Malpractice in Academic Governance

I have been a member of the governing boards of two state universities (Northern Illinois University and Christopher Newport University), and I have been appalled at what I have read about the mismanagement  of the shared governance process at Penn State University and the University of Virginia in recent months.

At the University of Virginia, the Board Chair (called the Rector in Virginia) was reported to have talked to other Board members about her displeasure with the University's President due to the President's failure to give priority attention to pursuing new technological developments in higher education, such as those being offered by other prestigious schools, including Stanford, Harvard and MIT. In a memo explaining her criticism of the President, the Rector stated: "The University of Virginia has no centralized approach to dealing with this potentially transformational development."
                  
The Rector of UVA then arranged a meeting with the President and one other Board member to inform the President that the Board intended to fire her at its next meeting. When the Board held its meeting, the Rector followed through and called for a vote to fire the President. When this news hit the campus and the state, it created a firestorm of protest. The loudest protests came from faculty, students and alumni, who were taken completely by surprise by the Board's action.

The protest reached Richmond, and even the Governor, who appoints the members of each state university governing board, threatened the UVA Board to quickly act to resolve the controversy, or he would replace all members of the Board. Within a few days, the Board met again and withdrew its dismissal of the University's President.

Now, this week, it is reported that the University of Virginia has agreed to join a consortium of universities started by an organization named Coursera, which is part of a new wave of massive open online courses, or MOOCs. The development of MOOCs is a new trend that has started among leading institutions of higher education.

           "Coursera launched last fall at Stanford, then expanded in April to Princeton, Penn and Michigan. MIT and Harvard responded the following month by re-launching MIT’s global online initiative as edX, with a $30 million investment from each school. Coursera struck back this week by adding 12 new schools to its consortium, including U-Va., Duke, Johns Hopkins and CalTech..... Seven of the top national universities (as measured by U.S. News) are now involved in the MOOC push, along with U-Va., Georgia Tech and the universities of Illinois and Washington among the top publics." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/u-va-leaders-appear-not-to-have-known-of-looming-online-deal/2012/07/17/gJQAYXR9qW_blog.html

Following this announcement (the subject of which is directly related to the Board Rector's complaint about the University President when the Board tried to fire the President just one month earlier), it is being speculated in the press that neither the President nor the Board knew last month that some members of the faculty and staff at the University were working on this potential agreement with Coursera. How could that be?

Apparently, the Rector was correct in noting that there is "no centralized approach" at the University for dealing with potential opportunities regarding technological developments in higher education. Otherwise, the President would have known about this possible development when the Rector told her she was going to be fired over this issue.

If the Rector did not tell the President why she was displeased with the President, there must be a basic problem of communication between the President and the Board. There should be on-going dialogue between the University President and key members of the governing board to assure a common understanding of the institution's priorities and future direction. The President and the Board Rector should be communicating on a regular basis to determine the issues to be discussed at Board meetings. All important issues regarding the future direction of the institution are commonly covered in the Board's public meetings at which all board members are present. If there is disagreement about the University's direction, there would be discussion of those issues at the Board meetings, where representatives of other affected constituencies at the University, such as the faculty, administration staff and students, can be in attendance. That is how shared governance in higher education is intended to work.

No governing board should act to fire its President without full discussions of the issues involved. If the need for a better way to seize technological opportunities had been discussed at UVA Board meetings, the President would have learned about the Coursea project in development in order to brief the Board about it. If the Board had problems with Coursea approach, that could have been discussed. It is also likely that the University's leaders would have come to a common understanding of the need for a "centralized approach" to addressing such opportunities.

Penn State has been faced with a much more serious matter and a much more egregious failure of proper oversight by both the governing board and the University's President.

The recent trial and conviction of Jerry Sandusky (a retired football coach at Penn State) on 45 counts of abusing underage boys over 15 years has been thoroughly reported in nationwide media. Even after his retirement from Penn State, it was reported by witnesses that Sandusky committed some of the acts in question at Penn State facilities where he was given continued access.

