NPRI's 'Piglet Book' exposes millions of dollars of government waste in NV

The Nevada Policy Research Institute has just released The Nevada Piglet Book 2010, which details millions of dollars in government waste, including credit card theft, sweetheart land deals and exorbitant salaries.

When politicians try to tell you that they've "cut to the bone," remember how they're spending your money.

Sweetheart deals are often the province of the well-connected. In Las Vegas, this is especially true. In April 2009, former Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald purchased a 3.9-acre parcel from the City of Las Vegas for $1.3 million. Then, in a second transaction that was recorded at the same time, McDonald turned around and immediately sold the parcel to a supermarket chain for $3.1 million.

City officials knew that McDonald intended to immediately sell the land for substantially more than he was purchasing it, yet agreed to sell the parcel to their former colleague for less than the appraised value.

McDonald had already been convicted of violating city ethics laws involving a land deal while serving on the city council in 2000. At that time, McDonald had pushed for the city to purchase the Las Vegas SportsPark, partially owned by his employer.

The sweetheart deal granted to McDonald by the current city council is especially significant because the city faces a reported $80 million general fund deficit for fiscal year 2011 that could potentially require mass layoffs and a reduction of services.

The Piglet Book is filled with many more examples of government waste, so be sure to read the whole thing.

And if you're interested in hearing more about government waste, be sure to tune into Casey and Heather on KDOX 1280 AM. They're interviewing Geoffrey Lawrence, the study's author, today at 10:15.

'Waiting for Superman' praised by the ... Huffington Post?

Oh yes.

His [Davis Guggenheim's] new film, Waiting for Superman, which screened Thursday night at the Silver Docs Festival in Silver Springs, Maryland, and opens this September, is nothing less than a wake-up call to all Americans. It is both a searing indictment of our education system and a desperate call-to-action to save our struggling schools.

According to the film's grim statistics, the crisis is more severe than most of us realize. Public schools are failing millions of American children with 1.2 million dropping out every year. We have doubled the per-pupil federal spending, but achievement has flatlined, and this generation of Americans will be the first to be less literate than the previous one. And while the United States was once the world's gold standard for academics, we now rank 25th in math and 21st in science among 30 developed nations.

Our schools are a disgrace, and rather than intelligence or character, a child's destiny is often determined by his or her zip code. ...

This is a dangerous movie, particularly for the teachers' unions. Guggenheim argues that the main problem with schools is bad teachers; but tenure, built into the unions' contracts, prevents schools from getting rid of them.

There's a lot more goodness in the article (and tantalizing, but heartbreaking, descriptions of the film), so be sure to read the whole thing.

Also read John Nolte's recent piece on education: 'Waiting for Superman': If you really want 'social justice,' demolish the teachers' unions.

And if you haven't seen it yet, watch the trailer!

More teachers

President Obama wants public schools to hire 10,000 new math teachers nationwide. Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute asks why? The last few million new public school employees haven't done much for student achievement. Maybe its about getting more due paying members to help fund political campaigns for things that have nothing to do with education?

Danny Tarkanian is factually wrong

In Sunday's Review-Journal, former U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian had a piece describing actions he believed Nevada could take to grow its economy. Unfortunately, to set up his piece he bought right into the $3 billion budget-deficit myth.

Nevada is suffering through the worst economic crisis in our state's history. Where our state leads the nation, we do so in unenviable categories: unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies. Our $6.5 billion state budget is projected to have a $3 billion deficit. Yes, you read that right -- Nevada can only fund a little over half of its current obligations.

Tarkanian is effectively saying that Nevada is only projected to collect $3.5 billion in the next biennium. And that statement is 100 percent, totally false.

For the current, 2009-11 biennium, Nevada's general-fund budget is about $6.4 billion. For the next budget cycle, both Andrew Clinger, the governor's budget director, and Russell Guindon, senior deputy fiscal analyst at the Legislative Counsel Bureau (which is cited in Rory Reid's budget plan), have confirmed to the Nevada Policy Research Institute that they project Nevada will collect more than $5 billion in taxes — and this assumes that the 2009 legislative session's temporary tax hikes will expire.

In the real world, $5 billion minus $6.4 billion equals a deficit of $1.4 billion. But government accounting is not quite in the real world.

Instead, government accounting works like this: $5 billion minus ($6.4 billion budget plus a $1.5 billion spending increase) equals a $2.9 billion deficit.

What? You didn't know Nevada's projected "$3 billion shortfall" is based on an assumed $1.5 billion — or 23 percent — spending increase over the current biennium? Well, you're not alone. Few do. And those who do, excluding NPRI, rarely say so publicly.

Tarkanian's mistake — assuming Nevada is only going to collect $3.5 billion in the next biennium — is easy to make, because Andrew Clinger, Nevada's budget director, has created that impression through a series of misleading and false statements. And the media — understandable, but incorrectly — has reported that number wide and far.

Although it's an easy mistake to make, it's still 100 percent false. It's also very politically powerful for Nevada's leftists.

I can't emphasize enough how important this $3 billion, 50 percent budget myth is to the narrative that Nevada's leftist legislators are using and will use to justify tax increases in 2011.

It'd be like having a debate over how good of a spouse you are and then discussing this question: "When did you stop beating your husband/wife?"

You can't win if you answer that question, because the false assumption is built into the question itself.

In a similar way, conservatives/libertarians can't win a budget/no-new-taxes debate if we're forced to assume a projected budget deficit that doesn't exist.

Remember, the $3 billion projected budget deficit is a myth, and before you discuss Nevada's budget or taxes, that fact needs to be made perfectly clear.

