THE PIONEER BLOG

Steve Poftak

I went to a fight

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…and a birthday party broke out. Sheesh, two police reports from kids’ birthday parties — one at a Chuck E. Cheese and the other from the Good Time Emporium in Somerville. At least the second one was on Easter.

Jim Stergios

WaPo on Michelle Rhee and quality teachers

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The keynote for this year’s Better Government Competition, which is focused solely on improving our educational system, is Michelle Rhee. In addition to a recent shakeup in the bureaucracy, she has been closing some schools. All very focused on improvement. Probably more important, as the WaPo notes, are hiring and retention rules for teachers. As noted in the Friday WaPo: Rules that put the interests of teachers ahead of the educational needs of children must be changed if Ms. Rhee is to succeed in transforming the system. The contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union, which represents some 4,400 employees, expired last fall. Neither side would discuss what’s on the table or comment on the progress of the talks. It’s apparent, […]

Liam Day

A rose by another name

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Totally off topic, but I do want to acknowledge Kevin Cullen’s column in today’s Globe. One of my first jobs out of college was as one of the teen directors at the Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Club in Dorchester, which has now changed its name – to reflect how much it’s grown – to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester. In all, I spent three years at the Club. The men and women who work there – Bob Scannell, Mike Joyce, Dave Bonnell, Bruce Seals and Queenie Santos, the person I worked with most closely – are among the finest people I know. The club has been an anchor and an oasis in a neighborhood that too often […]

Steve Poftak

Getting the Incentives Right

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At the end of the day, compensation systems are intended to attract a workforce appropriate to the task. So, the details in Monday’s Globe story on expanded State Police recruitment are alarming. The story leads with a push for greater diversity but quickly gets to the point: Thirty-nine percent of the department’s 2,429 officers are eligible to retire because they’ve been on the job for more than 20 years, and more than half of those already qualify for a full pension, according to State Police. “Over 500 troopers have maxed out their pension and could walk out the door any time,” said Colonel Mark Delaney. As our 2006 paper on state pensions points out, the Commonwealth builds all kinds of […]

Jim Stergios

Fed corporate tax killing state competitiveness

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One could sum up a report from the Tax Foundation as saying the equivalent of – the French are eating our lunch. And you know that is not good. We, for many reasons, including avoidance of indigestion, should be eating theirs. The latest report from the Foundation shows that nearly half of U.S. states tax job providers at a higher rate than any other country in the developed world. Counting the federal rate alone, the U.S. has the world’s highest corporate tax rate, but including average sub-national rates (federal plus state in the U.S.), Japan edges out the U.S. for the highest-tax location. This study breaks the tax down by state, adding each state’s corporate tax rate to the federal […]

Liam Day

17-year old wisdom

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We have an expression we use around the office: adult in the room, that person in any organization whose cooler head usually prevails when panic, or sometimes silliness, otherwise would. For example, the Patrick Administration didn’t have an adult in the room last January to say no to the Governor when he wanted a new Cadillac and damask drapes. That’s why Doug Rubin was brought in. Why the exposition of internal Pioneer lingo? Because of the report in today’s Globe on replacing the”underperforming” label for schools with a gentler euphemism. It seems the Massachusetts Board of Education has devoted parts of its last three meetings to debating nomenclature. Now, I’m not one to dismiss the significance of language, but this […]

Steve Poftak

Thanks TxDoT

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Our thanks to the kind folks at the Texas Department of Transportation who featured an excerpt of our research paper, Our Legacy of Neglect: The Longfellow Bridge and the Cost of Deferred Maintenance in the Winter edition of Horizon Magazine.

