Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

How Are We Doing?

When Ed Koch was Mayor of New York, he was famous for stopping people on the street and asking them “How’m I doing?”

Very few mayors are interested in generating such face-to-face feedback; most, like Mayor Ballard, seem to resent efforts to grade their performance. And that raises a legitimate question: How do we citizens decide whether Indianapolis is being governed well or poorly? How do we decide that for any city?

Are all such evaluations hopelessly subjective and/or political?

Perhaps not. As Citiscope reported recently, the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization is trying to help. It has issued a new measurement standard for cities–a rubric to follow when collecting data. Cities that choose to participate will have a new, objective mechanism with which to compare themselves with peer cities around the globe.

Take a look at the 46 performance indicators that participating cities will need to track (or fudge), and then use to compare themselves to others.

Where are we doing well, and where are we falling short?

How are we doing?
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Let’s Talk Trash

No, not that kind.

Back in Hudnut Administration days, Indianapolis entered into an agreement that was ahead of its time: rather than sending trash and garbage to rapidly-filling and hard to site landfills, we’d use it to generate energy. The City has continued that arrangement ever since.

The problem is, that was then and now is now.

What was a forward-looking effort in the late 1970s is a dinosaur in 2014. In the intervening years, most of America has (grudgingly) recognized the importance of recycling and reuse. Evidently, as with so many other city functions, news of the changes in what constitutes “best practices” hasn’t reached the Mayor’s office. Instead, Ballard has just announced plans for a ten-year extension of its contract with Covanta, the company burning our trash.

The proposed contract would not require people to separate out recyclable items–the promise is that Covanta will handle that messy job by “sorting” at a new plant. As environmentalists have pointed out, the proposed facility is what is known as a “Dirty MRF” (Materials Recovery Facility). It’s called dirty because the quantity and quality of the recycled material is dramatically degraded in the process.

The proposed agreement would recycle a mere 23.5% of the material. Even Governor Pence–hardly an environmentalist–has called for a goal of 50%. Furthermore, the agreement excludes glass, one of the most “recyclable” materials there is. Covanta says there is no  market for it; experts say Indiana’s glass industry is desperate for it. Believe whom you will.

Dirty MRF’s are nearly extinct in the US. Clean ones–like the ones Republic and Ray’s operate locally–are proliferating.

Experts tell us that over 92% of what gets thrown away can be recycled or composted. But that requires a well-thought-out, free curbside recycling program, like those run by most other cities our size.

Doing things that made sense in the 1970s don’t always make sense 35+ years later, and “keeping on keeping on” isn’t public management.

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Don’t You Just Hate When That Happens?

I posted a couple of days ago about the first-ever EPA rules limiting carbon emissions, and the hysteria with which Indiana’s 19th-Century leaders greeted those rules.

Those leaders must have been really annoyed by a story in yesterday’s New York Times–that is, if they actually read the Times or other credible news sources.

The cries of protest have been fierce, warning that President Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gases from power plants will bring soaring electricity bills and even plunge the nation into blackouts. By the time the administration is finished, one prominent critic said, “millions of Americans will be freezing in the dark.”

Yet cuts on the scale Mr. Obama is calling for — a 30 percent reduction in emissions from the nation’s electricity industry by 2030 — have already been accomplished in parts of the country.

At least 10 states cut their emissions by that amount or more between 2005 and 2012, and several other states were well on their way, almost two decades before Mr. Obama’s clock for the nation runs out.

Worse still for the naysayers, the states that have already begun to clean up their acts haven’t suffered the dire consequences predicted by apologists for Big Coal. The New England region has made some of the biggest cuts in emissions, and residential electricity bills there have fallen 7 percent since 2005.  Meanwhile, economic growth in the region ran slightly ahead of the national average.

Oh, pesky evidence!

The Times also reported that Europe is considering a 43 percent cut in emissions by 2030.

So much for “we’re number one!”

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I Just Don’t Get This

A Congressional proposal that would have prevented businesses with a documented record of wage theft from getting government contracts was defeated in a party line vote  last week.

The amendment, proposed for the commerce, justice and science appropriations bill, failed by a vote of 196-211. Every Democrat who cast a vote supported it. Only 10 Republicans crossed the aisle to join them.

In a joint statement, Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said House Republicans voted “to continue wage theft.”

Think about that. All but ten Republicans voted to keep sending federal dollars to companies that have broken the law. Not just companies that have been accused, or are suspected…companies whose lawbreaking has been documented and confirmed.

I bet most of them are “law and order” politicians, too.

There is absolutely no excuse for this vote. Violating the law should disqualify companies from getting lucrative government contracts.

I know I ask this all the time, but really–What the hell is wrong with these people?

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There are Jobs and Then There are Jobs

I remember admonishing my then teenage sons that “any job is worthwhile.” But the summer jobs we were discussing were highly unlikely to be permanent.

Things are a bit different for the adult working poor in the Great State of Indiana.

When our Governor or Mayor announces that–thanks to his mighty economic development prowess–Indiana or Indianapolis will be the site of X new jobs, everyone applauds. The media dutifully reports that jobs are being created (or stolen from elsewhere). If the story mentions the average salaries those jobs will generate, it’s toward the end.

There’s a reason for that.

Derek Thomas (full disclosure, a former student of mine) is an analyst for and blogger with the Indiana Institute for Working Families. His most recent blog demonstrates why we need to pay attention to the quality of jobs, and not simply the quantity.

We reported last year that as of 2011, Indiana had a higher percent of jobs in occupations with poverty-level wages than all neighboring states, the Midwestern average and the U.S. average, and that job growth was largely concentrated in low-wage work. New analysis shows that among neighboring states, Kentucky took the 2012 title back by a slim margin. However, Indiana still holds the dubious distinction of having the largest percent growth in occupations with poverty-level wages over the past three years – nearly 12% from 2010 – 2012. Additionally, the percent of jobs in occupations with median annual pay less than twice the poverty threshold is up from 71% to 72.1% – of neighboring states, only Kentucky has more (slightly).

Translation: even when we get new jobs, they aren’t good jobs. The people who fill them aren’t going to fill Hoosier tax coffers, they aren’t going to have disposable income to spend in Hoosier stores, and some percentage of them will have to rely upon social welfare services funded by our tax dollars. (But they’ll have the “right” to work.)

Well, we were recently ranked as the 8th dumbest state.

Honest to goodness, Indiana…

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