It only looks easy
Tuesday, Jan 5, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the AP story about Gov. Rauner’s consolidation task force recommendations…
A task force appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner recommended more than two dozen ways to shrink Illinois government and cut costs to taxpayers, though many ideas already have faced stiff opposition and the Republican acknowledged getting legislative approval won’t be “just a walk in the park.”
Several of the 27 recommendations announced Monday mirror anti-union measures that Rauner has unsuccessfully pushed since taking office last year, including allowing local governments to opt out of collective bargaining with public-worker unions. Others, such as consolidating school districts, have failed under previous governors. […]
-Allow Illinois voters to consolidate or dissolve local governments through referendum. […]
-Eliminate a 126-square-mile cap on the size of a township, to allow townships to merge.
Everybody says that consolidation will save money. And that could very well be true, although the same services will have to be provided. Reboot took a look at a recent aborted attempt at township consolidation in McHenry County…
At one public meeting in the fall, County Board members discussed the potential impact on taxpayers in the consolidating township with a lower tax levy.
Levies of two townships would assumedly be added together and then divided between their total assessed value, with the lower tax township possibly seeing a tax increase. On that one issue, County Board Chairman Joe Gottemoller of Crystal Lake argued, “We are standing here today looking at something that positively will raise taxes for half our residents.”
I saw the same sort of thing happen years ago when there was an attempt at merging my rural electric co-op into another, debt-ridden co-op.
Not to say there aren’t good ideas in the task force report. There are. I’m just saying we need to look past the feel-good nature of this topic.
* And then there was this…
Allow school districts to use third-party contractors, rather than union employees, for services such as transportation and building maintenance.
Privatization is pushed by those who say it’s cheaper. And it can be. But it has to be done well, and that just hasn’t been the case in Chicago, where school janitorial services were privatized…
On Saturday, a handful of parents of pre-kindergarten students packed yellow rubber gloves and spray bottles of vinegar and baking soda solution and headed to Suder Montessori Elementary Magnet School, 2022 W. Washington Blvd., on the Near West Side, where they spent the morning cleaning their children’s washrooms.
The parents felt they didn’t have a choice: Upon entering the bathrooms, they found pools of day-old urine on the floor, feces smeared on the walls and clogged, stinking toilet bowls. In the past few weeks, the school had an E. coli outbreak, and more than half of the kindergarten students missed school because of various illnesses, including a stomach bug, diarrhea or vomiting, said Michelle Burgess, head of the school’s parent-teacher association.
“These are preschoolers. They go to the bathroom and miss. The boys play in the urinals. And sometimes can’t get to the toilet fast enough. It’s understandable,” said Angela Morales, the parent of two children who attend the school. “But they need to clean. We can’t have our kids be in this filth.”
Parents claim the unsanitary bathroom conditions, overflowing garbage cans and soiled napping cots are the result of inadequate custodial care following the Chicago Board of Education’s decision last spring to award multimillion-dollar custodial management contracts to two firms, Aramark and SodexoMAGIC.
That outsourcing deal has been a disaster since Jump Street.
[I fixed some broken links. Sorry about that. It’s been one of those days. The password isn’t working either. Sheesh.]
- Skeptic - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:33 am:
Rich: The link in the first paragraph comes back 404.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:33 am:
A local school a few years back outsourced the janitorial services. After a couple of years of inadequate service, and an increase in on-the-job thefts, the school district went back to in-house services.
- Honeybear - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:38 am:
I actually think it’s a fairly good idea to consolidate townships into cities. Unfortunately if will come with the pain of folks, a lot of AFSCME municipal workers losing their jobs. But I think there is a case for improving the overall fiscal health of the community. Financial impact studies should be done FIRST! But my personal concern is for the poor, elderly, and disabled who get “General Assistance” funds from Townships. These funds are in my experience as a caseworker some of the only income that especially the disabled and elderly get. THESE FUNDS ARE VITAL and need to be protected. That being said consolidating Townships in the Metro East would go a LONG WAY towards attacking the endemic corruption here. Townships have the slush funds used for vice and graft. My desire is not for efficiency or fiscal health, it’s for taking down corruption and restoring accountability.
- Carhartt Representative - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:41 am:
The unclean CPS schools are actually a safety issue too with those janitors responsible for snow and ice removal. Also, unclean classrooms spread germs so when one student is sick, the whole classroom can come down with a cold.
- Joe M - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:41 am:
==including allowing local governments to opt out of collective bargaining with public-worker unions.==
Does that also include school districts opting to do away with teacher’s unions? I don’t see that easily happening in Illinois, nor would I want it to happen.
- @MisterJayEm - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:43 am:
I’m sure someone will supply us with many examples where the privatization of essential services was utterly and unquestionably successful.
I mean, there are multiple well-documented, non-theoretical examples of outsourcing actually working, right?
– MrJM
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:45 am:
For a guy who claimed in October 2014 that he had no plans to push any anti-union proposals as governor, it sure seems like he’s done nothing but in his first year.
There’s a word for that.
And all the while, the state is spending $33 million a day more than it takes in, even with billions in effective cuts to core state responsibilities such as social services and universities.