Right to economic freedom

Awesome: 'Waiting for Superman' scores big at the box office

For anyone not familiar with this movie, Patrick featured the trailer for "Waiting for Superman" in a post last week. "Superman" is a documentary about America's education system that *gasp* shows the failings of the current system and its impact on children, and shows how reformers can and are making a difference.

The movie opened in a limited release, and audiences have begun to eat it up.

“Waiting for ‘Superman,’” a new documentary about America’s education system, took flight in limited release over the weekend, grossing $141,000 in four theaters for one of the best per-screen averages ($35,250) of the year.

Directed by David Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for Al Gore’s 2006 climate change call-to-action documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Waiting for ‘Superman’” takes a critical look at failures in the public school system and their effects on American schoolchildren. The movie, produced by Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media and Philip Anschutz’s Walden Media, has gained considerable traction in the mass media, with Oprah Winfrey dedicating an entire show to the film.

Paramount, the distributor, is expanding the film's release to 10 cities this week, and the movie should be available nationwide in a few weeks.

It's currently scheduled to be released in the Las Vegas area on Oct. 22.

I, personally, can't wait to see it, and I hope you'll do the same. I'm looking forward to the movie putting a face on the education reforms we've written so much about.

Also worth reading: The Heritage Foundation's thoughts on "Waiting for Superman" and Obama's hypocrisy on education reform.

Are you coming? Steve Forbes speaking at NPRI dinner Thursday

The Nevada Policy Research Institute's 19th Anniversary Celebration is this Thursday, September 30, 2010.

Steve Forbes is going to be the keynote speaker, and it's going to be a rocking great time. If you aren't one of the several hundred people who've already registered, what are you waiting for?

More information here and tickets are available here. See you Thursday night.

Blast from the past: ‘Daily Show’ destroys Berkeley liberals protesting the Marines

This week's hilarious “Daily Show” segment destroying the UFCW of Nevada for its hypocrisy brought to mind another amazing “Daily Show” segment. In this one, the show takes on liberals in Berkeley protesting the Marine Corps. The segment's a couple of years old, but it's just as funny today as it was than.

Click the image to watch.

If high taxes solved budget problems, California would be golden

But high taxes only lead to more spending, which causes more budget problems like the ones California is facing right now.

Thursday [yesterday] marks the 85th day California has gone without a budget, shattering previous records with no deal in sight.

The estimated deficit is $19.14 billion. And closing that gap is a daunting challenge given deep divisions over cuts and taxes.

While reports are coming out today that a compromise might be in the works for early next week, California's budget problems are projected to continue for years to come.

In Nevada, leftist legislators blame our budget problems on our state's supposedly too-low tax burden. But what about California? While Nevada has only a sales tax (6.85 percent), California has an income tax (top rate: 10.55 percent), a corporate income tax (8.84 percent) and a sales tax (8.25 percent).

If high taxes prevented budget problems, California would be swimming in budgetary surpluses. Instead, it is delaying payment to its vendors.

The common thread between California and Nevada is that each increased its inflation-adjusted, per-capita spending by more than 29 percent over the last 15 years.

High taxes don't solve budget problems; they simply create bigger ones in the future — as both California and Nevada can attest to.

Capitalist Hollywood hates capitalism

To merit pay or not to merit pay

A new Vanderbilt University study on merit pay - the most rigorous ever conducted - shows that a merit-pay plan in Tennessee had no statistically significant impact on student achievement. That is the bad news. The good news is that it also produced none of the doom-and-gloom predictions that unions normally attach to the concept of merit pay.

Eric Hanushek (Stanford University) notes that the study did not examine the long-term effects of attracting higher-quality teachers to the profession via merit pay (they no longer have to wait 15 years to maximize their salary). We already know that the average teacher today is recruited from the bottom third of college graduates and that paying teachers more money doesn't attract better teachers (we just pay more money for the same talent pool), so maybe merit pay has the long-term potential to attract higher-quality teachers. At this point, we still don't know.

Dr. Matthew Ladner (vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute and a policy fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute) still supports the idea of merit pay (for reasons including those given by Eric Hanushek) and wonders why merit pay worked in Little Rock, Ark., but not in Tennessee. He thinks more research on the right way to do merit pay is still needed.

Dr. Jay P. Greene (University of Arkansas) claims to have always been skeptical of merit pay (and now is even more skeptical). He reasons that creating market forces (via merit pay) won't work when the teachers are still operating within an uncompetitive, government-controlled monopoly. According to Dr. Greene, the whole system needs to change.

Cartoon: Charlie Brown, Lucy, a football and fooling the public into accepting tax increases

I've been thinking a bit more about David McGrath Schwartz's article on the number of times liberal legislators and government bureaucrats have lied to Nevada's citizens about the impact of budget cuts (or a spending increase that's not as large as they wanted). Schwartz notes that Nevada's citizens have heard four rounds of overblown and inaccurate "dire predictions."

Hmmm, where have we seen this before?

To read the text, you might need to click on the picture to enlarge it.

This scenario is already happening. Don't be fooled again!

Don't quit your day job, Professor

"I know this 'cause mar-gin-al u-til-i-ty
Sheds pro-per light on e-con-o-my."

I am full of song this morning after having stumbled across some sheet music for songs that were written and sung by Professor von Mises and his inner circle of colleagues and students while he taught at the University of Vienna. The Mises Institute has published the sheet music for these songs in a new compilation.

The compilation includes such timely classics as "Downfall of the Business Cycle," "The Mises-Mayer Debate," and "The Scientist and the Methodologist." These riveting melodies and profound lyrics will greatly expand anyone's appreciation of economists who have elected not to put their viewpoints into verse!

