THE PIONEER BLOG

Steve Poftak

Boston School Lottery and the Globe

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The Globe is doing a full ‘package’ on the Boston school lottery (a subject near and dear to my heart, see here and here). They’ve done a nice job explaining the very complex lottery and selecting a number of different families to profile (although the West Roxbury family seems like a reach — the pastor of a start-up Evangelical church?). It appears that this series will continue over the next two weeks as lottery results go out to each of the families. A few observations: 1) How many receive their top 3 choices? The introductory Globe piece has graphic (apparently unavailable on-line) that emphasizes the how the vast majority of applicants get one of their choices (but those who don’t […]

Elizabeth Prasse

The Compensation Conundrum

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While the public and the media have been quick to criticize the “golden parachute” payments by Blue Cross Blue Shield to its former CEO as clearly improper, the broader questions raised regarding compensation paid by tax-exempt organizations—and in particular, when such compensation should be deemed inappropriately excessive—are far from straightforward. The Internal Revenue Code provides for so-called intermediate sanctions in the form of an excise tax when tax-exempt organizations are deemed to have provided an excess benefit to disqualified people (meaning those people in a position to exercise substantial influence over the organization’s affairs, such as its officers and directors). An organization can seek to avoid intermediate sanctions by following prescribed procedures to create a rebuttable presumption that a compensation […]

Stephen Lisauskas

American Exceptionalism

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American exceptionalism does not spring from our economic or military power but rather from America’s pioneer spirit.

Jim Stergios

We may need someone to monitor Monitor

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(Image from Mother Jones) The Boston Globe piece by Farah Stockman starts out this way: It reads like Libyan government propaganda, extolling the importance of Moammar Khadafy, his theories on democracy, and his “core ideas on individual freedom.’’ The Mother Jones piece by David Corn and Siddhartha Mahanta is even more blistering. In February 2007 Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr., who developed the concept of “soft power,” visited Libya and sipped tea for three hours with Muammar Qaddafi. Months later, he penned an elegant description of the chat for The New Republic, reporting that Qaddafi had been interested in discussing “direct democracy.” Nye noted that “there is no doubt that” the Libyan autocrat “acts differently on the world stage today […]

Steve Poftak

Bill Gates is Wrong!

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UPDATE: His TED talk just went up. Well done overall and worth watching. But its not really his fault. Mr. Gates is getting a lot of press for some recent comments about state spending at TED. In conjunction with the presentation, his foundation has set up a nifty budget analysis tool. If you look at MA, we look pretty bad – 47th in nation on K-12 spending, etc. But our poor showing is driven by the underlying data source, NASBO’s state expenditure guide. In it, we’ve got a $47b state budget (versus a roughly $30b operating budget) while other states’ are reporting numbers much closer to their operating budget numbers. I think we reported a gross number while other state’s […]

Jim Stergios

Memo re: public dancing

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MEMORANDUM To: Former Pioneer executive directors Re: Attempts at dancing in public (photo available at WickedLocal.com) Having noticed a recent uptick in dancing activity by former executive directors, we urge great care be shown in considering public dancing. Our mission recognizes competing priorities, which may give credence to the view that former executive directors might like to dance in public. We urge great caution for the following six reasons: 1. Our mission calls for liberty, but also individual responsibility. 2. Our mission does call for accountability; further it emphasizes effectiveness. Where accountability and effectiveness are not observed, one must emphasize the need to “limit” certain activities. 3. Our mission emphasizes the application of free markets, and we have seen no […]

Steve Poftak

Two Things to Ponder About Quasi-Public Salaries

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As the Governor continues his march through the quasi-publics (many of which have taken him a full term to gain control over), it is worth mentioning two key points that were raised in the compensation review done by UMASS’ Steve Crosby. First, the report emphasizes that, for all the kerfluffle raised by the various quasi-public boards about independent studies and ‘market compensation’ rates, a troubling number of these hires came from the local market. In the words of the study: “..with almost no exceptions, the individuals hired to run these agencies are hired locally and not from a national pool. Does it make sense to use national standards and then hire locally?” Next is a point that I made in […]

Jim Stergios

Factory contracts for teachers unions

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As the discussion about public sector unions gains traction across the country (the short list I know of includes Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and now Maine) what often seems to be missing is the main point of public education—making sure that all kids, including the 100,000 poor and minority MA students stuck in failing schools, have access to a good education. It’s not about the benefits and needs of the adults in the schools. In Massachusetts, public sector employees as a whole receive higher salaries than those in the private sector doing comparable work (especially in the eastern part of the state). That’s an issue worth discussion. But people in the teaching profession are not making a killing–and the fact […]