Campus safety must be a priority for every institution of higher education. The failure to report crimes on campus to appropriate authorities is not only required by federal law, but is critical to properly protect the safety of the students attending the school, as well as the employees of the institution.

The two governing boards on which I was a member gave continuing priority attention to campus safety. We would get regular reports from the Chiefs of the Campus Police forces. We would discuss potential risks on campus due to new developments, such as construction sites, new traffic patterns or new walking paths. We sought assurances that campus police were providing adequate coverage of the campus during normal days that school was in session and were prepared for special events when large crowds and heavier than usual traffic was expected.

In addition, the universities' lawyers were consulted by university staff on any new development of significance where the university risked potential liability if proper steps were not taken to assure compliance with the university's legal responsibilities.The lawyers would then inform the governing board about significant liability risks or pending legal issues about which the board should know in order to competently fulfill its oversight responsibilites.

Based on my quick review of the Special Investigative Report recently issued by former FBI Director Louis Freeh's firm into the actions of Penn State officials with regard to Jerry Sandusky, it appears that the University's administration officials whose areas of responsibility included the football program (two of whom will be tried shortly for failure to report certain Sandusky allegations to proper authorities) did not consult University counsel or risk management staff in 1998 when a boy's mother reported an incident in a Penn State shower involving her son and Sandusky to local police. As a result of the police investigation, the District Attorney considered whether to file criminal charges but decided there was not enough evidence of a crime at that time.

Nevertheless, the boy's mother reported the incident to Child Services, and child psychologists interviewed the boy involved, as well as one of his friends who was identified by the first boy as also having experienced Sandusky's special attention in the University shower. While various investigations of the mother's report were being undertaken by campus, local and state officials, one of the top school administrators had the campus police chief keeping him informed of the progress of the investigations. It appears that the main reason he wanted to stay informed was so that he could give reports on the inquiries' developments to the University President and Head Football Coach Joe Paterno.

Even though the District Attorney's office, the state Child Services office and local police all followed up with interviews of the boys involved and Sandusky himself, none of the University staff aware of those investigations appear to have taken those inquiries as a call to action to determine if Sandusky had engaged in similiar acts with other boys in the past or to assure that no such incidents would ever reoccur. In 1998, only the state child services caseworker and the campus police detective engaged in the investigation of the mother's allegation took the step of talking to Sandusky about his behavior and telling him to stop showering with young boys.

After Sandusky retired in 1999, he was given continued access to University facilities. In 2001, he was observed by an assistant football coach again engaging in inappropriate behavior with a young boy in Penn State's showers. The assistant coach reported the incident to Head Coach Paterno, who reported it to the same two officials who had been kept informed of the 1998 investigations. These two officials informed the President about the new Sandusky incident, and one of them consulted the University's outside counsel. Since the advice given by counsel at that time is subject to the attorney-client privilege and all parties involved declined to be interviewed by Freeh's investigators, it is not known what was discussed between the University administrator and the outside counsel in 2001. However, it appears that again no effective action was taken to determine the extent of Sandusky's inappropriate conduct and who his victims may have been or to assure reporting to appropriate authorities or to institute effective steps to prevent future misconduct that could harm other minors.

It also appears that the University's General Counsel was not informed about any of the incidents until she received notice that a Grand Jury would be convened in late 2010. Furthermore, no University officials notified the University Board of Trustees about the 1998 investigation nor the similar allegations reported in 2001. Since university general counsels are commonly involved in all governing board meetings, it appears that the decision to consult outside counsel in 2001 was made to avoid disclosing the Sandusky incidents to Penn State's General Counsel who could have assured disclosure to the governing board long before they first learned about the Sandusky issues in 2011 after a state Grand Jury was convened.

Rather than inform the University's Board about the 2001 incident, the Penn State staff informed the board of the charitable organization (Second Mile Club) for which Sandusky then worked. This Club provided mentoring services to young boys that included sports activities. This gave Sandusky continued opportunities to work with young boys and to take them to Penn State sports facilities for work-outs that ended in showers.

