Transparency in Campaign Financing: The Windows Need a Lot of Cleaning

CampaignDisclosure.Org just released their 2008 rankings for nationwide state campaign financing disclosure. If you are not familiar with this group, take some time to visit their website at http://www.campaigndisclosure.org/.

Their purpose is to "bring greater transparency and accountability to money in state politics" and they give each state a grade for overall performance in four categories: campaign disclosure laws, electronic filing programs, public access to campaign finance data, and disclosure web site usability.

If you look at the rankings, 10 states failed the test (literally received an "F"), and 40 states are considered to have passed. Utah comes in at the bottom of the passing states with a solid D-. The good news is, that's an improvement over the F's we've received in the past.

Improvements, But Come On...

The Deseret News covered the release of this report (http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,70025960.00.html) and gives a view of both the problems we still have with campaign finance transparency as well as the progress being made toward electronic filing requirements for candidates and a user-friendly database for the public.

Believe me, I'm all for appreciating improvement and success along the way, but please, a D-??? The grade Utah recieved is not just an indictment of the process and tools involved; I believe it is a clear indictment of our campaign financing laws, or relative lack thereof. In a state that talks a lot about values, morals, and ethics, our campaign financing laws (and the resulting questionable campaign financing ethics?) are some of the worst in the nation...almost to the point of being egregiously non-existent.

We Notice, We Care, We Want Reform!

In a January, 2007 report, KSL revealed that "an exclusive poll by Survey USA for Eyewitness News asked Utahns to ascribe a level of importance, on a scale of one to ten, of certain issues. Nearly a third gave campaign finance reform an 8, 9, or 10, ranking it as very important. Those in favor of campaign finance reform say special interests have too much influence, while those opposed say access to public officials should not be unfairly restricted." (http://www.ksl.com/?sid=847824&nid=148).

Just yesterday, a coalition of concerned groups launched an official campaign regarding government ethics reform. They are calling on the legislature to do its own house cleaning by addressing this very issue. Too many legislators, and the special interest groups who court them, are benefitting far too much from the current state of affairs. See the story at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4288838, and take a look at the pledge to address reform that UTPS is asking legislators and legislative candidates to sign at http://www.utahnsforpublicschools.org/policycenter/good-government.php.

It's an age-old political dilemma: how does the common man compete with money and power? How do we hold our elected officials accountable for things we cannot see, track, and evaluate? I'm on the side of the little people who simply ask for honest disclosure and representation. We need to do some house cleaning, window cleaning, a good old scrub down from top to bottom. Transparency and ethics in government is achievable and we cannot let Utah fail this test year after year!

Special-needs students, teachers and taxpayers get the shaft

Many people were recently affected by the closure of Woodland Hills (Utah Southvalley Community School at Woodland Hills or USC as they've been known for just over a year), but few were surprised. That's because payroll checks began to bounce earlier in the summer and teachers contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune reported that USC "churned through at least 50 employees." That's a big number and I thought that it must be an exaggeration until I read the fifty plus angry comments appended to The Tribune article. Now I'm beginning to understand the truth of the matter.

There are a lot of losers in this closure (the biggest loser being Bob Jones), but more importantly the special-needs students that counted on a place to learn and the teachers who really cared about the students and stuck around despite all the telltale signs that the school was going under. That being said, the emphasis that I'm obviously taking on the Bob Jones scam is concerning the taxpayers. It's a position we can all relate to because all of us are taxpayers.

USC would have received public funding in the form of tuition tax credits this year but besides having closed, they also failed to file their application by the May 1 deadline. The program that gives public money to private schools is called the Special Need Carson Smith Scholarship and the school had participated in years past. In fact, the school received $160,477 last year, the third-largest amount of the 40 plus participating schools.

Funding for the program began in 2005 when it was signed into law by Governor Huntsman and further expanded in 2006. There is very little accountability for receiving such a large amount of our money. There are only 15 provisions for a school to adhere to during the application process and 11 of them are preceded by the following statement.

"No documentation is required in the application relative to this provision."

The 15th provision simply recaps the documentation that is needed which is simply 1) a Tuition and Fee Schedule, 2) a copy of the most recent Public Health Inspection Report, 3) a copy of the most recent State Fire Marshall Inspection Report and if the school stores, prepares or serves meals to students, 4) a copy of a current and satisfactory Safety and Sanitation Report from the Department of Health. So little accountability! No need to report where the money is spent and on whom? Do we have any idea of the money that USC received was spent on the students, or did they just plan to use it to fund a trip to Japan for the football team? I wonder how many special-needs students were planning on going?

