and Development Review, and Economic Development Divisions within Frederick County Government).

In a closed door session meeting of the Frederick County Commissioners
on July 28, 2011, Blaine informed all four commissioners of his decision to fire the county’s top elected official, county finance director John Kroll, who held the position since March 2007. According to Blaine, it was “purely a management decision” despite a colleague’s insistence it was “retaliation” for public comments made by one of Kroll's staff that Frederick County does not face a structural deficit. Blaine has repeatedly used the county’s projected structural deficit to justify his push to restructure county government, lay off employees, and outsource certain services. Blaine defended his decision to fire Kroll and replace him with Lori Depies, saying he learned that Depies was looking for another job and that it was imperative, based on her financial expertise and management skills, for commissioners to act quickly and promote her into Kroll’s position. Kroll said he was called into the county manager’s office on July 28 and offered the option to resign, which he did. Kroll said “they had every right” to let him go since the finance director serves at the pleasure of the board, but that he was unprepared and in “shock.” [Source]

Fight Against Privatization Roils a Maryland County

County priv. hearing 18 mixed audience2

Not only does Blaine Young think he is king, but he is hellbent on leaving some kind of mark on the county government, some kind of achievement that he can call his own. In his simple warped mind, he somehow believes that if he can privatize some part of government services, even if it is only a single employee and even it costs the county more in the big picture, he will be remembered as a great man, a great achiever. He will be able to go into retirement bragging that he and no one else privatized county government. His ego is bigger than his waistline, and that is what we are dealing with. - Pete Mann, The 'King' of Frederick County, July 22, 2011

Beware of code words. Because “privatization” became a dirty word in the Social Security debate, corporatizers and government officials use terms like “public-private partnerships” (PPPs or 3Ps). Beware of any politician who uses the vocabulary of “partnering.” It seems the Reagan-Bush legacy and the conservative movement were not about conservatism. Their real legacy was corporatism/fascism and the centralization and expansion of corporate government and corporate welfare. The result is the steady erosion of democracy and the diminishing power of the people. - Ron Stouffer, Corporate Takeover of America, PushHamburger.com

According to FedEd, given their aims, government schools have to be regarded as spectacular successes rather than dismal failures. The evidence all points in a single direction: their intent has been to dumb down the citizenry of this country and produce a "new serfdom" – a global workforce totally subservient to the needs of omnipotent world government and its internationalist corporate partners. In accordance with the basic thrust of its Prussian ancestor, education is subordinate to the purposes of the state and business in "public-private partnerships" or other arrangements, to raise a population fit for life and work in the global-socialist new world order in the making. - Steven Yates, FedEd: The New Federal Curriculum and How It’s Enforced. St. Paul, MN: Maple River Education Coalition, 2002. Pp. 153., LewRockwell.com, February 22, 2003

July 22, 2011

People's World - Hundreds of Frederick County workers packed the county hearing room to speak to the five county commissioners two days in a row this week. They were deeply concerned about a hasty effort to privatize all core county services. This would call for cuts of over 500 county human resource and public works jobs based on a faulty $25,000 consultant report submitted in June by PPP Associates of Georgia.

The report, written by one Oliver Porter, was not impartial, according to Bonnie Bailey-Baker, co-president of the League of Women Voters. It favors privatization. The report indicates all county government services and departments could be open to outsourcing.
"It would resemble a company town," stated one observer.
The Porter report was evaluated by Professor Donald Kettl of the University of Maryland after many employees and the League of Women Women Voters questioned its validity. Kettl found it lacking in facts, particularly as to how its authors arrived at an estimate of $84-$109 million dollar savings for the county and how oversight would be accomplished.

Kettl said this put up "red flags" for him. He said in an interview that no county in the country has shifted to private contracting on as large a scale as quickly as being proposed.

In an initial closed-door hearing, 30 workers, one by one, got up to speak and vigorously oppose the report. At a later public meeting, a stream of county residents came before the commissioners to oppose the outsourcing proposals based on the negative impact it would have on families in the county.