Not only did the University administrative staff most familiar with the Sandusky events fail to take action to inform outside authorities or the University's governing board, but neither did Penn State's President who was repeatedly informed of the various allegations. Beyond that, the Freeh investigation found that the Board of Trustees had no committee structure for receiving reports of potential liability risks to the University.

When the press reported that the University President, Coach Paterno and several members of the University's Athletic Department testified before the state's Grand Jury in March 2011, one of the Trustees who read the reports asked for more information about the investigation. The University President and General Counsel did not brief the Board about the Grand Jury investigation until the Board's next meeting in May 2011. The briefing given did not fully describe the nature of the allegations against Sandusky or cover the potential liability or public relations issues that could arise if indictments would be issued. Apparently, no member of the Board made sufficient inquiries to learn more about the allegations involved or how the University's administration had been responding to the issues involved.

Freeh's report concluded that, from March 2011 (when press reports disclosed the Grand Jury proceedings) to November 2011, the Board did not take any action to protect the University, such as engaging outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation or preparing the University for the consequences or reactions to possible Grand Jury action.

The first time the President informed anyone on the governing board about the allegations was in April 2011 when he informed the Board Chairman about the Grand Jury investigation prior to the Board meeting in May. If the Board Chairman knew the gravity of the allegations and the potential exposure to the University, he did not inform any others on the Board until it was learned that Sandusky and the two University administrators discussed above were about to be indicted. After the indictments were announced in early November, Penn State's President decided to more fully inform the whole Board about the nature of the charges by conference call.

Within a few days after the full Board learned about the indictments, the Board Chair stepped aside and turned over his duties to the Vice Chair. The Board decided to terminate the President, Head Coach Paterno and one of the staff members. The other staff member was put on administrative leave. The Board also decided to start the special investigation by Louis Freeh's firm.

The conclusions of the Freeh investigation spell out continuing failures by key Penn State officials and the University's Board to effectively oversee University activities to assure proper safeguards are in place to protect the institution against severe liability risks and/or criminal acts within the University's scope of responsibility. There was apparently no standard practice to have the Penn State Board routinely informed about major risks or potential liabilities. Without such information, the Board would not be able to make needed inquiries about the extent of risks reported. Furthermore, even after the Board first learned about the Grand Jury proceeding through the press (not University officials), it took no action to seek more information about what led the state to convene the Grand Jury and how the proceeding might affect Penn State and the community that depends on it.

The boards on which I was a member had committees that provided oversight of specified areas of responsibilty, such as finances, campus life and safety, student affairs and academic matters. At the committee meetings, we would have the responsible staff members report on university activities and developments about which the board should be kept informed. The committee structure allowed us to ask questions and make further inquiries into matters of concern. Committee chairmen would then report on their committee meetings to the full board at its regular meetings. I found nothing in the Freeh report that suggests that such oversight mechanisms were in place at Penn State.

The Freeh report on the failures of Penn State's governance systems and the inappropriate actions of its key officials for more than a decade is a disturbing description of mismanagement and governing board malpractice that is shocking for such a well-known high profile institution. The report can be found at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303740704577522603440183734.html#project%3DFREEHREPORT%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive

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 UPDATE: On July 23, 2012, the NCAA announced sanctions against the Penn State football program as a result of the Sandusky case. Among the sanctions are common sense actions that should have been taken by the University's senior management and its Board of Trustees over a decade ago. Specifically, the following NCAA requirements could have been implemented by the University, instead of hiding the embarrassing criminal conduct of one of the football program's former coaches who continued to enjoy access to the school's facilities:

