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9 Keys For Reality TV Chefs
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve Poftak(What, you think we can only do policy?) There’s been a proliferation of reality cooking shows — Top Chef, Kitchen Nightmares, Iron Chef, Chopped, and so on — as well as spinoffs and brand extensions. For those aspiring chefs seeking to success on these shows, some pointers: 1. Always cook something. Seems obvious, but every competition has some person who makes a crudo or carpacchio. It’s not a slicing-and-marinating competition, folks; you need to cook. 2. Never do a duo. The indecisive or overly ambitious chef will decide to take a main ingredient and go for multiple preparations on a single plate. The problem is that you are competing against yourself — one preparation is going to be better than […]
Beacon Hill Budget Games
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakI’m a bit perplexed at the latest round of expectation-setting from Beacon Hill regarding the FY2013 budget. First, it turns out we still have a structural deficit. But, didn’t the Governor tell us that the FY12 budget “eliminates the structural deficit I inherited from my predecessors”. And MTF President Mike Widmer came close to concurring, noting the near elimination of the structural deficit. Now, we find out there’s a $550 million structural gap. (Plus the cost of pushing out the pension fund, but that’s a bit harder to understand.) Working from MassBudget’s curiously well-informed preview of the FY13 Governor’s Budget, I next learn that the Consensus Revenue Estimate says we’ll have an additional $840 million in available funds for the […]
Budgeting Innovation?
/2 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakIf you deal with budgets regularly, you know the pain of trying to get through those last final steps of balancing spending and revenue to the penny. But our friends at the State House may have delivered a new innovation — the negative expenditure. What’s that? It’s a spending account with a negative number, which has the virtue of canceling out actual spending. If you download the FY12 budget line items from the state’s website, you find an account — 1599-0015 Intergovernmental Secretariat Budget Team Savings Reserve — with an amount of -$25 million attached to it. That account doesn’t exist in the budget the Legislature posted on-line nor does it exist on the initial detail page on the State […]
Are We Fighting Health Care Costs or Health Care Spending?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare /byLiberal blogger Matt Yglesias over at Slate recently made a great point about the difference between health care costs and spending. It is one that I hope local pols on Beacon Hill will keep in mind as they consider payment reform legislation that will regulate by price controls. The health care system in the United States has a lot of problems, but I think people are sometimes too pessimistic about it. This happens largely through slippage between the phrases “health care spending” and “health care costs.” Everyone knows, for example, that economy-wide spending on tablet computers has surged over the past three years. But nobody says “tablet costs are skyrocketing.” What happened is that iPads came on the market, followed by […]
Can the MBTA Learn From Germany?
/1 Comment/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakParticipate in the transportation conversation long enough and you hear a familiar refrain: Why can’t we be more like Europe? Europe being shorthand for an enlightened land of high-speed rail, pervasive bike use, and public transit everywhere. (There’s notable less interest in the widespread use of private concessionaires for roadways, but that’s another post.) With the MBTA’s current financial struggles in mind, a recent study by two scholars — Ralph Buehler from VPI and John Pucher from Rutgers University — of the German public transit system yields some interesting results. During a period where US transit systems expanded their coverage area faster than ridership, German systems reduced their coverage area while seeking to increase ridership on higher volume routes. They […]
Benefit of The Doubt? Not For Gov. Tim Murray
/1 Comment/in Better Government, Blog, News, Transparency /by Taylor ArmerdingLieut. Gov. Tim Murray has forfeited the benefit of the doubt. Murray, in a recent letter to political supporters, complained that he has been subjected to “false rumors and wild speculation” in connection with the crash of a state-owned car last Nov. 2 on Interstate 190 in Sterling. Perhaps he would have had a legitimate complaint if he had been completely transparent from the start. But his account of the crash is contradicted in almost every detail by what was more recently revealed from the vehicle’s black box. If anybody is causing problems by saying things that are false, it is Murray. The lieutenant governor claimed he had been obeying the 65 mph speed limit. He wasn’t. The black box data […]
Odds-On Favorite? Not the Lottery
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakThe Massachusetts state lottery has made news the past few weeks for two things — a $20 holiday raffle that lost money and a proposal to allow gamblers to use their debit cards to buy tickets. The stories might seem only vaguely related but, at root, they highlight the Mass Lottery’s ongoing challenge — sustaining revenue levels and trying to grow in a stagnant market. And that market is going to get more crowded once casinos start operating, with expert opinions forecasting a 5 – 10% drop in lottery revenues initially. As previous studies have shown, Massachusetts has one of the most successful lotteries in the country, particularly on a per capita basis. But it has been difficult work keeping […]
2012 Massachusetts State Spending Map