I must make mention again of the huge loss for these students and their families. It is very difficult to find good places for these students where their needs will be met, however, many of them have now come back to public schools where their Special Education needs, by law, must be provided. Public schools try very hard to meet those needs despite funding shortfalls and burdensome federal regulations. In a private school parents are not provided any guarantees that the school will meet the Special Education needs of their child. The federal laws do not apply and parents take a chance when they put their special-needs children in private schools.

Ironically, the only thing left of the USC school website is a notice demanding that lunch balances are paid and equipment returned and a picture of the guy responsible for the demise of the school. Can we demand that our public funds be returned or will the program be expanded yet again in 2008?

School Funding, Class Size, and the Earth's Rotational Velocity

Ah, money. It makes the world go ‘round. Or, at least it keeps it from winding down and coming to a screeching halt, especially if you view it through the organizational behavior lens of Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory. But, what does this have to do with school funding and class size, you ask? Well, potentially a lot if you take a look at how this theory addresses job satisfaction and motivation, and apply it to the ongoing challenges our Utah teachers face each year.

What Does Hygiene Have to do with Motivation?

If you are new to Herzberg, let me give you a quick primer on his work. Frederick Herzberg, a well-respected psychologist who eventually graced the halls of our own U of U as a professor of management, is known for his widely-applied Motivation-Hygiene Theory. In business and academic circles, his theory has the reputation for being able to nicely account for two aspects of motivation: satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For the purpose of looking at school funding and class size, I'll focus in this post on dissatisfaction.

Dissatisfaction is primarily the result of hygiene factors, which are sometimes also referred to as "maintenance" factors. Either way, these elements are simply the basic building blocks of an acceptable working condition. These particular factors have little effect on long-term satisfaction—they merely prevent dissatisfaction. The point is, Herzberg found that these factors must be met and sustained in a work environment before an employee can move on to real levels of work satisfaction, enjoyment, and performance.

Keeping Dissatisfaction at Bay or Sway

According to Herzberg and the results of his well-documented research, here are the factors that, if missing or inadequate, can lead to job dissatisfaction:

Pay and Benefits
Company Policy and Administration
Relationships with Co-workers
Physical Environment
Supervision
Status
Job Security

With regard to education, this list begs the very questions we ask ourselves during each legislative session. Even if we focus on just education funding and class size, this theory suggests imperative questions for which I want better legislative answers.

Last.....and First: Funding and Class Size

Over the past several years, I've been watching for legislative changes that will have real impact on local school funding and class size challenges. I'm still watching....and waiting. While appropriations for education have increased somewhat, Utah is still dead last in the nation for per pupil funding. Let me repeat that. We spend less on each of our students than every other state in the nation. In the 2006 fiscal year, Utah spent $5,437 per student. The highest-ranked state, New York, spent $14,884 per student, and the national average was $9,138. Even if we overlook the highest-ranking state, we are still only spending 60% of the national average on our students. To put it another way, we are not even close to the second-to-last state, Idaho, which spends $6,440 per student...a $1000 gap. In short, we are way behind.

To be fair, after nearly ten years of education funding decline, "the Legislature has increased state funding effort for public education in the most recent two state budgets", according to the Utah Foundation. It's the relative size of those increases that I wonder about...and the lingering, and sometimes widening, gap between Utah's education funding compared with the rest of the nation.

Now let's juxtaposition our per pupil spending numbers against Utah's class size. We have, as you might have guessed, the largest class sizes in the nation. Our student-to-teacher ratio is 22.6 which adds up to about seven more students per teacher than the national average. Not only at an intuitive level would this appear to be a problem, but most education experts agree that larger class size does directly translate into many challenges—both for the students and the teachers. Challenges ranging from lack of focus and on-task work, discipline problems, and only reaching superficial levels of instruction are routinely observed in larger class sizes.

Now, Back to Hygiene

Bringing us back full circle to the rotational velocity of the earth and Herzberg's hygiene factors, let's take a look at the theory again armed with the numbers above. Does money really make the world go 'round? It sure does help.

When we consider what it takes to attract and retain the best teachers, Herzberg's model is eye-opening. While it seems to state the obvious, it emphasizes that offering the basic building blocks of an acceptable work environment is only a starting point. With regard to education, I can see at least three factors on the list that are impacted by low funding and large class sizes: Pay/Benefits, Work Environment, and Status (and perhaps Company Policy and Administration). That's nearly half of the list and the odds of dissatisfaction, I think, speak for itself. In fact, years of real-world observation and motivation research indicates that all of the hygiene factors must continually be met in order to prevent dissatisfaction.