Joshua Archambault

WSJ: “The Massachusetts Health-Reform Mess” Swing and Miss

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The late John Calfee, has an opinion piece in the WSJ this morning on Massachusetts health reform. The piece is right on with a few fundamental points. One, that it was hubris to take the state experiment of 2% of the population—in a high income, high insured, and high medical infrastructure state– and mandate it on all other states, as if they are all the same. I also think Governor Patrick’s most recent bill is ill-defined and misguided in its potential anti-market elements. However, there were a few statements that are on very shaky grounds in the piece or are just wrong. (Gov. Deval Patrick wants a new law to force the unions into the Connector.) This is not true, […]

Jim Stergios

Scott Walker’s double

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The biggest danger that the teachers’ unions, and really all public sector employee unions, face is that of “copycat” Walkers. But let’s be clear: The Wisconsin battle over collective bargaining is not going to play out in Massachusetts like it has in the Badger state. The fact is that there are important differences between our states. Our major collective bargaining issues are local in the short-term and in the longer-term both state and local. In the near-term that means we need to focus on giving local municipal leaders the same ability that the state has to purchase health care benefits in bulk and without negotiating collectively on the benefit packages put forward. But lest unions take the wrong lesson—that Massachusetts […]

Jim Stergios

What does the Madison catfight mean for teachers?

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The public debate in Wisconsin over the effort by Governor Scott Walker to curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees has all the stuff of a great teaching moment. It has the governor of a state that is known for and has a long history of progressivism. The president of the United States has lined up against the governor. Thousands of workers are swarming into the State House, and legislators exiting across state lines. The story also has the benefit of being about something we all understand—we are broke. We’re broke as states and a nation, and how are we going to work through this. The story has the added benefit of being something familiar to all of us: We […]

Steve Poftak

Good Stuff in Transportation

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It’s easy to be cynical in this day and age, so we’ve put together a transcript of our May 2010 transportation forum to restore your faith. In it, we get to hear from three transportation innovators doing great work with limited resources. I urge you to give it a read. We hear from Jon Davis from the MBTA who explains how their Open Data Initiative has spawned a number of privately-developed applications. The MBTA’s strategic approach is a subtle, but crucially important one — rather than decide what their customers want, then slog through an in-house software and hardware procurement and development process — the T cleaned up their data and made it available to private developers. The result? A […]

Joshua Archambault

Governor Patrick Found the Silver Bullet for Cost Containment?

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Thoughts on Governor Deval Patrick’s speech this morning about phase II of health reform in Massachusetts: cost containment. Without seeing the bill language these are my thoughts—however, it sounds like much “fussing over the details” will remain even after he files the bill. Broad themes He deserves credit for putting the first bill on the table. As has been the case for almost a year, the devil is still in the details.  The speech did not do much to illuminate, but it did serve to take a few things off the table. Much of the implementation of this bill will play out in the regulatory space anyway. This is a longer term play. There are real problems happening now, especially […]

Joshua Archambault

Blame Game in Massachusetts Health Care

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An interesting piece from Paul Levy over at Not Running a Hospital.  He beat me to putting words on paper, but I had some of the same thoughts and feelings he did while reading a recent Globe article about the average premium increases from insurers this coming year. I will quote at length so you can get a full picture of his reasoning. Catharsis is not policy-making If you ever needed an indication of why the public remains confused about the issue of health care costs and insurance premiums, look no further than a story in today’s Boston Globe entitled, “Insurers seeking smaller rate hikes.” It is not that the reporter has done a poor job. Quite the contrary. The […]

Joshua Archambault

“For small businesses, a hesitancy to hire”

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An illustrative piece in the Boston Globe today by Megan Woolhouse about the high cost of running a small business in Massachusetts. This is an issue that Pioneer has been researching for years. Pioneer has released numerous papers discussing possible reforms to the programs that are most burdensome. The most recent was “Creating Jobs: Reforming Unemployment Insurance in Massachusetts.” From my perspective, one of the most expensive costs was only mentioned in passing in the article. Struggling to survive in 2008 and faced with rising health care costs, the Olsons eliminated health care coverage, offering employees a one-time payment of up to $5,000. The reform passed in 2006 promised to help small companies afford health insurance. During implementation, policy decisions […]