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Source: By Bill Ruthhart, Indianapolis Star, March 31, 2008
Each of the 21 plazas on the Indiana Toll Road will offer electronic tolling starting Tuesday, but fees will be about double for commuters who do not use i-Zoom passes. The toll increases were scheduled as part of the June 2006 agreement by the state to lease the Northern Indiana highway to a private consortium for 75 years at a price tag of $3.8 billion.
Source: Aaron Marshall, Plain Dealer (OH), Sunday, March 30, 2008
Ohio has spent more than $90 million over the past decade trying to launch a computer system to keep track of tens of thousands of children across the state placed in foster care each year. But Cuyahoga County officials say the system simply does not work, and they refuse to sign on to it, as state officials have ordered them to do by June 23.
...... Other counties are also rebelling. Last week, child welfare agency heads in Cuyahoga and 10 other counties sent a letter to the state saying they won't be part of the new system until it is successfully rolled out in Hamilton County and the current problems are resolved.
....... But state officials say the system needs to be up and running because the $37.5 million contract given to Dynamics Research Corp. of Andover, Mass., to develop the system is up at the end of this fiscal year - June 30.
Related article from the Plain Dealer: A history of computer problems
Source: Akron Beacon Journal (OH), Saturday, Mar 29, 2008
......... In his annual State of the City address on Feb. 7, Mayor Don Plusquellic proposed selling the city's sewer system to pay for scholarships for Akron's public high school graduates to the University of Akron or to trade schools.
....... The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union whose members could lose jobs under concession agreements, says pretty much the same thing. ''Investors will make their money from future users paying higher tolls and fees over the life of the agreements,'' the union said in January in an assessment of the Chicago and Indiana deals.
...... The local chapter of AFSCME, which represents Akron's sewer workers, has said it would fight Plusquellic's proposal, and other Akron residents have raised concerns.
Source: By Tom LoBianco, Washington Times, March 31, 2008
ANNAPOLIS -- A state lawmaker says Montgomery County is "exploiting a loophole" in state law designed to keep speed-camera operators from profiting off the number of speeding tickets issued.
.......... The county reached an agreement in 2006 with Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) on a camera system that deploys six vans with speed cameras and 13 stationary speed cameras, as of December. County officials plan to expand to 30 fixed speed cameras by the end of the year.
According to Transportation Article 21-809(j) of the Maryland Code, "If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of Montgomery County, the contractor's fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid."
........ But according to the minutes of a Jan. 29, 2007, meeting of the Rockville City Council, during which legislators approved a "rider bid" to install cameras in the city as part of the ACS contract with the county, ACS gets paid "$16.25 per paid citation for each fixed site and $16.25 per paid citation or $2,999.00 per month per deployed mobile unit whichever is greater."
Source: By Jameel Naqvi, Daily Herald (IL), 3/28/2008
Aramark, the contractor that cleans and feeds dozens of suburban schools, was in the hot seat Thursday.
The Illinois House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee held a hearing in Chicago on a litany of complaints against Aramark from workers, parents and union officials.
The Philadelphia-based company did not attend the hearing -- missing a chance to respond to a nationwide campaign to unionize Aramark workers and expose the firm's alleged abuses.
....... Thursday's hearing focused on a report released this month by the Service Employees' International Union, which is trying to add 100,000 Aramark workers nationwide to its membership rolls and 2,000 in the Chicago area alone.
...... The report, titled "Failing Grade: How Outsourcing Vital School Services to Aramark Corp. is Shortchanging Illinois Kids," alleges Aramark pays low wages, provides few benefits and does not adequately clean schools or feed suburban schoolchildren.
Source: By NICHOLAS BEADLE, Jackson Sun (TN), March 27, 2008
The Jackson-Madison County Library Board will ask local leaders for an additional $100,000 to cover management costs in its next budget.
.......... According to the request, Library Systems and Services, the company that manages the library, plans to spend $1.1 million during the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
....... But Michael Stone, a county-appointed board member, said Library Systems and Services is asking for too much given the financial outlook for city and county governments.
...... Stone also said several city and county officials have never seen a spreadsheet of mostly increasing yearly payouts to Library Systems from which the $1.1 million was calculated.
Source: By Jerry Cornfield, Herald (WA), Thursday, March 27, 2008
Very soon you may not need to ask state lawmakers how they're spending your tax dollars because you'll be able to find out on your own. Right down to what you paid for the paper and pens in their offices.