So much for fiscal responsibility and efficient governance. Every day is Opposite Day with Rauner. If he says something, you can be sure his actions will be just the opposite.
Consolidation and privatization are worth considering on a case-by-case basis. But they’re not the magic beans that the ideologues claim.
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:46 am:
Reality?
Plans are always “thoughtful”.
When it comes down to implementation, and actually down to the nuts and bolts of doing any “change” in any way, especially in government, roadblocks appear that may have been glossed over or ignored.
It’s even harder to undo something that to change something in the first place.
That’s the challenge, the report is the easy part.
- Honeybear - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:48 am:
On privatization, yes it can work but in my experience is simply hides the true costs. The costs are found in deterioration of wages and benefits. Wages and Benefits, not jobs, are the blood/circulation system of any economy. If you put a rubber band tightly around your finger in short order you’ll lose it. It doesn’t matter if you have fingers if you don’t have enough blood circulating through them. It’s about wages and benefits not about low paying jobs. Privatization only succeeds in lowering wages and benefits and transferring profit to the top. It destroys the local economy. The body can’t do with less blood. It needs the right amount.
- Wensicia - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:51 am:
==I mean, there are multiple well-documented, non-theoretical examples of outsourcing actually working, right?==
That resulted in saving money overall? I doubt it.
- LizPhairTax - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:52 am:
But you WOULDN’T BELIEVE what he ate in Morocco.
- Obamas Puppy - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:53 am:
This “Task Force” was a Kangaroo Court, just ask Sen. Holmes who listened to the “debate” and the pre-written script our Lite Guv read during each meeting. It was stacked with yes men and women who had one purpose and that was to vote yes on whatever was proposed by the Governors staff. Please give this the proper filing in the circular file underneath your desk.
- OneMan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:55 am:
The sad thing is in many suburban districts they wouldn’t put up with that crap from a contractor for a couple of days….
Wonder why Chicago seems so eager to do so.
- Joe M - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:55 am:
I was interested how the Illinois units of government breaks down - and thought that others might also be interested.
6,963 units
Counties: 102
Municipal: 1,298
Township: 1,431
Special: 3,227
School: 905
from:
http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/COG/2012/ORG13.ST05P/0400000US17
- OneMan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 9:56 am:
== mean, there are multiple well-documented, non-theoretical examples of outsourcing actually working, right? ==
Many school janitorial services and transportation services are outsourced in whole or part to vendors out here in dogpatch and they work just fine.
- Big Joe - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 10:22 am:
Outsourcing custodial, janitorial, and cafeteria services in suburban school districts usually results in subpar services. The custodians and food service workers that are school district employees do better jobs than those private workers. The district employees take pride in their schools, and the results of their work is obvious to all people in the school, teachers, administrators and students. Employees of private services don’t take the same kind of pride in making the schools a good place for educating our students. School districts look into the private employers in order to escape paying out the benefits of insurance and pensions to those not directly involved in the classroom teaching. The money saved is significant, but the quality of service is not satisfactory. I say this from personal experience.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 10:37 am:
I’m not sure what the problem about privatization is that the report seeks a solution for. Transportation services are currently privatized all over the state, and we’ve just seen comments about the privatization of janitorial services. Exactly what is the problem this piece of the report seeks to solve?
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 10:42 am:
These questions need to be asked -
1) “Where are the savings and efficiencies when government services are privatized?” There is a pop economic theory being sold to voters that divides our world into government and the “free market”. It is based upon the mistaken idea that our economy is fixed, so if you give a government a dollar, the “free market” loses that dollar. This wacky pop theory is a basis for a lot of the nonsense passing for conservative pro-business policies making the rounds. If you believe in it, then you will absolutely LOVE the idea of privatization! It saves our world by giving us government services WITHOUT the politics, the inefficiencies, the unions, the waste and the fraud of government and keeps that dollar right in the hands of our wonderful “free market”!
OH HAPPY JOYFUYL DAY!
Unfortunately, we all live in the real world. What we see with privatization in practice is an idea that falls as far short of its goals as an “American Idol” contestant’s dream of fame.
Private businesses don’t provide citizen services at the lowest possible costs. Expecting them to do so is like expecting a limousine to haul gravel out of a quarry. Private businesses are designed to make a profit. There is no profit in serving everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. The deal used to calm our jitters over this obvious mismatch is to tell us that the private business will make a “competitive bid” to have a monopolistic control over the service for a contracted period of time. They will cut a deal, and do us all a favor, because deep down, they really do just want to be our best friends and will gladly take it in the shorts regarding any profits! OOOH, happy fuzzy feelings!
We all win, right? We get the same standards of quality once provided by our public servants, but cheaper! YAY!
Nope. The drooling private businesses end up discovering that dealing with needy citizens who can’t pay a dime is a financial killer for them. They end up being forced into providing whatever they can to keep from being sued. That unionized public servant who had all those retirement pensions got replaced by an answering machine in Sri Lanka. You end up getting the same kind of service found in Sri Lanka.