County workers and division directors representing the departments of Aging, Human Services, Family Partnerships, Highway, Construction, Parks, Technical and Workforce Services stood to speak before the packed room to defend their jobs, give suggestions, and discuss the danger of losing long time skilled employees.
"Experience," they repeatedly stated, "is irreplaceable."
Fear of losing the jobs and security has already caused some experienced employees to leave county employment to look for work elsewhere, noted one person.

Outside the building, community supporters carried signs to express their concern for the county which has had better services than most in the country. Many feared this was an attempt to eliminate benefits through the "back door," and that privatization would dismantle county services.

There was a general feeling, however, that the commissioners had already made up their minds. When the general public met with the commissioners in a hearing on Thursday, community residents were concerned that the county was rushing to dismantle services with no idea how to replace them. A speaker suggested that the commissioners read the many available NACo (National Association of Counties) studies on privatization experiences that show them mainly to be failures.

A county employee from the building inspectors department noted that they were already working with a 40 percent cut in staffing. Other departments have dealt with the general economic crisis by reducing the work week to four days and reducing sick time, pay and benefits. Yet, they added, they have kept quality of service high and continue to take pride in their work.

An instructor from Workforce Services visually demonstrated by holding up a $1 dollar bill the yield from that investment spent on her department. The yield was $27.84. She counted each dollar out on the table to great applause.

Another speaker submitted a report, "backed by facts," showing that the county could save $67 million between 2012-2016 by keeping current levels of experienced employees intact without privatizing. With some sarcasm, she detailed her facts unlike the questionable estimates in the Porter report.

Oscar Shenkel of the Highway Department said he had not had a raise in five years.
"Savings of materials for later use and in house training to do jobs without calling in expensive contractors were already being done. All this has saved taxpayer money. We have the experience and know what suggestions to make. Ask us," he said.
"The fact that we have had to come here today to defend our jobs is a travesty!" Rick Little from the technology department said. "We are members of the community not just employees. We have an interest in the county not just profit!"
The general conclusion of employees and residents was that the Porter report was not properly researched, that it was biased in favor of privatization and ended being a $25,000 waste of the taxpayer's money.

At the end of the four-hour public hearing, after much controversy and discussion, the five commissioners threw out the pro-privatization Porter report.

Family needs in the county must be prioritized. Privatizing core county services would dismantle the current system based on the excuse to have "less government." The system should not benefit only some of the people.

The fight in Frederick County reflects similar efforts in many states and localities and on the federal level to dismantle government-provided services regardless of their successes. It is based on the right-wing ideology of making government smaller, decreasing representation of the people, and further siphoning taxpayer money from the government to the private sector.

As labor and its allies showed in Frederick County, however, when working families stand up to right-wing policies, they can win.

The whole concept of public servants being able to unionize is abhorrent and should be outlawed. Public service unions and the politicians they "negotiate" with are not on opposite sides of the bargaining table like private sector unions and corporate management. They sit together and share a quid pro quo relationship over the plundering of public funds. The politicians that agree to deals with the unions have nothing to lose because it is other peoples' money they are negotiating with; and the unions' negotiating tools are campaign donations taken from the dues collected from its members whose incomes are paid for by tax dollars. The unions make donations in support or against the politician they are negotiating with. Any sort of relationship like this in the private sector would be considered 100% illegal. FDR was right when he declared public employee unions to be immoral, and Reagan was right when he fired the air traffic controllers. Unions have certainly done a lot for changing working conditions, compensation, and benefits for generations of workers in the private economy, and they have a place there; but when it comes to organizing in the public sector, they are fundamentally immoral and unethical due to the unique relationships that exist between workers, politicians and the taxpaying public. [Bill, Collective Bargaining Gives Enormous Political Power to Public Sector Unions, February 25, 2011]

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