Legislation waiting to be signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire would create a Web site providing a quick and easy means of searching details in the state's operating, capital and transportation budgets.
...... It is modeled on laws in Texas and Missouri, two states that make it possible to find expenditures by an agency, by a subject, for individual contracts and to vendors. Under the proposed law in Washington, the Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program would set up the online resource by Jan. 1, 2009. LEAP, as it is known in Olympia, is already a portal for online access to proposed and adopted budgets.
Source: By Susan Snyder, Philadelphia Inquirer (PA), Thu, Mar. 27, 2008
...... The budget includes no money for raises next year for the district's five unions, including the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, its largest.
...... The plan also assumes that Gov. Rendell's budget, which has more than $80 million in new basic education funding for the district, will be passed and that the district will continue to spend the same amount on disciplinary schools and the nearly 40 schools run by six outside managers, including Edison Schools Inc.
........ It is still considering whether to keep Edison and other outside managers originally hired in 2002 to improve the district's most troubled schools. A decision is expected next month.
Source: Samantha Broussard-Wilson, Yale Daily News (CT), Thursday, March 27, 2008
After last week's emotionally charged public hearing before the Board of Aldermen -- which was attended by over 200 public-school cooks, custodians, teachers, parents and students -- Aramark may soon be leaving town. But the company isn't going without a fight.
...... Larry Dorman, a spokesman for the Local 287 division of Council 4, said the most efficient and effective model the city could adopt would be a self-managed model rather than an outside-contractor setup. "We think the mayor and the aldermen really need to look hard at why the city has spent millions of dollars with an outside contractor to essentially act as an incompetent middle man," Dorman said.
Source: Teamster's news release, March 25, 2008
The family of deceased Waste Management, Inc. (WMI) mechanic Raul Figueroa from West Palm Beach, Florida, joined safety advocates, concerned local politicians and the Teamsters Union for the release of an investigative report (.pdf) that found serious safety problems at the solid waste giant at Teamsters Local 769 in North Miami, Florida.
....... The National Commission of Inquiry into the Worker Health and Safety Crisis in the Solid Waste Industry launched an investigation into safety issues at WMI and found systemic problems within the company, characterizing WMI's safety program as using an "archaic, misguided approach".
....... The report found that 40 years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life in an effort to fight for civil and worker rights for striking sanitation workers in Memphis, the same issues that led to the strike remain prevalent in the industry even today. The questionnaire revealed that these workers still face very real threats to their health on a daily basis. Long hours and the handling of hazardous materials without proper safety equipment are part of their daily routine.
Source: Associated Press, March 26, 2008
Big worries for the nation's first high-tech census should have been obvious when the door-to-door headcounters couldn't figure out their fancy new handheld computers. Now, officials say, technology problems could add as much as $2 billion to the cost of the 2010 census and jeopardize the accuracy of the nation's most important survey.
A congressional agency says the census is at "high risk" of producing an expensive yet unreliable count, and lawmakers are planning hearings. ...... Census officials are being blamed for a poor job spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp. The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary.
...... Harris Corp. was awarded a $596 million contract in March 2006 to supply the handheld computers and the operating system that supports them. The contract has since grown to $647 million, and could balloon by as much as $2 billion, according to a report this month by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Source: Pat Shellenbarger, The Grand Rapids Press (MI), March 25, 2008 17:12PM
....... The average annual cost of medical care for each inmate increased by nearly 65 percent over the decade ending in 2006, according to a report by Michigan's auditor general. (.pdf) During that same period, the cost of medical care for the general public grew by a little more than 40 percent.
......... The Corrections Department could control costs by following its own policies and doing a better job of monitoring its contracts with the private companies that provide medical and pharmaceutical services in the prisons, the report suggested.
.......... The audit released Tuesday, however, said medical services in the state's prisons are as good as or better than those covered by Medicare, Medicaid and some privates HMOs, a finding that advocates for inmates dispute.
Just because a medical procedure is listed as covered doesn't mean the Corrections Department or its private contractor, Correctional Medical Services, will pay for it, said Penny Ryder, head of the American Friends Service Committee's criminal justice program.
Source: University of Maine news release, March 25, 2008
A newly released briefing paper by the University of Maine Bureau of Labor Education on the pitfalls and problems that can occur when privatizing certain state, municipal or institutional services, concludes that the practice remains risky and problematic.
The paper, "Privatization Pitfalls Update, 2008," (.pdf) brings up to date an analysis of contracting out certain government or institutional services that was originally done in 1998.