Unions have lost the war of ideas

With the upcoming nationwide release of the education documentary "Waiting for Superman" by director Davis Guggenheim (Inconvient Truth) - which takes a critical look at the failure of American public education - Dr. Jay P. Greene (University of Arkansas) and Dr. Greg Forster (Kern Family Foundation) have announced that the unions have officially lost the war of ideas on education.

It is only a matter of time before the education unions (which influence more than just education) are replaced with professional service organizations that treat teachers like professional adults rather than cannon fodder.

Authoritarian denounces capitalism as 'undemocratic'

President Ahmadinejad of Iran blamed capitalism for global poverty and called it an undemocratic and unjust institution in front of the United Nations today. He, of course, is completly wrong.

Allegations of human-rights abuses, voter fraud and state suppression of protests in 2009 mar Ahmadinejad's credibility. But then again, he is president of Iran, a country ranked as "unfree" by the non-partisan Freedom House. Iran also suppresses the media (capitalism doesn't suppress the press), as citizens can only get government-approved news.

Iran does not have enough political or civil freedom to be considered a democracy. In fact, Iran's political rights and civil liberties are given the second-lowest score possible by Freedom House.

Oh, the irony is not missed on us.

Of course, capitalism has done more to reduce poverty than anything. Period. Capitalism has not only lifted billions out of abject poverty, it has produced the technological gains that now allow the world to host more than 6 billion humans.

Capitalism is also more democratic than democracy. Think about it. Democracy serves (at worst) 51 percent of the people, and it is never surprising when it pushes one-size-fits-all policies on voters. But what about capitalism? How many types of TV stations are there? Magazines? Computers? Books? Music? Cars? Clothes? Almost anything you want, you can get, even if you are in the minority.

Only an authoritarian (or someone who is out of touch with reality, which authoritarians usually are) would denounce capitalism as undemocratic and unjust while claiming it has done nothing to help the poor.

Green means free, Red means unfree. Guess which countries are most likely use capitalism as the primary engine of economic change, allow private property and support the rule of law?

The fall of Rizzo

Remember Robert Rizzo, the Bell, Calif., city manager who got himself 12-percent-a-year pay increases for nearly 20 years, allowing him to retire at an annual salary of nearly $800,000 (earning him a sizeable pension for the rest of his life)?

Apparently, that money wasn't enough. Rizzo, along with seven other city officials, has been arrested on corruption charges. Rizzo apparently made $1.9 million worth of loans to himself and paid himself an additional $4.3 million through the city's other contracts. Other city officials combined to pay themselves an additional $1.25 million.

Contrary to what you might hear in the media or from talking heads, working for the government does not magically make greed and corruption disappear from your system. Let me repeat that point in another way: Working for government does not convert you into an angel.

Watch this: Daily Show destroys UFCW of Nevada

The Daily Show did a hilarious segment last night exposing the hypocrisy of the United Food and Commercial Workers of Nevada.
What did the UFCW do? It hired non-union workers to protest Wal-Mart’s opposition to unions.

This segment is unbelievably funny -- especially watching the union spokesman being confronted with his own hypocrisy. Watch this and then pass it on.

Click the image to watch. Sorry I couldn't embed the clip, but trust me this is worth clicking to watch.

So funny to hear the union official being interviewed start defending hiring minimum-wage workers, because they're doing the best they can with limited resources. Sounds like this union official knows why we can't raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour.
 
Just another example of liberal hypocrisy.

Heads government wins, tails you lose

Obama's capital gains tax increase (which will rise up to 23.9 percent) will not be indexed to inflation. This means you may very well pay taxes while losing money.

Why "Warnings of drastic cuts fall on public's deaf ears"

Government officials are wondering why you don't believe their hyperbole.

An unintentionally hilarious bit of analysis from the Las Vegas Sun on why the public isn't responding to the doomsday predictions of public officials.

The state budget director asked departments to prepare scenarios describing 10 percent spending cuts. And the state agency heads delivered their reports Sept. 1.

The governor’s office won’t release the documents, but agency heads describe the cuts as “ugly.” Programs for the elderly and disabled will be eliminated. Hundreds of public employees will be laid off. About 3,000 prisoners will be released. School districts will go bankrupt.

But let’s admit: You don’t believe it.

After three years of budget-cutting and belt-tightening and predictions of pending bureaucratic catastrophes, the warnings have almost lost meaning.

Residents have heard the dire predictions before — at least four times during the state’s previous rounds of budget cuts — and the doomsayers were wrong.

Yep, David McGrath Schwartz, who wrote this piece, admits that government's been crying wolf and lying for the last three years about the impact of budget cuts — including all of those "we've cut to the bone" cries and, my all-time favorite bit of hyperbole, Jim Rogers threatening to blow his brains out if the NSHE budget cuts passed.

What's ironic is that while Schwartz details all of the reasons why Nevadans shouldn't trust government officials' doomsday predictions, he then appears to buy into a couple of government-approved reasons for why the public is skeptical — agencies haven't released their detailed budgets yet and that "agency heads, the governor's senior staff and legislators have avoided truly gruesome cuts." These reasons fall flat, however, because we've heard them before and, as Schwartz just detailed, they were lies.

Citizens aren't buying into government hyperbole for a variety of reasons. First, it's hyperbole. Second, these government officials and leftists are now known liars. Third, many Nevadans have had to make budget cuts of greater than 10 percent in their lives and businesses. Even the hyper-liberal Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada cut its budget by 20 percent when times got tough. It didn't kill PLAN, and it won't kill government. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, government officials and bureaucrats still aren't being honest with the public.

Consider this sidebar from Schwartz's analysis: "Nevada’s budget director has put the two year shortfall at $3 billion, and that’s after several rounds of cuts in a state government that’s among the nation’s leanest by almost any measure. More cuts undoubtedly will be part of any budget-balancing package."