           "Penn State and the NCAA agreed that the university will follow a number of conditions and requirements imposed by the association. Among those is that Penn State adopt all the recommendations in the Freeh Report. Among those are that the university:
                 —Hire an independent monitor of the athletic department who will report to the NCAA, the Big Ten Conference and the Penn State Board of Trustees quarterly on the school’s progress and make recommendations to help implement the terms of the agreement. The selection of the monitor will be done by the NCAA, in consultation with the Big Ten and the university
                 —Appoint a compliance officer and have him or her lead a council of faculty and senior administrators that will oversee ethical and legal matters.
                 —Create a hotline for anonymous questions or disclosure of issues regarding athletic department and NCAA issues.
                 —Provide yearly training on “issues of ethics, civility, standards of conduct and reporting of violations.”    http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ncaa-and-big-ten-sanctions-of-penn-state-announced-monday/2012/07/23/gJQA5Upb4W_story.html?tid=pm_sports_pop
Sphere: Related Content

Independence Day for All as Explained by Abraham Lincoln

On the 4th of July, Comedian Chris Rock stirred up the age old question of what Independence Day means to Blacks in America since most of their ancestors were slaves at the founding of our country. Chris Rock sent this tweet out on the 4th of July: "Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks."

In 1852, Frederick Douglass, a far more eloquent speaker than Chris Rock and a freed slave who actually experienced the horrors of that "peculiar institution", gave a speech to a white audience shortly after July 4th in which he said: "The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me."

Douglass, of course, made that statement while slavery still existed in America; not in the 21st Century when many Blacks like Chris Rock and others in business, entertainment, sports and other professions have become very successful in a more free and equitable country (in which the incumbent President is of African descent) than Frederick Douglass could have never imagined would ever exist from his vantage point in the mid-19th Century.

But before becoming President of the United States in 1861 with the hot winds of civil war starting to blow, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech that foretold how the aspirational values expressed in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 would lead America to become more free and equitable in generations yet to come: 

"They [the Founders] grasped not only the whole race of men, then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when, in the distant future, some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian Virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man hereafter would dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the Temple of Liberty was being built."
(Abraham Lincoln's Speech at Lewiston, Illinois on August 17, 1858 during debates with Senator Stephen Douglas)

Let us hope that such words of inspiration would find their way into our public discourse more often than the ill-advised tweets and Internet statements of celebrities and others that seem to dominate news cycles in our modern 21st Century society with its easy access to wide-spread dissemination of words expressed by anyone with a smart phone, laptop or tablet linked to the Internet.


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My thanks to an excellent Townhall.com article by Ken Blackwell, a contributing editor at Townhall.com, who is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and the American Civil Rights Union, for inspiring my thoughts and identifying the quotes above. Blackwell's article can be found at http://townhall.com/columnists/kenblackwell/2012/07/06/chris_rocks_tweet_beyond_the_pale. Sphere: Related Content

Liberals Preview HBO's "Game Change"

The liberal entertainment crowd mixed with liberal Washington elites last night in DC to preview the HBO movie "Game Change" that focuses on the McCain-Palin campaign of 2008. The Washington Post sent reporters to cover the event, and the Post story today included this observation:

"Why dramatize those events?

To help us make sense of the nonsensical? To merely amuse ourselves with the highlights of a heyday? To fashion a moral out of a morass?

'It allows us to ask questions that are profound to society,' said Strong, the screenwriter. 'Should celebrity and charisma be a deciding factor in choosing our leaders?'

The film’s answer is “no,” and this moral seemed well received by audience members, who, in unscientific exit polls, gave “Game Change” a thumbs-up." http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/game-change-premiere-lets-washington-insiders-relive-drama-of-election-2008/2012/03/08/gIQAvRtS1R_story.html

So the screenwriter apparently thought the key message to be shared with the HBO viewers is that "celebrity and charisma" should not be deciding factors in choosing our leaders. Then how does that explain the election of Barack Obama as President? What did he have to offer to voters in 2008 other than "celebrity and charisma"? He had no extensive list of accomplishments in his political life.

Obama had been a US Senator for only four years when he was elected to the Presidency and most of those four years were spent campaigning for President. It has been reported frequently that people in the crowds at Obama rallies have fainted from the aura of Obama's sterling charisma. He certainly gained a huge celebrity status as the darling of the liberal Democratic Party class and the mainstream media as the first African-American candidate to gain his party's nomination for President.