....... The bureau draws examples from a variety of sources, including the U.S. General Accounting Office, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, previous UMaine Bureau of Labor Education studies, research by Cornell University and newspaper accounts of fraud and abuse by subcontractors in various states.
Source: By KATE HOWARD, Tennessean (TN), March 24, 2008
While other inmates at the Metro Detention Facility took an hour out of their cells most days, a mentally ill inmate named Frank Horton never left his cell for any recreation or a shower -- for nine straight months. It's unclear if he even saw a doctor.
Living conditions for the inmate, a nonviolent offender before entering prison, changed only after an employee complained to the Metro Public Health Department on Jan. 31 and he was forced out for a shower and a mental health evaluation.
The situation raises questions about the treatment of inmates at the 1,200-bed prison where many of Nashville's convicted felons serve their time.
...... Under Metro's contract with CCA, the Davidson County Sheriff's Office oversees the policies of the prison. The health department monitors the health records of its prisoners, as it does at the county jails.
According to Hall, the state of Tennessee pays the sheriff's office about $17 million a year that is used to pay CCA for operating the prison.
Source: By Daniel Barbarisi, Providence Journal (RI), Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The city is considering selling the Providence Water Supply Board and the network of reservoirs and treatment plants it controls in order to pay down the huge debt in the city's pension system.
...... The money from a sale would be used to pay off the debt to the city's pension system, which is owed roughly $700 million.
Source: By Amanda McGregor, Salem News (MA), March 24, 2008 11:41 pm
More than a dozen school cafeteria workers -- many wearing green AFSCME union T-shirts with gold lettering -- gathered at last night's School Committee meeting and said they worry for their jobs if the school lunch program is privatized.
...... Food service workers say a private company would pay less. They said they currently make roughly $15 an hour.
...... Aramark, Whitsons and Chartwells (Compass Group) were the three companies to submit proposals.
Source: by Jaime Malarkey, The Examiner (MD), March 25, 2008
...... This residence hall is the "worst" at the Rosewood Center, the state-run center for the developmentally disabled in Owings Mills, Facilities Director Robert Day says on a recent tour. Day is approaching his final days on the job. After years of reports of abuse and neglect -- from razor blades on the lawn to residents taking the wrong prescriptions to violent assaults -- the center is slated for closure in 16 months.
Rosewood's remaining 156 residents will move to group homes in the community, a decision advocates for the developmentally disabled call long overdue.
...... Employees, who have been directed by three different facility managers in the past year, said the center took a turn for the worse when the state began court-ordering criminals, including murderers, to Rosewood, but didn't provide training in how to handle violent patients.
...... "State employees have always been providing quality care," said Barry Chapman, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 422, a union that represents Rosewood employees. "But the state has not given this facility the resources to function."
Source: By JANE ZHANG, Wall Street Journal (subscription req.), March 25, 2008
....... Covering the uninsured is a central issue in this year's political campaign. Yet while politicians debate how best to cover the growing ranks of the uninsured, the federal government -- by outsourcing service jobs -- quietly is adding to those numbers.
"As federal employees, we get great insurance," says Dr. Rogers, a physician who believes prompt treatment might have staved off Ms. Derricotte's disability. "People who work as contractors often don't enjoy those benefits."
Federal contract employees, including cafeteria workers, security guards and cleaning crews, work on Capitol Hill and in federal agencies across the country.
Under a 1965 law, called the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act, most contractors with service contracts of more than $2,500 are required to pay locally prevailing wages, plus fringe benefits or the cash equivalent -- $3.16 an hour this year, under a government formula.
Yet some contract employees don't get either the health insurance or the extra cash.
Source: BY REID J. EPSTEIN, Newsday (NY), March 25, 2008
A week after County Executive Steve Levy proposed studying selling Suffolk's John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility, the fight over the facility intensified yesterday as Levy warned of possible layoffs and employees protested any sale.
About two dozen nurses and other employees picketed over any potential sale outside the 264-resident nursing home in Yaphank, holding signs saying the county should sell Levy rather than the Foley facility.
......."To balance the budget on the backs of the sick is unconscionable," said Deborah McKee, a vice president of the Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees.
Source: Boston Globe (MA), March 25, 2008
FACED WITH tight budgets, the towns of Dartmouth and Tewksbury are thinking about privatizing their libraries. The impulse is understandable, given anemic revenues and spiraling costs. But libraries should remain wholly public entities.