This statement is misleading. Andrew Clinger, Nevada's budget director, has put the state's two-year shortfall at $3 billion, but what neither Clinger nor Schwartz mentions is that the "$3 billion shortfall" figure contains a $1.5 billion spending increase. Seriously. Read this article and look at Clinger's e-mail for yourself.

Also unreported is that Nevada's state and local government tax collections are above the national average. Because Nevada is so decentralized, the state has intentionally delegated a lot of responsibility and tax dollars to local governments.

Until Nevada's politicians and government bureaucrats start being honest about Nevada's budget situation, the public will and should remain highly skeptical.

Read more »

Nevada unemployment rate hits record high, insert joke about failed stimulus here

Just another reminder that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi stimulus was and is an epic failure, especially here in Nevada.

The construction sector, restaurants and professional firms all added jobs in the month, but declines in Census jobs and other public-sector cuts offset that hiring to push statewide unemployment to an all-time high of 14.4 percent, the state Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation said this morning. That's up from 14.3 percent in July and 12.5 percent in August 2009.

Thanks to seasonal hiring among resorts and other employers, joblessness in Clark County edged down to 14.7 percent, from a record 14.8 percent in August. Unemployment in Las Vegas came in at 13 percent in the same month a year ago.

I think one thing that's often overlooked in discussing the unemployment rate in Nevada is the role our state's ever-increasing minimum wage has had on increasing unemployment.

The employment department also emphasized the especially hard times younger workers are experiencing in the downturn. The jobless rate among workers 24 and under is nearly twice as high as overall unemployment.

Bill Anderson, the chief economist for Nevada's Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation, attributes the high unemployment rate to older workers crowding out younger ones. No doubt this is a factor for some, but Nevada's high minimum wage is also pricing many unskilled workers out of the job market.

There's abundant national research [on the minimum wage] all right, but even liberal researches (who support increasing it) admit that increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment. And teenagers are increasingly feeling the effects of this misguided policy.

Add even more bad news about unemployment in Nevada: Unemployment taxes on businesses are expected to increase by almost $1 billion.

License to describe

Yup, if you want to be a tour guide in Washington D.C. you need a license.

Happy Constitution Day!

Did you know/remember it was Constitution Day? Until yesterday, neither did I. Fortunately, the Heritage Foundation did and produced this terrific video.



Michelle Malkin has more.

The $3 billion deficit myth on the radio

Earlier this week, I wrote an article exposing the myth that Nevada is projected to have a $3 billion deficit. My main contention is that almost everything you've heard over the last six months about Nevada's projected budget deficit has been either wrong or seriously misconstrued to make the situation appear worse than it is.

If you're interested in this topic, I'm going to be on with Casey and Heather today at 10:15 am on 1280 AM KDOX to talk more about this issue. Be sure to tune in or listen live over the internet.

Muy bien Florida

Nevada should copy Florida's education reforms ASAP.

Budget cuts smudget cuts

CCSD's per pupil budget, 2004-11 (2010 dollars). Click on the graph to zoom in.

Since the Clark County School District (CCSD) educates three out of every four Nevada children and spends $3 out of every $4 on K-12 education in the Silver State, examining its budget provides a reliable estimate for the overall health of spending in Nevada. So how are we doing in this economic downturn?

Since the massive, 2003 tax hikes began funding K-12 education in 2004, CCSD's total budget has increased 9.2 percent per pupil. The operating budget has increased by 9.8 percent and salaries and benefits for employees have increased by 12.1 percent. From the end of one recession to the end of another, CCSD has more money per pupil, even after adjusting for inflation. Hardly tough sledding.

So even with the "massive budget cuts" Nevada's K-12 education has seen in the last two years, Clark County's per pupil spending is still higher today than it was from the 2000-01 through 2005-06 school years.

Yet all we've heard from media reports and pundits (almost daily) for the last two years is that education has been "cut to the bone."

Since the recession began at the end of 2007, CCSD's per pupil spending from the general operating fund (yes, even adjusted for inflation to 2010 dollars) has declined by a "massive" 1.01 percent.

Yup, a 1 percent budget reduction - right down to the bone.

But as I've stated numerous times, the operating budget ($6,900 per pupil) isn't the total budget (which is $11,900 per pupil). CCSD's total budget per pupil has declined by an "impressive" 3.3 percent.

So are the children really suffering with a 1 percent decline in the operating budget and a 3.3 percent decline in the total budget? Hardly. It's the policymakers and bureaucrats who are "suffering" because they have to make adult decisions on how to use scarce resources more effectively.

Jobs for adults

Inflation-adjusted salary and benefits per pupil at CCSD from 2004-11 (2010 dollars). Click on the graph to zoom in.

"Staffing hurt by budget cuts" writes the Las Vegas Sun. Yes, that is true, in part. But when you take a close look at tax dollars devoted to salaries and benefits for K-12 education in Nevada, you'll notice that salary and benefits outstrips inflation and student enrollment growth combined - even within the last couple of years.

2004 was the first full school year in which the 2003 tax increases (then the largest in state history) were available to fund education. (It is also the first year with detailed data available for the Clark County School District's detailed budgets.) Since 2004, CCSD's general operating funding per pupil (what they consider the day-to-day operating budget for the school district) increased by 9.8 percent.

Salaries and benefits (per pupil) for CCSD employees grew by 12.1 percent - more than the operating budget and total budget.

This isn't surprising. After all, in 1955 the Clark County School District employed one person for every 20 students; today it employs one person for every 8 students. We have more employees in education earning far larger salaries and benefits. But is this investment producing the results we need?

Maybe it is time we start thinking about the outcomes for children rather than how many jobs K-12 education can provide for adults.

