THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

School choice programs increase 84 percent in 5 years

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No, not here, silly. In the rest of the United States! Do I have to explain everything to you?! Passing on bits of the press release from the Alliance for School Choice: Student enrollment in private school choice programs, which include school voucher programs and scholarship tax credit programs, has increased by 84 percent over five years, according to the School Choice Yearbook 2007… According to the book, there are 16 private school choice programs in nine states and the District of Columbia serving 150,000 children. Last year, legislators in 40 states introduced legislation to advance private school choice programs. The five states with the largest school choice programs are Florida (39,000 students), Pennsylvania (38,000 students), Arizona (28,000 students), Wisconsin […]

Amy Dain

Seeking better bylaws: Zoning for new housing and historic preservation.

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Chris Skelly at the Massachusetts Historical Commission asked me for examples of projects permitted under an accessory apartment bylaw, adaptive re-use bylaw, downtown revitalization zoning, flexible dimensions bylaw or up-zoning where “new housing was produced while at the same time a historic property was rehabilitated”. He wants to include case studies of bylaws that work in a guidebook to “Preservation through Bylaws and Ordinances”. Pioneer’s policy recommendations have focused more on state level reform of land use laws. We are also happy to promote local reform to zoning that allows for growth and works for the environment. If you have examples of projects that involved housing development and historic preservation, please list them here, and I will forward the ideas […]

Steve Poftak

Open Markets and Open Skies

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The thicket of regulations which used to govern air travel between the US and Europe, which severely limited which airlines could fly to and from various destinations, will be gone on March 30. Here’s hoping the innovators in low cost travel in Europe (Ryanair, Wizzair, et al; take a look at their sites and the unbelievable prices) will make transatlantic travel more affordable. Of course, as an investor, you might be interested in Warren Buffett’s take on the industry: “if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.”

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.