...... Privatizing libraries elsewhere in the country has yielded mixed results. A private company can only work within the budget that it's given, and its goal is to spend sparingly, or cut back, in order to make a profit. For example, Library Systems and Services, a Maryland company, manages public libraries in California, Kansas, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas. In some cases, the company has been able to increase hours and expand collections. But in Jackson County, Ore., Library Systems had to cut staff and benefits to adhere to its contract.
....... Massachusetts is home to the nation's first free public library. That's a legacy worth preserving. Municipal belt-tightening only goes so far. It's up to the taxpaying public to make the investment - to protect a vital source of information and insight.
Source: Associated Press (PA), 03.21.08, 12:52 PM ET
The state has decided not to privatize and merge its mental-health services for inmates after negotiating an alternative plan with unions that opposed the idea.
...... The Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association, which represents about 220 security employees in the forensic units, was among the unions that resisted the plan. Union officials feared the move would lead to the privatization of state prisons and said it would compromise public safety.
Source: By Corrie MacLaggan, AMERICAN-STATESMAN (TX), Sunday, March 23, 2008
First thing Thursday morning, a dozen new state caseworkers arrived at a North Austin office building for a training class on enrolling Texans in the food stamp and Medicaid programs. Just a couple of months into their jobs, one after another said they're excited about helping people and confident they can handle the work. But if history is any guide, eight of them will be gone by fall. Employees overwhelmed by their workload are leaving the Health and Human Services Commission in droves.
..... Some of the agency's staffing problems date to fall 2005, when Hawkins informed 2,900 eligibility workers that they would not have a job after the start of a privatization plan. The agency hired Accenture LLP to run call centers to enroll Texans in benefits. After a troubled pilot program in Central Texas in 2006, the state parte
Source: Lisa Roose-Church, Lansing State Journal (MI), March 24, 2008
...... The Howell Public Schools Board of Education is being asked today to discuss teacher layoffs, as well as privatizing its 50 food-service employees, much as it did the child-care aides.
...... If privatized, the food-service group would most likely become employees of a third-party contractor, Caledonia-based Professional Educational Services Group, which holds the contract for three of the district's administrators and 35 child-care aides, Parrish said.
Source: Tucson Citizen (AZ), 03.24.2008
For awhile, Senate Bill 1142 appeared to have a chance. The bill, which would have brought government oversight of private prisons in Arizona up to the standards set by other states, doesn't hamstring the industry
...... Blendu said that one benefit of the legislation would be to ban the housing of out-of-state sex offenders in Arizona, not an outrageous restriction.
..... That's unfortunate. The state should have the power to regulate private prisons within its borders.
..... Perhaps the demise of the bills is an indication of how the private-prison industry is strengthening its grip in Arizona.
Source: By Bradley Olson, Baltimore Sun (MD), March 20, 2008
With a few clicks of a mouse, Marylanders could soon be able to search an online database to find out exactly how much the state is spending to construct the Intercounty Connector in suburban Washington or on Chesapeake Bay restoration projects or even what taxpayers are coughing up for the "King Barn Dairy Mooseum."
The proposed database, which was approved in the House of Delegates and saw no opposition in a key Senate committee yesterday, also would allow anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to find out where the money is coming from, who was awarded the contracts and how much they received from the state for anything else.
Source: By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register (CT), Wed, Mar 19, 2008
Aramark Corp. took a beating Tuesday at a public hearing held by the Board of Aldermen's finance committee. Between 120 to 130 people crowded into the aldermanic chambers for a public excoriation of the food and custodial service management company for its food, service and repeated fiscal deficits in running school programs.
..... Janitors criticized Aramark over inadequate staffing, defective equipment and ignoring employee concerns. "Things don't get fixed," said Robert Montuori, president of Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 287.
Related articles:
New Haven Independent: Chicken -- & Company -- Blasted / They came to bash Aramark, which was missing in action.
Source: By Steve Peoples, Providence Journal (RI), Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Governor Carcieri has asked the state's highest court to strike down a law passed last year that he says threatens to paralyze Rhode Island government by blocking his ability to use private companies to conduct state business. The governor's office hand-delivered a letter to the state Supreme Court yesterday seeking an advisory opinion over whether the labor-backed "anti-privatization bill" -- as it is called by critics -- is constitutional.
........ Carcieri's move yesterday drew criticism from labor unions, which had been in closed-door "discussions" with the governor's office in recent months to negotiate concessions the governor needs to help balance a current-year $151-million deficit.