We repeatedly see that privatization does NOT work. In theory - it COULD, if we put as much government oversight into the process, as the service used to have, (you know, the one dissed as being wasteful). But the bottom line we see today is that we have underfunded, desperate, and shady folks putting in lowest bids on services they have no ability to provide, no experience in providing, and no resources to deliver.
Privatization is NOT A NEW THING. If it was as marvelous as sold by folks like Bruce Rauner, then it would never have been replaced by the government services and funded by us to do the work that WAS NOT BEING DONE by private business to begin with!
- mokenavince - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 11:42 am:
When your Magic lives in LA and is former NBA star’how does he get the contract to manage schools in Chicago. It’s called clout. SodexoMagic and Aramark are not doing a very good job. CPS engineers have been a proven winners years. Of course CPS wants to dump them. Go figure>
- RNUG - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 11:54 am:
– exactly what is the problem … –
Union membership
- Anon III - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 12:38 pm:
So who thinks 6,963 units of local government is a good thing?
- Bigtwich - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 1:01 pm:
“So who thinks 6,963 units of local government is a good thing?”
The people that live in them. I recommended merging a school district 30 years ago. It did not go over well.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 1:11 pm:
So who thinks 6,963 units of local government is a good thing?
Your point? Let’s eliminate them all and save us boodles of cash, right? Who needs democracy?
- Southern Illinois Hoopdee - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 1:22 pm:
There’s plenty of times the 6,963 units of local government mess up, too. Plenty of times those units act like their own fifedoms. Exhibit A: your local Non-CPS school board.
What has to change is better central oversight of all those little units. That is where Rauner and those before him have failed.
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 1:22 pm:
=It’s even harder to undo something that to change something in the first place.=
This is precisely why the mandate relief concept is a joke. Once you have it good luck trying to get rid of a program or service.
@Big Joe- we outsourced our food service vendor and could not be happier. We were struggling with the capacity to deal with the new federal lunch requirements but had good employees. But all districts have not had the same experience we have had. You paint with a very broad brush, I caution against that.
- Trolling Troll - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 2:18 pm:
Vanilla Man +1
- Dome Gnome - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 2:18 pm:
By the time I quit teaching, to care for a family member, somebody in my family had taught in the Illinois public schools for well over 100 years. My great-grandmother and grandmother both had to show up to their one-room schoolhouses early to stoke the fire, and then they stayed late to clean up. Their students either brought a lunch or ran home to the farmhouse to get a hot lunch cooked for them (and the farmhands).
By the time my mother became a teacher, her larger buildings and bigger districts dictated cafeterias and a professionalized custodial staff. This was the golden age, when schools lunches weren’t processed junk and teachers didn’t have to worry about stolen items.
By the time I started teaching, contractors had their foot in the door and the food was barely recognizable. I never had the chance to teach in a district without an outsourced food service, but I did teach in a district with a professionalized custodial staff. What a difference! I loved not having to either lock up items or drag them home for the summer. Teachers buy most classroom goods and materials out of their own pockets. Every time I had something stolen, I’d have to replace it using my own meager salary. We’ve priviltized enough — too much, in fact, and with poor results.
- NeverPoliticallyCorrect - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 3:02 pm:
As a school board member I have heard the drumbeat for consolidation for years. Yes you can save some money but the unions will press hard for increases so that teachers in the highest paying district of those merging become the new salary goal. That eliminates most savings. Real change could happen by allowing for less mandates, more freedom in using subcontractors and outsourcing. And get rid of the really big districts. Chicago needs to be broken up as a district and control given back to the people. In my experience, a good, local school system is held much more accountable than a monster like Chicago or Elgin. Oh, and don’t forget, those of us serving as school board members get NOTHING in pay. Maybe some of those county board members would like to volunteer their time!
- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 3:48 pm:
Hoopdee, non-CPS school boards are accountable to the voters every four years. Shame on those (e.g. Most of them) who never cast a vote in a school board election.
I would agree with those who point a finger at the “special districts.” Here in the ‘Patch, we can vote out Township trustees and even Convention Center Board members (in theory) but not so much with the Sanitary District, etc.
- Dee Lay - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 3:54 pm:
AA - You have Convention Center Board Members?
- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 4:21 pm:
Dee, in Springfield, they are elected, yes. We may be in the minority.
- Bibe - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 4:58 pm:
But the report has fixed Rich’s tax hike hurdle example. When two townships merge residents would be guaranteed to pay the lower of the two tax rates. The transparency of the ideology behind this floored me. So even if one township is providing lots of services at a reasonable tax rate and the other is broke and can provide no services because it hasn’t collected revenues necessary to do business, the merged entity would be forced to collect at the lower rate. Easy to see how taxpayers would love it and get over their unwillingness to merge. But no way this is good policy to mandate this in every case. Nor is there proof mergers save enough to justify this result. Only if you believe lower taxes are always better does it make sense.
- MyTwoCents - Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 6:04 pm:
@Anon III, the problem is people are for consolidation and less government, except when it’s their government. It’s the same idea you see with Congress, Congress is bad, except for my Congressman. That’s a major hurdle. That being said, there’s some good recommendations in the report that will probably get lost in the anti-union ideology.