In my experience, Utahns collectively speak about education with fervent support and generally agree that education is one of the state's highest-held values. However, my experience also says "follow the money" to find the real, rather than stated, values. We see values translated into public policy every year and for a state that claims to value education, the policy...and the money...is lagging behind. Let's do what it takes to retain the best teachers by meeting their basic needs, supporting them with policy, and then allowing them to teach with passion.

Kudos to legislators who have supported increased appropriations for public education....let's just see more of it.

Florida School Voucher Update - Amendment 9 thrown out!

Good news for residents of Florida today! The Florida Supreme Court threw out amendment 9, which combined a private school voucher program with Patrick Byrn's so-called "65% Solution" proposal. The intent of the amendment was to reverse the Florida Supreme Court decision that threw out a private school voucher proposal as unconstitutional.

Even though this amendment has been defeated for now, have no doubt that Patrick Byrne will be pushing his agenda somewhere soon again. Maybe even in Florida since this isn't the first time he has peddled his ideas there. I found a 2006 article from TampaBay.com that documents his previous try and gives precious insight into his tactics and flawed point-of-view. The article starts out, "The 43-year-old man behind the education spending plan storming the nation is crashed out on a couch in the Florida Capitol," and continues with the following highlights.

"I don't think [the 65 percent plan] really had any legs to start out with," said Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, who thinks the plan is dead in the upper chamber.

But with the most important 21/2 weeks remaining in the legislative session, it's too early to predict exactly how it will play out.

Byrne admits little knowledge of Florida politics. His entry into the state's education debate started a year and a half ago in his Salt Lake City apartment.

A mutual friend introduced Byrne to Tim Mooney, an Arizona Republican political consultant. For about a year, Mooney had been laying the groundwork for the 65 percent campaign.

Byrne is surprised at how quickly it's taken off. "I never had any idea politics was so easy," he said.

You'd think he'd be back on that couch, crashed out and full of humble pie, but I'm not done keeping an eye on him, just in case he has a hollow leg. Afterall, let's not forget what Byrne said after the sound defeat of vouchers in Utah. He said he was going to push vouchers "on African-American churches in South Carolina". He WILL take these ideas anywhere and everywhere he thinks he can sell them.

Patrick Byrne Sightings: What is he up to now?

I hesitate to write about Patrick Byrne anymore. For those who know him you understand what I mean. These days I get him confused with Super Dell; he embarrasses himself every time he opens his mouth. But, it's for those who don't know the name "Byrne" and what he's been trying to do for the last several years that I write. First a brief reminder.

Avid readers of Accountability will remember Patrick Byrne's involvement in last year's voucher campaign. He donated nearly $4 million to PCE (Parent's for Choice in Education) in hopes that a law allowing public funding of private schools would not be overturned by a Referendum. When the voices of the people were heard and the law was stricken, he insulted Utahns and worsened his already-poisonous reputation by making awful statements about high school dropouts (they should be "burned"), about Utah voters (they "failed the state IQ test"), about Utah parents (they "don't care enough about their children" ) and about the people debating him (they are "bigots"). The contempt he showed for his fellow Utahns on live television on Election Night illustrated why people say what they say about him. And now, allow me to say a bit more about him.

In March, 2005 Byrne co-founded an organization called First Class Education. The new group's goal was to enact laws in all 50 States that would mandate 65% of all funds be spent "in the classroom." The idea received a lot of criticism because of its arbitrariness:

• Why choose 65%? Why not 60%? Why not 80%? There's no evidence that spending any particular percentage on instructional expenses actually improves education.


• Why do some expenses, like football uniforms, count as classroom or "instructional" expenses, while others, such as school libraries and the cost of bussing students to the school, do not?

For all the silliness of the proposal and its unfounded claims, it actually caught on in some areas. I'm sure this was partly because of the simplicity of the idea and partly because of the money that Byrne was injecting into the campaign in the form of commercials and propaganda starting in 10 States. Texas and Georgia fell for it, unfortunately, and both states report that it is too early to assess their programs. Other states have grasped onto the idea but made it a goal, not a requirement.

A look at the First Class Education website suggests that the 65% "solution" has lost steam. There are only three "active" states with their own webpages (Colorado, Oklahoma and Missouri). Colorado voters defeated a 65 percent proposal in 2006 , the same year sponsors abandoned petition drives in Arizona, Oregon and Washington state. The Oklahoma Supreme Court threw a 65 percent proposal off the ballot in 2007, about the same time that private school vouchers were being defeated in Utah. Maybe it's time for them to shut down the site, you say? I would think so, too, but there's a new development. Byrne's 65% plan has actually found its way onto the ballot in Florida in the form of Amendment 9. This time it's tied to--are you ready for this?--VOUCHERS. That brings me to another reason for this post.