....... The negotiations also included the largest state employees union, Council 94, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees.
Source: by Jason Wright, Aspen Newspapers (GA), March 17, 2008
It is no secret Milton's City Hall can be a tumultuous place. Council meetings have a tendency to drag on for hours discussing minor points and council members snub one another publicly -- and those are just the good days. In the roughly 15 months since the city got off the ground, it has seen an unlikely and extraordinary confluence of events for a relatively quiet town of only 20,000.
........ ..... Milton is mostly staffed by private company CH2M HILL OMI. At least two CH2M HILL department heads have been replaced, with rumors that another may be on his way out if a willing replacement can be found to work in Milton.
Source: By Dan Friedman, CongressDaily , March 14, 2008
A bill to set up a public database on federal contractor performance and misconduct won approval Thursday from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee despite Republican concerns the measure could allow unfair attacks on contractors as well as end up barring large companies from receiving government contracts.
Introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and passed by voice vote, the measure (H.R. 3033) would require creation of a publically accessible list of any completed criminal, civil and administrative proceedings against federal contractors in the last five years.
Source: By Al Sullivan, Hudson Reporter (NJ), 03/20/2008
Prompted by members from two unions, Hudson County Freeholders agreed at a recent meeting to look into possibly re-bidding a contract to supply food services to the Hudson County Correctional Facility.
Aramark, the nation's largest food service contractor, currently supplies the service.
Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE-HERE Union told freeholders at the Feb. 24 meeting that the county was paying significantly more than nearby New Jersey counties for the same services.
"Why is Aramark charging Hudson County taxpayers more for its jail food service than it's charging taxpayers in Essex and Union counties?" asked Kevin Brown, Local 32BJ New Jersey director. "The food is the same, the work is the same, so why the price difference?"
Source: Associated Press (IN), Monday March 17, 2008
State officials say the rollout of the state's new privatized welfare system is going well enough to expand it to a large swath of southern and western Indiana.
Some advocates for the needy warn, beware.
...... A coalition of vendors led by IBM Corp. and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. operates the project's service center in Marion. Call response times once as high as 9 1/2 minutes have fallen to two to four minutes since the phone staff was doubled to about 80 in mid-January, Main said.
Source: By MARIE ROHDE, Journal Sentinel (WI), March 18, 2008
A downtown Milwaukee public service ambassador who was fired after she refused to stop wearing a wrist brace and using a cane could get her job back as the result of a decision issued Tuesday by the 1st District Court of Appeals.
..... In June 2004, her employers at Wackenhut Corp. insisted that she see the firm's doctor in connection with Rutherford's worker's compensation claim. That doctor said she was able to do the necessary work without the cane or wrist brace. She balked, saying her personal doctor thought otherwise. Her bosses gave her a month to obtain a medical report or work without the brace and cane.
Source: K R Desai, C Van Deusen Lukas, and G J Young, Health Affairs, March/April 2000
..... This study addresses two questions: (1) Does privatization affect the amount of uncompensated care provided by public hospitals? (2) Does privatization to nonprofit
status have a different impact on the provision of uncompensated care than does privatization to for-profit status?
...... Our analysis reveals that public hospitals that were privatized provided significantly less uncompensated care before privatization than did other public hospitals, both before
and after privatization. E
Source: By Ashley Meeks, Sun-News (NM), 03/17/2008
LAS CRUCES -- It bills itself as "Your University Bookstore -- Money Spent Here Stays Here!" But some members of the New Mexico State University community are concerned that may not be the story for long.
..... Coseth Krauel, an accounting technician with the bookstore, said she and others in the American Federation of County and Municipal Employees union are afraid of losing their jobs in a management change.
...... Outsourced services at NMSU: • Food services • Vending • Ground maintenance • Printing • Some construction and shuttle services
Source: By Lyndsey Layton and Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post, Monday, March 17, 2008
...... For Gribbin, Duvall and Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, the goal is not just to combat congestion but to upend the traditional way transportation projects are funded in this country. They believe that tolls paid by motorists, not tax dollars, should be used to construct and maintain roads. They and other political appointees have spent the latter part of President Bush's two terms laboring behind the scenes to shrink the federal role in road-building and public transportation.
They have also sought to turn highways into commodities that can be sold or leased to private firms and used by motorists for a price. In Duvall and Gribbin's view, unleashing the private sector and introducing market forces could lead to innovation and more choices for the public, much as the breakup of AT&T transformed telecommunications.