Beyond Obama's brief term as a US Senator, he had served in the Illinois legislature, worked as a law professor at the University of Chicago and gained experience as a community organizer. He had never been a manager or executive in charge of running anything other than his own legislative offices and political campaigns. So making a wild guess that most of those who attended the DC preview showing of "Game Change" last night voted for Obama in 2008, how could they agree with the screenwriter's moral that "celebrity and charisma" should not be "a deciding factor in choosing our leaders"?

If they were thinking of Sarah Palin's charisma in making such a conclusion about the movie, it should be pointed out to these Obama fans that Palin is in Alaska, not in a federal office. Sarah Palin and John McCain were not chosen to be our leaders. The candidate who won was the person who had nothing to offer but "charisma and celebrity".

We can only hope that this crowd will take the screenwriter's message to heart in this year's election and think about how well Obama's charisma and celebrity have improved our economy and uplifted the spirit of Americans who are unemployed, seeking jobs, fighting foreclosure of their homes, whose 401k accounts have been diminished and, although recently graduated from college, are still living in their parents' homes for lack of opportunity.

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Since writing the post above, I have now seen the HBO movie. The movie actually refers to both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama as having the attributes of charisma and celebrity. However, McCain's campaign manager is shown saying that there is an important difference between the two: while Sarah Palin cannot name a Supreme Court case (referring to her interview by Katie Couric), Barack Obama was actually a law professor. What is omitted from that phony comparison is that Obama was not running against Sarah Palin. He was running against John McCain, a war hero with three decades of experience in the US House and Senate.

So if the screenwriter's point is that, in electing our Presidents, charisma and celebrity should not be deciding factors, I would agree. Sphere: Related Content

The Democrat Walk-Out Trend

It seems that ever since Tea Party backed Republican candidates won Governorships and majority control of several state legislatures in the 2010 elections, the elected Democrats in those states, apparently not used to being the minority party, have responded by walking out on their duties as state officials to prevent action by the majority party officials and/or Republican Governors trying to reduce government spending.

The scene above shows the public union backed protesters who descended upon the Wisconsin state Capitol in early 2011 when newly elected Governor Scott Walker introduced legislation to gain control over union contracts and increase state union workers' contributions to their pensions. To try to prevent a vote on Walker's proposals, the Democratic Senators of Wisconsin fled the state so a quorum could not be convened to allow the Senate to vote on the legislation. After a month of protests and litigation by the unions, the budget bill finally became law.

Wisconsin was only the first such "Walk Out" to gain national attention. Since then Democrats in other states have followed the same tactic. Early this year, House Democrats in Indiana walked out. The House Democratic leader said "his members had been forced to boycott the first day of the new session to thwart a Republican effort to quickly ram the so-called right-to-work measure through the house.... Without the Democrats in attendance, the House does not have the quorum it needs to conduct business. Under the proposed law, employees at unionized private workplaces would not be required to pay union dues. Supporters say the move would attract jobs to Indiana. Critics call it union busting."

But this was not the first time Indiana Democrats fled the scene of their official duties. "Last year, House Democrats fled the state to neighboring Illinois to avoid voting on a similar right-to-work bill and other legislation they viewed as anti-labor and anti-public education. The bill died, and other bills were altered. The absentees were fined and a bill that raised the amount of money that could be collected from absent legislators was enacted." http://news.yahoo.com/walkout-indiana-democrats-stalls-anti-union-bill-005825947.html

The Indiana House Speaker said there would be no fines involved with this year's absences, but he criticized the Democrats for failing to do the jobs they were elected to do.

In Iowa, House Democrats walked out to protest proposed new gun laws under consideration early this year. "One bill would allow people to use deadly force to protect themselves and the other called for writing gun rights protections into the Iowa Constitution. The second measure would have to be approved by another legislative assembly next year and then be referred to voters." http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/iowa-house-approves-2iowa-house-approves-2-1367592.html The forty Iowa Democratic House members returned to carry out their elected duties after they decided that their action had made their point.

