Making Government Private

by Max

There are all these ideas floating around to privatize government operations. Kasich in his Ohio state government campaign has argued to close the Department of Development and create a non-profit organization. Matt Dolan, newly Corporate controlled Plain Dealer endorsed candidate for County Executive, has proposed the same thing for the County Department of Development. I don't understand when this has worked. Was the regulation of deep water drills in the Gulf Coast better addressed by the private or public sector? Should food safety be left to the voluntary compliance by companies? Should we turn the care of abused children over to a non-profit? Has the care of mentally ill or homeless been better because a non-profit is running the programs? Wasn't there some controversy about a non-profit allowing 80 women sleep in a shelter with one shower? Would that happen if government were running the shelters? Didn't we have issues with the Red Cross running our blood supply?

Where is there an example in our society where a non-profit does a better job than a government entity? Aren't the members of the Corporate Party angry over the disaster left by Freddie and Fannie Mae and their private sector meddling in the housing market?

Isn't a non-profit less transparent than a government agency which must respond to open records requests? It is hard to get information out of non-profit, and they can ignore Ohio Public Records requests. They also pay their executive directors and senior managers a lot higher salaries than government agencies. Here are some other existing non-profits that handle multi-million dollar contracts and the salary figures of their CEO/ED. For comparison purposes Lisa Patt McDaniels, current director of the Department of Development, makes $85,574 per year. These are all 2008 salary figures, which is the most recent tax return that I could find for all of these, and the salary figure is total compensation to the director.

Community Housing Solutions Andy Nikifourous $110,139
Cleveland Housing Network Robert Curry $130,706
Center for Families and Children Sharon Sobol Jordan $278,645
Greater Cleveland Growth Assoc. Joseph Roman $451,241
Downtown Cleve Alliance Joseph Marinucci $249,900
Recovery Resources Rick Hill $255,213
United Way of Cleveland K. Michael Benz $264,323
Cleveland Natural History Museum Dr. Bruce Latimer $406,180
Cleveland Clinic Delos Cosgrove $1,913,817
Mental Health Services Steve Friedman $158,079
University Hospitals (Cleve) Farah Walters $876,176
Legal Aid Society Colleen Cotter $158,459
Boy Scouts of America (Cleve) Kendrick JP Miller $150,297
Hospice of the Western Reserve David Simpson $334,279

That does not seem to be a good use of public money to have all these executive directors making so much more than the current Development Director who is a public employee. Finally, it is very difficult when a non-profit messes up to regain the confidence of funders. A couple of years ago, one of the mental health agencies bought a home for the director's daughter in Cleveland and that non-profit disappeared. East Side Catholic and Alternative Agency both had issues more recently, and both went out of business. When a state director has issues, they fire the director and continue on. When Michael Dolan improperly gave lottery tickets to Highway Patrol for not giving him a ticket, they did not close down the lottery they just got rid of Dolan. When the County had child deaths of children in abusive households, they did not close down the Department of Children and Family Services, they just got rid of the director.

In a year that there is all this anger for anything associated with government, it is a good campaign slogan to close down government. But we need some rational thinking here. It does not save any money. It will not make government work better, and if there is trouble it cripples the agency for years. I am all for reforming government, but ending government is short sighted.