Source: BY KEVIN DUGGAN, Coloradoan, March 15, 2008
Improperly handled chili was behind a food-poisoning outbreak at the Alternative Sentencing Unit of the Larimer County jail last month that left 31 inmates ill, according to the county health department.
...... The on-site manager of Aramark, the contractor for food service at the jail, has been replaced, Maj. James Wacker said. A deputy also has been assigned to spot-check the kitchen to make sure proper procedures are being followed.
Source: By Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 11, 2008
U.S. soldiers at a military base in Iraq were provided with treated but untested wastewater for nearly two years by KBR, the giant government contractor, and may have suffered health problems as a result, according to a report (.pdf) released yesterday by the Pentagon's inspector general.
Source: Waste Age, Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Chris Carlson
A class-action lawsuit alleges that Waste Industries USA, Raleigh, N.C., and its Board of Directors breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders in approving a $544 million deal to take the company private. Specifically, the suit claims the sale price "is unfair and inadequate because, among other things, the intrinsic value of Waste Industries' common stock is materially in excess of the amount offered, giving due consideration to the company's growth and anticipated operating results, net asset value and future profitability."
Source: CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE, March 10, 2008 - 1:15 p.m.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif., asked federal regulators Monday to investigate whether security contractor Blackwater Worldwide violated federal tax, small business and labor laws.
Source: By Leigh Dethman, Deseret Morning News (UT), Published: Thursday, March 6, 2008 12:08 a.m. MST
Outsourcing government services to the private industry could become more commonplace, under legislation passed by the 2008 Legislature.
Lawmakers approved a pair of bills requiring state and local governments to inventory all "competitive activities" that potentially could be done better -- and cheaper -- by the private sector.
Source: New York Times DealBook blog, March 6, 2008, 8:06 am
Hundreds of cafeteria and other food-service workers rallied in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon for higher wages and improved benefits as part of an ongoing battle between Aramark and the union Unite Here, which represents about 20,000 Aramark employees, including about 4,000 in the New York region.
Source: By Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, March 6, 2008
Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.
..... A Globe survey found that the practice is unusual enough that only one other major contractor in Iraq said it does something similar.
..... With an estimated $16 billion in contracts, KBR is by far the largest contractor in Iraq, with eight times the work of its nearest competitor.
Source: By Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, Pioneer Press (MN), 03/05/2008
Minnesota on Tuesday ended its rocky, five-year relationship with a company that was supposed to create a computerized database to quickly sort people into one of the state's health-care programs.
....... Brian Osberg, an assistant commissioner at the Department of Human Services, said the state decided it would be better off developing HealthMatch without the company, ACS State and Local Solutions.
Source: Public Citizen news release, February 7, 2008
In a win for consumers, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a private California debt collector can be sued for its overly aggressive tactics, even though the company is working on the behalf of local prosecutors.
The company, American Corrective Counseling Services Inc. (ACCS), is a so-called "check diversion" company, meaning that it uses its contract with local prosecutors to send out letters on official stationary threatening consumers who have written bad checks with criminal prosecution or jail unless they pay collection fees.
Source: U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2/27/08
Member Statements
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
Senator Susan M. Collins
Senator Daniel K. Akaka
Witnesses Testimony
Panel 1
The Honorable Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for Management , U.S. Department of State
The Honorable P. Jackson Bell, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Materiel Readiness , U.S. Department of Defense
James D. Schmitt, Senior Vice President , ArmorGroup North America
Laura A. Dickinson, Professor of Law , University of Connecticut School of Law
Source: By CHRIS GREEN, Harris News Service (KS), March 4, 2008
Some Kansans already are taking advantage of a new Web site allowing them to research how state government spends their tax dollars. However, the information they'll be able to access has limits and some details, such as the individual salaries of state employees, won't be available just yet through the database.
Source: Paul Nussbaum, Philadelphia Inquirer (PA), Tue, Mar. 4, 2008
A study done for state House Democrats has concluded that it is unwise to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private operator, as Gov. Rendell hopes to do. Instead, the study supported the legislature's move to keep the Turnpike Commission, raise tolls on the turnpike, and introduce tolls on I-80. The study, by three experts from Pennsylvania State and Harvard Universities, is to be formally released today in Harrisburg.
Source: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Privatization is on the rise, but public access laws have yet to catch up -- shielding important organizations from media scrutiny.