Now this tactic has taken a new twist in my home state of Virginia. Instead of walking out, the Democratic Senators in Virginia (who hold 20 seats in the state Senate, the same number as the Republicans) are simply voting "No" on the state budget bill which requires 21 votes to pass. One local newspaper called the Democrats' action a "tantrum" because the committee chairmanships were not shared between Republicans and Democrats. Instead Republican Lt. Governor Bill Bolling determined that he could cast tie-breaking votes on committee assignments under the state constitution. As a result, Republicans chair all Senate committees to the disgust of the Democrats. However, Bolling cannot vote on budget bills, which has given the Democrats a new weapon to demonstrate their disapproval over committee assignments.

The Virginia Senate Democrats objected to the budget bill because "it didn't include enough money for public schools. It didn't have enough for safety net programs. It didn't sufficiently buy down the cost of impending road tolls here and in Northern Virginia.

All are decent points that deserved to be heard. But not one of the 20 Democratic senators brought up those concerns or any others when the budget came up for a vote two hours earlier. Instead, Democrats sat silently and pressed a button to vote 'Nay.'" http://hamptonroads.com/2012/03/democrats-tantrum-over-states-budget

Of particular concern to me is that my own newly elected state Democratic Senator (for whom I did not vote) did not even show up to vote on the budget bill since she apparently knew that the fix was in to prevent 21 votes for the bill. Instead, State Senator Barbara Favola appeared on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on MSNBC to discuss the "Republican War on Women", as she described the bills regulating abortion in Virginia that have been under consideration.

Since Senator Favola's absence did not affect the outcome due to the Democrats' straight party line "Nay" vote, she said her television appearance served the "greater good". Favola was not the only Senator to miss the vote. Two other Democratic Senators failed to vote as well. Presumably they were also serving the "greater good" by attacking Republicans somewhere instead of performing the duties to which they were elected. Sphere: Related Content

Government Waste and Abuse

For the third consecutive year, the U.S. government posted an annual budget deficit in excess of $1 trillion for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2011. The shortfall totaled $1.3 trillion for fiscal 2011, up from $1.29 trillion in 2010 and became the second-highest deficit on record, according to Treasury Department data. The highest deficit ever was $1.42 trillion in 2009. Next week the White House will release its budget for next year which will show an even higher deficit for fiscal 2012 than in 2011, up from $1.3 trillion to $1.33 trillion.

Furthermore, as of January 31, 2012, the gross federal debt of the US government was $15.356 trillion. With the annual gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of 2011 at $15.087 trillion, the total public debt outstanding reached 101.8% of the country's entire GDP.

It would certainly be appropriate for our federal government leaders and workers to handle their responsibilities as public servants by prudently spending our taxpayers' money in a manner that would eliminate the continuing deficits. But after three years in a row of spending more than $1 trillion in excess of receipts (and a projection of a fourth consecutive year), it does not seem that they are even trying to be careful in how public funds are spent nor does it appear that there is much of an effort to find ways to cut expenses and reduce the mounting deficits.

Furthermore, they are not even paying their "fair share" of taxes to help increase the revenue side of the budget. As Vice President Joe Biden stated during the 2008 campaign, are government employees "doing their patriotic duty" by paying their taxes?

President Barack Obama has preached that all Americans should pay their fair share in taxes, but a government report finds that tens of thousands of federal employees -- from staffers in Congress to those in federal agencies and even Obama's executive office -- collectively owe the government billions in back taxes.

"Data from the Internal Revenue Service show that more than 279,000 federal employees and retirees owed $3.4 billion in back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2010. The data includes 467 employees of the House of Representatives, or about 4.2% of the workforce, who owed more than $8.5 million. In the Senate, 217 employees, or about 3% of the workforce, owed $2.13 million. Obama's staff was not immune, either, with 36 people in Obama's executive office of nearly 1,800 workers -- about 2% -- owing the government a total of $833,970 in back taxes." http://money.msn.com/tax-tips/post.aspx?post=ab789642-9f66-414f-8683-8dbc20504dc0

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In addition, members of Congress abuse the appropriations process when deciding where to spend public funds.

