WTHR has an interesting, if perhaps overly breathless, story about how the governor and his economic development corporation, now run by Mitch Roob, puffed up its record of attracting jobs. The short version is that they chalked up victories when companies announced intentions to locate or expand employment in Indiana but didn’t take them off the “success” list when the jobs failed to materialize. I can’t imagine the Daniels administration invented this technique, but it does remind me a little of how Enron booked profits when a deal was struck rather than waiting to see if the profits ever materialized.

Since its creation, IEDC boasts more than 100,000 new jobs on its success list, and when the agency and the governor talk about job numbers, the “Indiana Economic Successes” list is what they are talking about.

But 13 Investigates discovered many of the state’s “economic successes” aren’t really successes at all.

They are empty fields and deserted factories where the state claims there are supposed to be thousands of jobs.

More notable to me was that Mitch Roob still has a job in Indiana government. My memory might be failing me, and I can’t find anything after a quick search of my blog, but it seems like there was some unusually large compensation package for Mr. Roob, ostensibly because if he didn’t receive extra compensation, we’d lose him to the private sector.* In any case, he was a big part of the FSSA debacle involving welfare eligibility privatization and his former employer, ACS, along with IBM.

*A further search suggests maybe I’m thinking of a compensation package for Richard Rhoad who worked for FSSA.

This isn’t political or even Indiana related. But, my sister-in-law posted a blog entry demonstrating how rolling with the punches can lead to great things. A traffic jam thwarted her plans for running a race. She and a friend decided to go running anyway and enjoy the day. They ended up in the midst of another race and a good time ensued.

Three school districts are teaming up to challenge inequities they perceive in the school funding formula. Hamilton Southeastern, Franklin Township Schools, and Middlebury Schools say that it’s unfair to have their per-pupil funding cut while their districts are growing to cushion the blow to other school districts in the state with stagnant or shrinking school populations (but, presumably, fixed costs that remain more or less constant.)

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller (and Indiana Barrister’s Abdul) criticize the use of taxpayer dollars to bring (and defend) the suit.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller blasted the move, saying in a statement that tax money shouldn’t have to be used either to file the suit or defend the state against the allegations.

“In times of fiscal frugality, it seems wasteful for a school board to spend taxpayers’ money to pay for lawyers to sue the state — requiring me to use taxpayers’ money to go to court, where more taxpayers’ money will be spent to ask a judge to rule on what is essentially a public policy question for the legislature,” Zoeller said.

(First, am I the only one who is a little tired of people ‘blasting’ various things in news articles?)

This notion that units of government shouldn’t be able to use tax money to challenge taxing and fiscal policies that harm them is a little ridiculous. The translation is that they should just shut up and take it. And for Zoeller to double down on the argument complaining of the use of tax dollars to defend the suit is even sillier. Want to avoid spending tax dollars in this fashion? Give them what they want.

The truth is – and I tell my clients this – once you get the lawyers involved, everyone is probably going to lose (except, generally, the lawyers.) There are more efficient methods of dispute resolution. But, if the parties aren’t willing to resolve the dispute – because they think they’re absolutely right or the other side won’t compromise enough or whatever – then there has to be a method of dispute resolution aside from us beating each other over the head with rocks and clubs. Our legal system, for all its warts, is better (usually) than violence.

On the substance, do I think the Hamilton Southeastern lawsuit has merit? From what I’ve seen, not in particular. A constitutionally permissible system of education that is “general and uniform” and “wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all” probably doesn’t require any kind of per-pupil funding formula. After all, students are not equally expensive to educate.

The impact of the property tax debacle is drifting to ever more local levels. The history is long and cumbersome, and I’ve documented no small part of it here. But, now it’s starting to look like it’s going to mess with my kid’s education, so I’m starting to take it a little personally. Today, as reported by Meranda Watling in the Lafayette Journal & Courier, our school corporation announced a reduction in force of about 20%.

Several of those teachers — the youngest and the ones in specialty areas, including elementary art, music and physical education — will soon receive “reduction in force” letters stating that their jobs may no longer exist in TSC this fall. Those 150 teachers represent 20.5 percent of all TSC teaching staff.

That was the unanimous decision of the TSC school board. The vote came after the board tabled the decision earlier this month and then listened Monday to more than 90 minutes of discussion and questions, both from the audience and from board members.

The reduction is expected to help TSC close a $7.8 million budget gap in its general fund this year.
. . .
Heather Brooks, co-president of the teachers union, said after the meeting that she continues to be disappointed by the lack of openness on the part of TSC’s administration. It wasn’t until last week, she said, that TSC administrators formally asked for negotiations with the teachers. And it wasn’t until the board meeting Monday that she heard any dollar figures put to the teachers union’s alternative budget cut proposals.

I suspect we can look for the usual suspects to deflect criticism about school programs crumbling in the wake of questionable tax policy decisions with some version of “teacher’s unions are to blame.” It’s an evergreen, all purpose, floor wax/dessert topping issue.

For my kids, it means bigger class sizes, less preparation time for the teachers with the bigger classes, and less instruction in “non-core” subjects like art and music (but what role have art & music played in human civilization, really?) Which is too bad, because Cole has really been showing an aptitude for such things.

Update Specifics having to do with the proposed cuts are here (pdf).

Pretty much a universal rule of messes is that they flow downhill. That means, to a large extent, when the economy is in the tank, and government is tightening up, it falls to the township trustees office to provide poor relief to an increasing number of people. Dorothy Schneider, writing for the Journal & Courier, has a good article about the increased demands being placed on township trustees in Tippecanoe County, even as the legislature is considering eliminating that office.

The article provides a primer on how the poor relief system works:

Residents must file a written application upon first visiting the township office. Only under special conditions will poor relief assistance be granted without an in-person request being made at the office.

