Indiana

Private Parts

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Now that the wedding stuff is over and my new wife and I have started to settle into a routine, I can now get back to the business of paying closer attention to local government.

I’ve found most of the budget hearings to be pretty mundane and nothing out of the ordinary, with the exception of two areas; parks and the Capitol Improvement Board.   Both of these areas caught my attention because both are possible targets of privatization.

Now many of you know my thoughts on privatization, if a private company can provide the same service cheaper and/or more efficient than the government, then I frankly don’t have a problem with it.   The job of government is to provide services, not keep people employed in perpetuity.

However, I admit to being somewhat surprised at the votes in a recent Parks budget meeting by Democrats Bill Oliver, Vern Brown and Monroe Gray.   They voted against a measure that would transfer more than $600,000 in funds from the contractual services category to the personnel services category.    The money was originally put into contractual services so the parks department could bid out mowing and other services.  However Democrats and their  union supporters complained the Ballard administration was making a foregone conclusion that the city would outsource those services, even though the union employees could have formed their own organization and bid on the contract.

Councilor Susie Day proposed the amendment to transfer the money into personnel so that if there was no acceptable bidder no money would be moved.  The Democrats on the committee voted against that proposal, therefore voting against their own constituents, the union, and voting for privatization.

That struck me as rather odd, seeing how traditionally urban Democrats have opposed privatization efforts.  One would assume that they would have jumped at the chance of  taking a step to further ensure the protection of union jobs from private interests.

But then again, all my married friends have told me that things change once you tie the knot.  I just figured that adage would only apply to my personal life, not to Marion County politics.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on September 13, 2009 (boomark / email).