FYI, if you think 2004 is an arbitrary figure to select, those figures are higher than the spending for 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, with 2000 being the low point in the last decade. And if you are worried about the recent budget cuts, these increases INCLUDE the budget cuts. In fact, per pupil spending devoted to salary and benefits hasn't gone down AT ALL since the recession started.

Is Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa a finalist to be CCSD Superintendent?

Last week NPRI's Karen Gray reported that during the super-secret search for the next Clark County School District Superintendent, Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa was suggested as a prospect.

Now the Dallas Business Journal is reporting that Hinojosa is leaving his job in Dallas and tomorrow will be announced as a finalist for the CCSD job.

Three Dallas business and community leaders on Wednesday said DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa is set to announce Thursday that he is leaving his post. Meanwhile, a Las Vegas TV station has reported that Hinojosa could be named a finalist for the head of the Clark County School District at a meeting there Thursday.

 I admittedly don't know anything about Hinojosa, but this doesn't sound good.

Hinojosa was hired as DISD superintendent in 2005. The Dallas district has roughly 160,000 students and 20,000 employees, with an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion. It has struggled with finance and student performance issues.

UNLV needs to get smaller says ... UNLV President Neal Smatresk

Remember this when the higher education scaremongers start pretending that the world will end if Nevada's universities get even a penny less of government money.

But [UNLV President Neal] Smatresk said it is very difficult for a university to compete with a community college and a state college for students when it charges two or three times as much.

A better model, he said, would be to shrink the university a little and improve upper division and graduate education so students will want to come to UNLV because of its quality.

Smatresk is on the right track here. There's no reason that UNLV should look like UNR or a community college or any other institute of higher education. It should set its own unique goals and be able to pursue them.

There are a couple of problems in current system: Nevada's universities have to send the tuition they collect to the state, which then returns a portion to the universities, and the state heavily subsidies each school.

If Nevada's universities were allowed to keep their own tuition, have more self-governance and were weaned off government subsidies, it would help them become more entrepreneurial and innovative. Ultimately both students and taxpayers would benefit.

And this isn't a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream either. The University of Michigan has done something similar over the past 35 years.

In 1965, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (U-M) received 70 percent of its funding in appropriations from the state of Michigan. By 2003, U-M had reduced its dependence on the state to just 10 percent of total revenue. At the same time, U-M remained a top 25 institution according to the University of Florida's Top American Research Universities and U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings. U-M also tops Wall Street rankings, becoming the first public university to have its credit rating raised to an Aa1 ranking and its bonds trading at Aaa levels. Today, Michigan's flagship university is considered "Silicon Valley East" and has become a model for other large, public research institutions.

Let the healing begin: Firefighter sick leave drops by 80%

Is an 80 percent drop in sick leave for Clark County firefighter battalion chiefs a miracle or evidence that Clark County firefighter battalion chiefs had been gaming the system to increase their pay? From the Las Vegas Sun:

Previously, the department always kept three battalion chiefs — only nine firefighters have reached that rank — on duty at all times. When one “batt chief” called in sick, the department called in another one to fill that spot. The battalion chief called in would receive either overtime or callback pay; callback is overtime plus a contribution to his or her retirement fund, and results from someone calling in sick within 12 hours of the start of his or her shift.

On May 26, the policy changed. Now, when a battalion chief calls in sick, the department operates with two, saving overtime or callback cost of summoning a third.

At the time, the Fire Department expected this policy to save about $150,000 annually.

To see if it was working, a 12-week period was compared with the same period in 2009.

Officials found sick-leave use fell 80 percent.

Commissioner Steve Sisolak, who has done a ton of good work on the firefighter compensation issue, thinks the answer is obvious.

“It’s clear people were taking sick leave who were not sick.”

And now we know a big reason why firefighter compensation is so expensive in Nevada.

It'll be interesting to see what impact, if any, these revelations have on the binding arbitration about to get underway between Clark County and its firefighters.

Parental choice popular

A new survey by William G. Howell, a professor at the University of Chicago and Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West both of Harvard University, find overwhelming public support for tuition-tax credit education scholarship programs to help parents afford private school tuition.

They write,

A number of states—Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, for example—provide tax credits for low-income families who send their children to private schools or to those who give to charities established for such purposes. Support for tax credits is much higher than for vouchers, especially if the question makes clear that credits may be used for school expenses at both public and private schools.

Today, 55 percent of Americans support the idea of tax-credits while only 20 percent oppose. The support continues to grow among African-Americans and Hispanic Americans. Allowing people and/or corporations to earn tax-credits for donations made to low-income student scholarship programs boosted the popularity further.

In other reform news, 47 percent of the American public opposes teacher tenure while just 25 percent support it. Additionally, 49 percent of the public supports merit-pay for teachers while just 25 percent oppose it. There was also strong public support for tougher standards and more testing.

Read the full article here.

Wrapping up the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group

The Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group held its final meeting on Friday. The NVSG's rough draft report was prepared by Moody's Analytics and adopted with minimal changes. (Our live blog of the meeting is here.)

NPRI has previously written about how the NVSG exists to provide political cover for politicians who want tax increases and about the numerous problems inherent in the NVSG.

Overall, I agree with Doug Busselman's (who was also one of the Stakeholders) take on the final report.

Also to be seen is what becomes of the goals, objectives and strategies that form the framework of the project. Some, rightfully in my opinion, are suspecting the report will form the basis for the pre-determined intentions of tax increases in the upcoming Nevada Legislature.

Actually, you could probably make a case for whatever you might want to make on the basis of various components and language contained in the report. Although it doesn’t fit the model of a 5, 10 or 20-year strategic plan it does offer a window into areas and concepts that the Vision Stakeholders agreed to identify as being important for Nevada’s future.