Applicants have to provide information about income and assets, use of other community resources, relatives capable of providing assistance, past or present employment, pending claims or medical conditions.

The township trustee is required to investigate the circumstances of the applicant and each member of the household.

If emergency assistance is granted, payments can be made to the applicant for clothing, food and household necessities.

In my experience, township trustees have a greater sense of what’s going on with poor relief applicants than governmental entities that are farther removed. Are there efficiencies to be had by centralizing government? Sure. But there are trade-offs. In particular, I think a poor relief system administered by, say, the State would result in either more denials of people who qualify for assistance or more approvals of people who don’t qualify (or both.) The ability to make case-by-case determinations will suffer.

A comment to the story captured something special about people’s attitude toward government:
“Get rid of the trustees, they hinder more than help. . . . I have tried to receive help from them before with no avail. Even with my health issues, they still turned me down. What a waste of local government.”

The person apparently wants less government in the form of elimination of the trustee who denied him or her assistance for whatever reason, and more government in the form of assistance to him or her personally.

An article by Curt Slyder in the Lafayette Journal & Courier reported on the release of a report by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It ranks community health at a county-by-county level:

The County Health Rankings show us that where we live matters to our health. The health of a community depends on many different factors – ranging from individual health behaviors, education and jobs, to quality of health care, to the environment. This first-of-its-kind collection of 50 reports – one per state – helps community leaders see that where we live, learn, work, and play influences how healthy we are and how long we live. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is collaborating with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute to develop these Rankings for each state’s counties. This model has been used to rank the health of counties in Wisconsin for the past six years.

The main website for the project is here and the Indiana-specific results are here.

Hamilton County is ranked #1, Tippecanoe County is #12, Scott County appears to be #92. Some of the information provided, using my own Tippecanoe County:
Mortality (18); Morbidity (17); Health Behaviors (7); Clinical (75); Social & Economic Factors (14); and Physical Environment (49).

Tippecanoe County really goes off the rails in terms of uninsured adults – 23% versus 14% statewide – but the speculation is that this is significantly influenced by the presence of Purdue and a number of uninsured, but generally healthy, young adults.

Looking at Perry County (just because I like the doctors there), Mortality (74); Morbidity (91); Health Behaviors (43); Clinical (51); Social & Economic Factors (47); and Physical Environment (90). Air pollution and low access to health foods seem to be a real problem in Perry County.

Could be some useful information in there for local policy makers who can maybe look at what is going right in other counties with similar resources and try to take notes.

Sylvia Smith has an article for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette on state party chairman Dan Parker’s search for a “moderate” to step in now that Bayh is quitting. What really caught my eye was the notion that “moderate” means “more likely to break with the Democrats and vote with Republicans in party-line votes” and “siding frequently with the GOP.”

So, by that definition, would it be accurate to state that there are no moderate Republican Senators? Including our own Sen. Lugar? Or are the standards different depending which party you’re in? Because my sense was that Sen. Lugar had a reputation of “moderation” because he simply talked about it before voting with his party to filibuster legislation to make sure it never even got to a vote. Or were there occasions in the past year when he, or any Republican Senator, voted with the Democrats on a party line vote?

My complaint is not about working to find common ground but about the Bayh/Broder/Village style of “moderation.” It’s bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake and only seems to matter when there is a Democratic President.

You look at the Indiana General Assembly, and you see plenty of votes where you have a mix of parties in the roll call. Working together without regard for party affiliation is even more prevalent at the local level. I have absolutely no problem with that. In fact, I like it. There is some give and take based on regional preferences, personal beliefs, or any other number of variables aside from party affiliation. This strictly tribal “my team” versus “your team” in the U.S. Senate is unhealthy. But, if you’re compromising in good faith and the other side is not, you are always going to lose. It’s basic Prisoner’s Dilemma type stuff. And that’s what has been so frustrating about Bayh – that he has been willing to defect from his party even without evidence that members of the Senate G.O.P. were also willing to bargain in good faith and weren’t just going to filibuster at the drop of a hat.

Earlier, I posted, and have now deleted a post about former Sen. Katie Wolf based on my misreading of an e-mail. She is still very much alive. Her husband Charlie, however, has passed away.

Here is the information for him:

Visitation will be on Wednesday, February 17th from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Springer Voorhis Draper Funeral Home (574-583-5777), 202 S. Illinois Street in Monticello, Indiana. There will also be a one
hour visitation before the memorial service on Thursday, February
18th from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. at St. James Lutheran Church, 110 N.
Kenton Street in Reynolds with the memorial service beginning at
11:00 a.m.

Memorial Contributions can be made to the Monticello Kiwanis Club
earmarked for Riley Children’s Hospital or to St. James Lutheran
Church in Reynolds.

My apologies for the first post and condolences to Sen. Wolf for her loss.

Didn’t see this coming. Evan Bayh won’t run for re-election.

In prepared remarks, Bayh, 54, cited excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision.
. . .
“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned,” he said.

Thanks for the fair warning. I wonder what this does for the state Democrats’ ability to get a replacement candidate up and running. It will also be interesting to see if he cashes in with some big lobbying money.

Update A couple of thoughts – 1) What is the process for getting a candidate on the general election ballot if no one makes the primary? Nomination at the State Convention? If the state party machinery controls the general election candidate, I’d think that would increase the chances of Evan Bayh attempting to select his own successor. At the moment, it looks like there is a Tamyra d’Ippolito who is at least trying to gather signatures. I believe February 19, 2010 is the deadline.

2) I don’t know if he could win a state wide general election or if he’s even interested, but I’d certainly be content with Joe Kernan as a Senator.