"Some members of Congress send tax dollars to companies, colleges and community groups where their spouses, children and parents work as salaried employees, lobbyists or board members, according to an examination of federal disclosure forms and local public records by The Washington Post.

A U.S. senator from South Dakota helped add millions to a Pentagon program his wife evaluated as a contract employee. A Washington congressman boosted the budget of an environmental group that his son ran as executive director. A Texas congresswoman guided millions to a university where her husband served as a vice president.

Those three members are among 16 who have taken actions that aided entities connected to their immediate families....

Members of Congress have more leeway than executive branch officials or individuals in publicly held companies, who operate under stricter conflict-of-interest rules that generally prevent them from taking actions that might benefit businesses or institutions where their relatives work. The legislators set and enforce their own rules, giving themselves broad latitude to take steps that can end up directly benefiting their immediate family." http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/capitol-assets-some-legislators-send-millions-to-groups-connected-to-their-relatives/2012/01/10/gIQAyrzdxQ_story.html?hpid=z4

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The tendency for government officials to misuse public funds is unfortunately not limited to federal government workers in the Washington, DC area. The Washington Post has also reported that about 60 former D.C. workers have cashed unemployment checks they were not entitled to.

Shortly after the first Washington Post story appeared "the District government suspended nearly 90 employees for receiving the payments. Another 40 former employees were also implicated. City officials estimate that $800,000 in benefits were doled out to working city employees since 2009." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-wire/post/dcps-bus-drivers-among-top-offenders-in-city-unemployment-fraud-nathan-says/2012/02/08/gIQAuMABzQ_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_buzz

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Even County government officials in states surrounding the DC area take advantage of their access to taxpayer funds. Documents obtained by The Washington Post show that 95 Fairfax County, Virginia workers returned to the Fairfax County payroll for at least part of last year or longer after participating in a retirement option that allows early pension payments to be deposited in interest paying accounts for three years before actual retirement. Several employees who took the option last year are eligible to earn more than $100,000 a year in salary as they continue working for the County.

"The [Fairfax County] Board of Supervisors has launched a broad review of retirement benefits as many state and local governments find themselves struggling to fund current needs and the promises made to former employees. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) wants to shift some state pension costs to counties; Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has asked state workers to contribute more to their retirements. In Fairfax, critics have argued that pension costs could become unsustainable." http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/for-some-fairfax-public-employees-retirement-means-collecting-a-nest-egg--and-returning-to-work/2012/01/25/gIQApShDvQ_story_1.html

We can, at least, be thankful that Virginia's Governor recognizes one logical solution to the pension cost liability that state and local governments face in the current slow economy. As noted above, Gov. McDonnell is actually asking the government workers themselves to help pay for their retirement benefits.

Contributing to your own benefits and carefully spending your organization's funds to avoid waste and excessive costs are practices that are common in the private sector because continuing deficit spending outside of government leads to bankruptcy or business failure. Unfortunately, governments have no such swords hanging over their operations since they think they can just raise taxes or keep selling bonds to China to fund continuing public operations and payrolls.

In the meantime, if government workers cannot be frugal and prudent in their use of the public's money, it would be nice if public workers would at least pay the taxes they owe and follow the law on unemployment benefits.
Sphere: Related Content

Keystone XL Pipeline and More Jobs Delayed Again

President Obama once again delayed approval of the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Clearly, this decision is based on giving more consideration to the objections of environmentalists than to the supporting arguments of the oil industry, which supplies much of the country's needed energy resources, provides jobs that are critical during a slow economy with high unemployment and, by importing oil from Canada, reduces US reliance on oil imports from countries not quite as friendly to US interests.

What are the environmentalists' concerns?