This report could have been a lot more explicit in its calls for increased government control in the economy and in personal areas of our lives. As it is, the report definitely has some significant problems, but, as Busselman notes, its language is somewhat vague.

No doubt some leftist legislators will try to use this report to justify raising taxes or regulations, but they should keep in mind the underlying assumption of the report:

Although not specifically spelled out, the “do no harm” idea fits into the underlying foundation of the finished product.

Chavez Care

"When the state has the final say on the economy, the political opposition needs the permission of the state to act, speak, and write. Economic control becomes political control." - F.A. Hayek


HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a threatening letter last week to a health insurance company claiming that the administration has "zero tolerance" for spreading "misinformation." The health insurance company in question claimed ObamaCare would cause a 9 percent increase in their insurance premiums.

They aren't alone. According to Cato Institute, the Rand Corporation estimated a 17 percent increase and Millman Inc estimated 10-30 percent increase.

As the Wall Street Journal stated, "“The Health and Human Services secretary…warned that ‘there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.’ Zero tolerance for expressing an opinion, or offering an explanation to policyholders? They’re more subtle than this in Caracas.”

The Cato Institute has a nice collection of reactions from across the country.

F.A Hayek has a refresher course on this very problem.

Live blogging the final (really) meeting of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group

Update: Report with minor changes is approved. Details (more than you would ever want to know follow)

So begins the final meeting of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group. (Important background: Four problems with the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group.)

Today the group is discussing and voting on its draft report.

9:08 Lang: Document is the start of a conversation. Provides baseline data.

Lang thinks Nevada will hold its self "accountable" using this report. Some elements of the report are "aspirations." This report gives Nevada its big, hairy, audacious goals.

This is exactly what's wrong with this group. The role of government isn't to create Big, hairy, audacious goals. (Note BHAGs are explained more fully in a great book called Built to Last.) Government's job is to protect natural rights (life, liberty, property) and on a more local level provide basic public services like police, fire, roads and education. Also it should pay for these services with an equally low tax and regulatory burden.

Since government only has money by taking it from other people, when government starts setting Big, hairy, audacious goals it -- by necessity -- has to take money or control from individuals to do so, which limits individuals natural rights.

That's the main objection to this entire process. Government is fundamentally different from businesses, individuals, educational institutions and non-profits. Businesses, individuals, educational institutions and non-profits should set Big, hairy, audacious goals. Government with its unique role (providing basic services and protecting natural rights) and its unlimited power to take its citizens money and regulate their lives should only do its job nothing more. 

9:12 Lang: Not written in stone, flexible. Needs lots of private sector involvement. Doesn't want to let this conversation end. This document can set priorities -- where to cut less.

Read more »

Oceguera calls for transparency reforms, including putting Nevada's checkbook online

Assembly Majority Leader John Oceguera (the presumed speaker if the D’s maintain control of the Assembly) called for a couple of important transparency reforms Wednesday.

In addition to the bill requiring a cooling off period, Oceguera said he and other legislators are preparing a bill to put the state of Nevada's checkbook online so citizens can see how every dollar is spent and another bill to require all candidates for public office to report all their contributions within 72 hours of receipt. Names of donors and the amounts they contributed would be required in the reports.

Hmmm, that first reform sounds familiar. From TransparentNevada's Candidate Survey:

Question #1: Do you support putting an itemized accounting of all state spending (a.k.a. Nevada's checkbook) online in a searchable format, as states such as Missouri and Texas have done?

How much of a common-sense reform is putting a government agency's checkbook online? The bill that put the federal checkbook online was sponsored by conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, then-Sen. Barack Obama and Obama's future presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain.

It's such a popular reform that, as I've detailed before, it doesn't get opposed publicly — it just never seems to happen. Right now the Department of Administration has the information available to create this site and the authorization from an executive order by Gov. Gibbons to create this site, but it's lacking about $250,000 to put the information online.

The good news is that if Oceguera is serious about enacting this reform (note Ralston's take),

Read more »

Obama stimulus doesn't work

Maybe government stimulus doesn't work because government doesn't know how to spend other people's money effectively. That is clearly evident from information revealed by Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

She states, "[t]he federal government has given far fewer stimulus dollars to states with high unemployment than it has to states with low unemployment."

Just take a look.

State/Unemployment Rate/Stimulus percapita

Nevada / 14.3 percent / $561.55
Michigan / 13.1 percent / $648.91
California / 12.3 percent / $546.34
Rhode Island / 11.9 percent / $164.83
Florida / 11.5 percent / $475.67

Vermont / 6.0 percent / $522.42
New Hampshire / 5.8 percent / $852.53
Nebraska / 4.7 percent / $591.17
South Dakota / 4.4 percent / $1,084.73
North Dakota / 3.6 percent / $1,059.95

"Does it make sense that the state with the highest unemployment rate, Nevada, is getting roughly half the per-capita amount of the state with the lowest, North Dakota?" she asks. No, it doesn't.

Even if government spending did make things better, couldn't they at least spend the money where it was needed most?

Rory Reid is not a racist

And neither is anyone else on the Clark County Commission.

Former Sen. Joe Neal, D-Las Vegas, says Reid and other commissioners acted "in a very racist manner" when they voted 5-2 against authorizing a proposal by Clark County judges to hire former Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, as a lobbyist. Reid spokesman Mike Trask called the racial remarks "disappointing."

Neal, who is black, says the vote against the deal for Arberry, who is black, shows Reid, the Democratic nominee for governor, isn't qualified for higher office.

Background story here. Ralston had a good take on how ridiculous Arberry's actions were, and Eric over at TransparentNevada has covered the story as well.