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Transparency, Budget Map, Transparency /byIn 2012, Pioneer Institute proudly reprised this exciting online tool — a spending map of Massachusetts’ state government — designed to help bring about more openness and accountability. The map presents hundreds of government departments, agencies, and programs in a visual format, proportionate in size to their funding level. Looking at the whole map, viewers can ascertain the state’s spending priorities. You will also be able to scroll over and zoom into each component for a more in-depth examination of the number of agencies and departments that exist, and easily identify bureaucracy, inefficiency, and unnecessary duplication. Pioneer is pleased to provide this useful online map in an adjustable display format for all Massachusetts citizens interested in obtaining information about […]
A Deeper Dive into the Mass Health Reform Waiver & Why it Matters to the Future of the ACA
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare /byOn December 20th, Governor Deval Patrick, and the entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation, congratulated themselves on the resolution of a six month delayed renewal of the Massachusetts Medicaid waiver. The waiver will run for the next 3 years. I blogged on Pioneer Institute’s website about the recent waiver delay here, here, here, and here. But for those that may not be as familiar, in essence the waiver serves as the foundation for the Massachusetts health care reform. At first glance at the new waiver, it does appear that the state squeezed substantial sums out of the federal government, but where that money ends up is the critical question. The media largely reprinted the press release, and completely ignored the historical context […]
MBTA Puts the Screws to Bus Riders
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakThe MBTA released two scenarios to deal with a projected FY13 budget deficit of $161 million. Scenario 1 fills the gap with close to 80% fare increases and 20% service cuts. Scenario 2 roughly splits the difference between service cuts and fare increases. A quick review of the impact study tells me that Scenario 1 is the one that the MBTA wants. And that the ire of the public will quickly be focused on Scenario 2. Scenario 2 proposes a radically trimming of bus operations, eliminating 23.6% of bus trips and reducing ridership by about the same amount. The T’s bus system could use some consolidation and a greater focus on increasing throughput, but that’s a pretty big pill to […]
Will 2012 be the year of the e-patient?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare, News /byDave deBronkart gave an interesting talk at a TED conference site last year that highlights the potential of patients having access to their own health data.
Can employers require job applicants to have a high school diploma?
/1 Comment/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /by Jim StergiosBNA, a subsidiary of Bloomberg L.P., is a great source of reporting on legal and regulatory issues that matter to businesses. In mid-December BNA shared the following item, which will be a shocker to most employers: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an employer’s requirement that applicants have a high school diploma must be job-related and consistent with business necessity, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stated in an “informal discussion letter” posted on its website Dec. 2. I don’t know of many employers who think twice about requiring a high school diploma. The EEOC letter “does not constitute an official opinion of the commission,” but rather is an indication that at a date not too far in to the future […]
What is blended learning?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: Virtual Schools, Jim Stergios, Related Education Blogs /byA number of readers of recent posts on virtual (or digital) learning have asked for some definitions around jargon used by proponents and experts. I wanted to share a brief video on “blended learning,” a term that you hear increasingly, especially in states where charter public schools and district schools are attempting to integrate online tools into the classroom. Blended learning is, if you will, that broad area between the traditional classroom, where you have a teacher lecturing and teaching a class of kids, and exclusive use by a student of online resources to drive their learning. The video embedded below was written by Anthony Kim and Michael Thompson of Education Elements. It is a bit dry and a tad […]
Tough Times on virtual learning
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: Virtual Schools, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byBack at the start of December, I blogged on the need for both an open door to online learning and also a greater focus on accountability for those who would operate in that space. Understanding the quality of the choices in the marketplace will have to be informed by more than giddy passion about the promise of virtual learning. A cursory look at the research done on virtual learning suggests that there has been to date more energy than light on the impact of VL on sustained student achievement. … We are just at the start of the virtual learning movement, and there is so much promise in the short term regarding access to high-quality content, targeted instruction, peer tutoring […]
Filling the Red Kettle
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakThe Salvation Army is struggling to raise money this year through its traditional red kettle/bell-ringing campaign, with donations down 22%. It might be due to a down economy. I know that my dependence on electronic transactions frequently leaves me without bills or coins to donate. But new economic research suggests strategies to increase donations. A team of economists conducted a four day experiment at a Boston-area supermarket using two different approaches to the red kettle campaign. The first approach was passive — just bell-ringing, no speaking, no eye contact. The second was active — bell-ringing plus a direct ask for a donation. The result? People avoid being asked verbally (as opposed to the implicit, passive ask that the presence of […]