"There are a number of concerns. Extraction itself is very damaging. It rips up forest wilderness, hurts migratory birds, it causes much higher greenhouse gas emissions, and there are big problems from the huge toxic waste dams that they build. But in addition, when you build a pipeline to carry this more corrosive material, you also have a much higher risk of leaks. We don’t have adequate safety regulations to take care of it, especially when you have a pipeline over a water source like the Ogallala Aquifer, which serves over 2 million people in America’s heartland. You’re sort of asking for another disaster on the scale of the BP oil spill." Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, international program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council

The extraction concern addresses issues related to the place of extraction, which in this case is Canada, not the United States. The concern about the dangers of pipelines leaking and the lack of adequate regulation for such perceived dangers is contradicted by the wide range of federal government agencies involved in the pipeline review process.

The review process by the US State Department for the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which been taking place for more than three years, has involved input and analysis by numerous government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy, and the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which oversees pipeline safety. There have been over 100 meetings and hearings in six states and Washington, DC providing the opportunity for public comments.

Significantly, the US Department of Transportation's PHMSA has an Office of Pipeline Safety that was established as "the Federal safety authority for ensuring the safe, reliable, and environmentally sound operation of the Nation's pipeline transportation system". The country already has over 50,000 miles of crude oil pipelines that must comply with PHMSA requirements.

What does the US Office of Pipeline Safety think about the risks posed by pipeline transportation of liquid fuel? Here's the OPS statement on its website about pipeline safety in general:

"Pipelines are the safest and most cost-effective means to transport the extraordinary volumes of natural gas and hazardous liquid products that fuel our economy. To move the volume of even a modest pipeline, it would take a constant line of tanker trucks, about 750 per day, loading up and moving out every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The railroad-equivalent of this single pipeline would be a train of seventy-five 2,000-barrel tank rail cars everyday. These alternatives would require many times the people, clog the air with engine pollutants, be prohibitively expensive and -- with many more vehicles on roads and rails carrying hazardous materials -- unacceptably dangerous.

Relative to the volumes of products transported, pipelines are extremely safe when compared to other modes of energy transportation. Oil pipeline spills amount to about 1 gallon per million barrel-miles (Association of Oil Pipelines). One barrel, transported one mile, equals one barrel-mile, and there are 42 gallons in a barrel. In household terms, this is less than one teaspoon of oil spilled per thousand barrel-miles.

Pipelines also generally have a better safety record (deaths, injuries, fires/explosions) than other modes of oil transportation. For example, compared to the pipeline record, there are 87 times more oil transport truck-related deaths, 35 times more oil transport truck related fires/explosions, and twice as many oil transport truck-related injuries." http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.ebdc7a8a7e39f2e55cf2031050248a0c/?vgnextoid=2c6924cc45ea4110VgnVCM1000009ed07898RCRD&vgnextchannel=f7280665b91ac010VgnVCM1000008049a8c0RCRD&vgnextfmt=print

Of even more significance with regard to the Keystone XL project is what the US State Department concluded after its rigorous review of more than three years. Here's the conclusion made before the President delayed final approval:

"In consultation with PHMSA, [the Department of State] determined that incorporation of the Special Conditions [specified in the report from State] would result in a Project that would have a degree of safety greater than any typically constructed domestic oil pipeline system under current regulations and a degree of safety along the entire length of the pipeline system that would be similar to that required in high consequence areas as defined in the regulations." Executive Summary: Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Keystone XL Project, United States Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, August 26, 2011

So after the State Department made the conclusion above in August 2011 (following more than three years' analysis of the project by the government's many agencies with expertise and experience in pipeline safety), how can President Obama say on January 18, 2012 that the TransCanada request for approval of the Keystone XL project must be denied due to "the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans [that] prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment"? More than three years of careful study by all the appropriate experts in government is "rushed"?

The President's attempt to blame Republicans for rushing his agencies to make a hasty decision that could impact the health and safety of the American people is bogus. This decision was not made in the national interest. The Keystone XL project would have created more than 20,000 construction jobs and more than 118,000 spin-off jobs for local businesses along the route at a time when the economy is struggling.

This decision was purely and crassly made in Obama's political interest to satisfy the environmental "special interest groups" pictured above whose support he needs during his re-election campaign. Sphere: Related Content