The politics of personal destruction, especially labeling someone a racist, are disgusting, no matter whom the accusation is directed at — although, as Saul Alinsky has noted, they are very effective. I know in the real world we all can't get along, but could we at least debate and disagree on the merits of ideas instead of making false accusations about individuals and groups?

Former Sen. Neal apparently doesn't think so. And neither do many in the national media.

JFK says cut the taxes

More on the Laffer Curve (contrary to opinions of both right-wing and left-wing pundits, the Laffer Curve is not a ramp)

Special education enrollment declines

Nationwide, enrollment in special education declined from 6.7 million in 2004-05 to 6.6 million students in 2007-08 (latest data available). Specific learning disabilities (SLD) - which is the largest but mildest form of special education - fell from 2.9 million to 2.6 million over that same period. Even the number of students classified with mental retardation fell slightly.

It is interesting to see this evidence (again) just after the Clark County School district requested legislation to boost funding for their special education programs.



But why are special-ed enrollments dropping?

Some, like professor Torgesen at Florida State, claim early intervention and improved reading education (like Reading First) are a cause for the decline in special education enrollment (some SLD children are classified as special-ed because previous teachers were ineffective, not because the student was born with an impairment).

Torgesen also suggest it may budgetary - special education costs about 1.6 times more than regular education - and other education programs like class-size reduction are squeezing funds available for special education.

Yet others, like Dr. Jay P. Greene at the University of Arkansas, argue that declining enrollment may also be the result of districts identifying fewer students as learning disabled to avoid paying private school tuitions (as required by Federal law if the public school cannot provide appropriate services). According to Greene, districts appear to have been labeling students SLD to acquire additional resources attached to special education. Greene found evidence that special education vouchers are correlated with a decline in students being labled SLD.

Also, Greene notes that students in private special education look considerably different than in public schools. Public school special-ed is dominated by speech/language disabilities and specific learning disabilities, while private school special-ed is dominated by students with autism, multiple disabilities and emotional disturbances.

Harry Reid admits green energy needs subsidies to survive

Windmills (supposedly a "clean energy") kill thousands of birds a year.

Harry Reid's green energy summit has gotten lots of press, so here's one takeaway that needs to be highlighted.

Green energy requires government subsidies, says ... Harry Reid.

During a roundtable discussion with energy executives, Reid encouraged bipartisanship on energy issues and said the government needs to create more incentives for company’s [sic] to become more sustainable.

Translation: Without government subsidies, so-called "clean" energy companies would go bankrupt. The "green" in green energy is really the millions of dollars of government subsidies and tax breaks that those companies need to survive.

The good news is that, given Harry Reid's track record of failing to bring home the bacon for Nevada, green energy companies that depend on government handouts to survive probably won't be getting as much as Reid promised.

Just another reason why government shouldn't pick the winners and losers in the economy.

August unemployment rate continues to show that the stimulus is an epic failure

In what's become a monthly refrain here at Write on Nevada it's time for another reminder that the stimulus was and is an epic failure — by the standard Obama, Reid and Pelosi set for themselves: the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate in August rose to 9.6 percent.

There's really nothing more to say except: One failed stimulus is enough.

This chart is originally from Innocent Bystanders in June 2010. I've added the last three data points myself, because I can't find a more updated chart on their site. Innocent Bystanders should get credit for the original chart and idea.

NPRI's comments on the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group's report

As promised earlier, the Nevada Policy Research Institute has just published its comments on the rough draft version of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group report.

Here's our press release:

NPRI analyst: ‘Stakeholder’ recommendations would lead to higher taxes, less freedom for Nevadans

LAS VEGAS — A fiscal policy analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute today criticized a newly released Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group draft report prepared by Moody's Analytics, saying that its recommendations would lead to a larger bureaucracy, higher taxes and more state control over the lives of Nevada citizens.

"Although the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group is trying to present itself as 'representing Nevada's diverse interests,' it is actually a group dominated by union officials, government bureaucrats and others who profit from government largesse," said Geoffrey Lawrence, the NPRI analyst. "Predictably, a group dominated by tax consumers and their facilitators produced a report based on the assumption that extensive government action is necessary to improve Nevadans' quality of life — and, of course, that government should determine what constitutes 'quality of life.'”

According to the timeline laid out by Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group legislative staffer Dave Ziegler, the stakeholders are supposed to review and vote on this draft's recommendations at the group’s final meeting on Sept. 10, 2010. Moody's is then scheduled to produce a final report, based on feedback and votes, by Sept. 15, 2010.

"As I first said months ago, the only purpose of this report is to provide political cover for politicians, led by Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, to call for tax increases during the 2011 Nevada Legislative Session," said Lawrence. "While Nevada’s politicians are no doubt salivating at the thought of a union- and bureaucrat-approved spending list, citizens should be holding onto their wallets. This report even goes so far as to suggest that some 'constitutional barriers' need removing — and previous Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group discussions suggest that those ‘barriers’ are the prohibition on a personal income tax and the two-thirds legislative requirement for tax increases."

While the report frequently refers to Nevada’s ‘favorable’ tax burden, Lawrence noted that it fails to mention that Nevada’s state and local tax collections actually rank above the median of the 50 states. Lawrence also critiqued the report for presuming that government officials are more capable of allocating economic resources than are individual entrepreneurs who risk their own capital. Specifically, he noted that a centerpiece of the report's economic-growth strategy involves subsidizing politically favored firms, as the report suggests the state should "[a]ttract growth industries by reviewing the state’s incentive system and improving upon its alreadyaccommodative regulatory environment."

"It’s not just our wallets that these busybodies have their eyes on,” said Lawrence. "Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group members want to pressure citizens to use 35 percent less water and to drive less, and they want to 'educate' us about the right foods to eat. Shamelessly, these people believe they can run our lives better than we can."

