AFSCME Privatization Update

Source: Associated Press (PA), 08.29.08, 12:40 PM ET

Prison operator GEO Group Inc. said Friday it is discontinuing its contract managing a county jail in Pennsylvania, citing litigation and poor financial performance.

GEO said it will no longer manage the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County effective Dec. 31. The 1,883-bed facility generates roughly $38 million a year in revenue, the company said, but the contract's discontinuation is not expected have a material impact on GEO's financial performance, it said.

GEO said the facility is the only county jail it manages.

Posted by Info Center at 1:17 PM in Corrections | Permalink
Tags: Pennslyvania

Source: By Fredric N. Tulsky, Mercury News (CA), 08/28/2008 08:00:14 PM PDT

Office Depot has agreed to repay the state of California $2.5 million for overpayments, state officials said Thursday, as they released a state audit concluding that state workers routinely failed to get the best value when buying office supplies the past two years.

The findings renewed concerns about a state contracting initiative that was supposed to save millions of dollars while steering taxpayer dollars to California small businesses. The initiative was the subject of a Mercury News investigation earlier this year.

Posted by Info Center at 1:10 PM in Purchasing | Permalink
Tags: California

Source: By Ron Powell, UNION-TRIBUNE (CA), 4:38 p.m. August 27, 2008

Mayor Jerry Sanders said Wednesday that his voter-approved plan to outsource some city jobs will be delayed by months because a state administrative law judge has ruled the city acted improperly during negotiations with labor unions - something the mayor blamed on bad advice from City Attorney Michael Aguirre.

....... The mayor said he will likely have to reopen negotiations with the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Local 127, the city's blue-collar union, and the Municipal Employees Association, the city's largest union, over the rules for outsourcing.

........ AFSCME Local 127 filed a complaint with the state Public Employee Relations Board in early 2007, alleging that the city had negotiated in bad faith on the outsourcing issue. In the summer of 2007, the MEA joined the legal action.

Posted by Info Center at 1:01 PM in Overview/General | Permalink
Tags: California

Source: Associated Press, August 28, 2008

More than a quarter of the U.S. intelligence agencies' employees are nongovernment contractors, hired to fill in gaps in the military and civilian work force, according to a survey of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. That is roughly on par with last year's number, the first year the national intelligence director's office tried to count the outside help, Ronald Sanders, the intelligence director's personnel policy chief, told reporters Wednesday.

Posted by Info Center at 12:58 PM in Federal | Permalink

Source: By Tim Evans, Indianapolis Star (IN), August 26, 2008

Claiming Indiana's welfare privatization drive is hurting needy Hoosiers, eight LaPorte County residents who receive assistance through the Family and Social Services Administration are asking a judge to halt its rollout in their part of Northwest Indiana.

Posted by Info Center at 12:56 PM in Information Technology | Social Services | Permalink
Tags: Indiana

Source: By JENNY ANDERSON, New York Times, August 27, 2008

Cleaning up road kill and maintaining runways may not sound like cutting-edge investments. But banks and funds with big money seem to think so. Reeling from more exotic investments that imploded during the credit crisis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are among the investors who have amassed an estimated $250 billion war chest -- much of it raised in the last two years -- to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.

Their strategy is gaining steam in the United States as federal, state and local governments previously wary of private funds struggle under mounting deficits that have curbed their ability to improve crumbling roads, bridges and even airports with taxpayer money.

Posted by Info Center at 12:54 PM in Asset Sale/Lease | Public Works | Transportation | Permalink

Source: Reuters, Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:53pm EDT

Texas-based funds could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped planned road-building projects though investment banks and developers have expressed keen interest in them.

Posted by Info Center at 12:53 PM in Asset Sale/Lease | Transportation | Permalink
Tags: Texas