Steve Poftak

Counterintuitive Healthcare Cost Data

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It has been the conventional wisdom that small businesses are getting killed on healthcare costs and we’ve heard anecdotal evidence to support this when we’ve presented our research on the various costs associated with doing business in Massachusetts. But Charlie Baker at Harvard Pilgrim begs to differ, and he’s even got internal Harvard Pilgrim data to prove it. He notes: Small businesses, on average, had lower medical claims expenses per member than larger businesses, and lower health insurance premiums(!). In fact, much lower. On average, per member premiums for small businesses were 10 percent lower than the premiums paid by larger businesses, consistent with claims costs that were also about 10 percent lower. Why? Mr. Baker explains: I think it […]

Steve Poftak

The Sage of Omaha on Executive Compensation

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Today’s Globe contains news of potential inquiries by Congressman Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee looking at the ‘perverse incentives’ (love that term!!) in executive compensation and how that may have contributed to some of the inordinate risks afflicting many financial firms. At the end of the day, this space believes that the oversight of executive compensation lays with an engaged board of directors that properly aligns the interests of executives and shareholders. Warren Buffett has written early and often on this topic. This quote from a 1985 letter to shareholders (which should be required reading for everyone interested in the markets) brings up the key issues behind that misalignment: Ironically, the rhetoric about options frequently describes them as desirable because […]

Liam Day

From James Joyce to Grand Theft Auto

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I’ve been reading David Boaz lately, so I’m in a bit of a Libertarian mood to begin with, but, even if I weren’t, I would still have raised an eyebrow at Mayor Menino’s latest crusade. Not satisfied with a ban on trans fat, he is now going after violent video games. Now, I’m not a gamer, nor am I a big junk food fan, but I have to stand up for the rights of the people out there who do like trans fats and Grand Theft Auto. There is an argument to be made for a local, state or federal ban on trans fat. In a society in which most of us don’t buy our own health insurance, I suppose […]

Steve Poftak

This is not a Freudian slip

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The charming head of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO tells you exactly what he thinks about checks and balances on political power in today’s Globe: I’ll be profoundly disappointed if we win the debate [on casinos] on the merits, but still lose the point. I don’t want to see that happen in my State House, in my Democratically controlled State House no less. [Emphasis added] It is not the first time I’ve heard this sentiment from Mr. Haynes, but it is the first time I’ve seen it on the record.

Amy Dain

Forecast on foreclosures dismal. What to do?

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More than 7,500 properties were foreclosed in MA in 2007. The numbers are projected to be much higher this year. The vacant, lender-owned properties tend to be concentrated in certain neighborhoods, often in our older industrial cities. There are no easy solutions, but CHAPA has taken a first step at addressing the crisis with the release of a briefing paper on the topic. Take a look at the paper here. Got ideas about what can be done? Or thoughts on CHAPA’s paper? Post them here.

Liam Day

Go to D.C, young man, for that is where fortunes are made.

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Telling article on Forbes.com I just read this weekend listing the best places in the country to get ahead. The list was compiled based on job and income data. Coincidently enough, 6 of the 7 best counties to live to get ahead today are located in Maryland and Virginia. They include Stafford County, Va., Calvert County, Md., Loudoun County, Va., Charles County, Md., Prince William County, Va., and Anne Arundel County, Md. Is it possible, just remotely possible, that the reason for this geographic concentration of jobs and income is in any way related to the explosive growth of the federal government the last 8 years? And, if related, what does it bode for our country that more and more […]

Jim Stergios

Ouch from the Globe on state performance

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The editorial page of today’s Globe takes up a favorite theme of Pioneer: the use of data to drive performance through measurement and benchmarking. On April 25th, you can see the cities working on this, at Pioneer’s Center for Economic Opportunity conference in Worcester. It promises to be a great event. Register quickly as the RSVPs are coming in early and strong. The Globe editorial highlights the Rappaport Institute’s good work on this subject, but it is also a rather ironic and tough statement on the Governor’s focus on “the rhetoric of hope” rather than the nuts and bolts of ensuring high quality services. Entitled “Together we can manage better,” it opens with what is possible and what other states […]

Liam Day

Supply vs. Demand – and Demand is winning

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The Boston Zoning Commission voted yesterday to approve the City Council’s measure to cap students renting off-campus apartments at 4 per unit, without regard to its size. (Read the Globe’s front page article here.) Now I’m sympathetic to what motivated this measure in the first place: I’m pretty sure if my wife and I lived in Allston or Mission Hill, next door to the noise and the revelry, we’d be annoyed as all get up too. Nevertheless, what this measure will most likely not do is bring rental rates in the neighborhoods around the city’s colleges and universities back down to what proponents might call an affordable level. As some of the displaced students would (hopefully, if they paid attention […]