Lawrence also noted that the NVSG's proposed educational strategies amount simply to a rehash of union demands: more spending on programs, such as pre-kindergarten, that numerous studies have shown have no long-term positive impact on student performance.
"Over the past 50 years, Nevada has nearly tripled its inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending, and it now has the lowest graduation rate in the country,” said Lawrence. “Instead of embracing meaningful reforms that have worked elsewhere, this report includes recommendations that would cost a lot of money and empower the teacher unions, while doing nothing to provide a higher-quality education to Nevada’s children.”

The rough draft comes several months after Moody's submitted its first Preliminary Rough Draft report, which was roundly criticized by the public and the media for some of its proposals and was ridiculed by the stakeholders themselves for being poorly written and for failing to reflect their intentions.

The Nevada Legislature’s Interim Finance Committee is paying Moody's Analytics $100,000 to produce this report. Moody’s was also obligated, under a contract with the IFC, to produce a tax study, but the IFC cancelled the study in late July, claiming that Moody's had not fulfilled its contractual obligations. The IFC will therefore be left with only the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group’s spending wish list, and no accompanying tax study on how to pay for it.

"It's ironic that the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group claims that diversifying the economy is important in order to stabilize the 'flow of state and local government revenue,'" said Lawrence. "By putting government in control of economic development, all its recommendations would do is ensure that Nevadans pay higher taxes for less economic growth."

Read more:
Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group draft report prepared by Moody's Analytics:
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Interim/75th2009/Committee/Interim/NevadaVisionStakeholders/Other/EnvisioningNevadasFutureSept3.pdf

Just released: Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group preliminary report

As promised at the previous meeting of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group, the preliminary report has arrived from Moody's Analytics.

It's 92 pages long, so dig in. We at NPRI will be doing the same and will give you our comments shortly.

In case you don't remember the NVSG, the whole process has been a charade to give politicians, led by Sen. Steven Horsford, political cover to call for tax increases in 2011.

Here's some helpful background reading:

Four problems with the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group
Visions of tax increases
The stakeholder two-step
Puppetmasters on the throne
Nevada's future is at stake
A ‘vision' of extortion and control
IFC to hide behind unelected stakeholders
Nevadans deserve honesty from IFC

Also of note, as Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group Chairman Robert Lang emphasized at a previous meeting, he's from New York, not Virginia.

Yes Nevada, higher education is bloated

Click here to watch the video


While the Las Vegas Sun reports on how la la land higher education cannot sustain any further budget cuts, Jay P. Greene's new study on higher education administrative bloat is picked up by The Economist and Pajamas Media (PJTV).

In case you forget the study, NPRI covered Nevada's higher education administrative bloat problems here.

A refresher:

Total spending grew by 140 percent at UNLV and by 69 percent at UNR. Adjusting for student population growth, UNLV had 59 percent more dollars per pupil in 2007 than in 1993, while UNR's budget grew 21 percent per pupil.

Despite more resources, the universities became less productive, hiring more employees to provide an education for each student enrolled. At UNR the number of administrators per 100 students grew by 18 percent between 1993 and 2007 — twice as much as the number of instructors. At UNLV the number of administrators per 100 students grew by a staggering 90 percent, even though instructor staff was cut by 6.6 percent.

NPRI on Face to Face tonight

Be sure to tune into Face to Face hosted by Jon Ralston tonight.

NPRI's Andy Matthews is scheduled to be a guest on the program, and he'll be talking about the results of TransparentNevada's new transparency survey of candidates for Nevada's legislative and constitutional offices.

Face to Face airs at 6:30 p.m. on KSNV Channel 3 in Las Vegas, KRNV Channel 4 in Reno and KENV Channel 10 in Elko.

To see how candidates in your district responded, check out the questionnaire results here.

Read more »

Where Nevada candidates stand on transparency issues

Our sister site, TransparentNevada.com, has just released the results of a survey of candidates for Nevada's legislative and constitutional offices on the issue of government transparency.

The questionnaire contained six questions for candidates to answer, including "Do you support putting Nevada's checkbook online in a searchable format, as states such as Missouri and Texas have done?" and "Do you support applying Nevada's open-meeting law to the Legislature?"

More than 55 candidates responded to the survey, and you can view their responses right here.

TransparentNevada will continue to add responses to its website as they come in, so if a candidate in your district or that you know hasn't answered, ask him or her to answer these six questions. Citizens should know where candidates stand on transparency issues.

Also, here's NPRI's press release announcing the results.

Nevada ranked 18th for K-12 education

A new American Legislative Exchange Council report titled "Report Card on American Education" ranks states “A” through “F” on education reform laws and 1 through 50 on low-income student achievement. The report by the Goldwater Institute’s Dr. Matthew Ladner (who is also an NPRI policy fellow) along with Andrew LeFevre and Dan Lips ranks Nevada's performance 18th in the nation and gives the Silver State a “C” for education reform.

The ranking was based on reading and math scores for fourth- and eighth-grade low-income students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. By focusing on low-income student achievement the researchers create a better apples-to-apples comparison between states.
The good news is that Nevada beats all of its regional neighbors in educating low-income students. Nevada's ability to provide above-average education to low-income students is worthy of praise, but Nevada's middle- and high-income students don't perform much better, which drags Nevada’s overall achievement levels down.

Policies like identifying effective teachers, rewarding good teachers, alternative teacher certification and expanded school choice can all help improve the quality of education for all children in the Silver State.

Video: Union hires non-union workers to protest a company hiring non-union labor

It's not the first time, and it certainly won't be the last, but I just can't resist posting this video of the Mid-Atlantic Region of Carpenters union hiring non-union workers to protest a construction site that doesn't use union employees.

I love the smell of union hypocrisy in the morning.