While First Class Education has not been very successful, Byrne has also aligned himself with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, one of the nation's main voucher advocacy groups. He has sat on the board since 2006 and was recently named co-chair. Gordon St. Angelo, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation, hopes that "with Patrick on board" the number of voucher programs in the country will "skyrocket." I have no doubt Byrne will attempt his style of "helping" by resorting to the kinds of political tactics used by First Class Education. A memo circulated among lawmakers regarding the "political benefits" of the 65 percent solution reveals the real reason for the proposal. Allow me to quote just a few of the "benefits." Keep in mind that Byrne cares about our children more than we do.

"The Political Benefits of 1st Class Education

1. Splitting of the Education Union. The 1st Class Education proposal naturally puts administrators and teachers at odds with one another with monies flowing from the former to the latter with its passage. Because most state education unions represent both administrators and teachers, the proposal will create tremendous tension within the organization. Every time the education establishment attacks this proposal, it hurts its standing with the public and the majority of its membership. Every day and every dollar the education establishment uses to defeat this proposal is a day and a dollar they cannot spend on other political activities.


2. Direct Fix for Public Education. ...large segments of the voting public - especially suburban, affluent women voters - view these ideas as an abandonment of public education. Women in particular want public education fixed, not replaced. Once additional fixing and funding of public education can be achieved via the 1st Class Education proposal, targeted segments of voters may be more greatly predisposed to supporting voucher and charter school proposals, as Republicans address the voting public with greater credibility on public education issues"


3. Establishes the Debate on Taxes and Government Spending. By highlighting the inefficiencies of education spending, far and away the biggest budgetary item in every state, the 1st Class Education initiative highlights the likely inefficiencies in all areas of state government. That's the percentage the Department of Motor Vehicles spends on administration versus direct service to the public?


4. Allows the Use of Unlimited Non-Personal Money for Political Positioning Advantages. The aforementioned benefits can be achieved with funding in any amount and from any source. In the era of campaign finance limitation on candidates, PACs and parties, galvanizing an electorate via the initiative process is a tremendous opportunity.


5. It Wins! As with initiatives proposing tax limits, term limits and the definition of marriage, ballot success for the 1st Class Education proposal is exceedingly likely. Moreover, the proposal can galvanize public political discussion, becoming a natural litmus test for candidates with the electorate its intuitive simplicity establishes either a beneficiary relationship with the voters or a noted disconnect based on the candidates support or opposition to the proposal."

Does any of this sound familiar? Did you notice any of these things going on during the Utah voucher campaign?

As you can clearly see, Byrne doesn't really care about your children or their education. (Not a bit surprised, I'm sure.) What he really wants is to 1) cause contention between teachers and administrators, a move, no doubt, that does an awful lot to help my children learn better in the classroom, 2) help us suburban, affluent women voters to see the light in terms of public education, 3) directly attack not just education, but the government as a whole, 4) get around election and campaign rules, and finally 5) insult us yet again. After all, we're stupid, and this will just pass right out, what with all the other things on the ballot that we care more about anyway.

We've proven already that these tactics don't work on us, yet Byrne and his friends are back at it in Florida. This goes to show that we can't let our guard down on these issues. (Hence the update on the whereabouts of Byrne.) Maybe this article will be useful to the people of Florida, who might see a little bit of Byrne this election season. They can be on the lookout for his political tactics and ready to record the outrageous comments he's likely to make. Does Florida have a Super Dell?

Legislative Ethics Process - Time to reform now?

I became curious about the ethics process recently, in light of an ethics complaint (and talk of another) that was brought before the Legislative Ethics Committee and then subsequently dropped. I had read that complaints are rare and had only happened three time previously in the last 22 years. In fact, the last time it happened was ten years ago in 1998. I was surprised to read this, considering that the public is always demanding ethics reform. More to the point, in January of this year the Salt Lake Tribune released a poll that asked whether an ethics commission should be formed. Seventy-two percent of residents polled said that they were in favor of such a proposal and the support came from both sides, Republican and Democrat.

What is the process now?

Utah has an ethics committee which is made up of state Legislators who review complaints brought before them by fellow Legislators. The public are not allowed to bring forth complaints. Both the senate and the house have their own respective ethics committees which look at ethical violations of members only after receiving a written complaint by a fellow legislator with the name and address of at least three legislators (or three Senators if the complaint is against a Senator), along with the nature of the alleged violation with supporting documentation attached. The detailed version of what I've just described can be found in Joint Rules of Utah Legislature, specifically JR 6 Chapters 1-5, as well as in House Rules of the Utah Legislature, specifically HR-38 Lobbyist Ethics and Enforcement.

The committees are made up of the chair and three additional members appointed by the President of the Senate for Senate Ethics Committee or the Speaker of the House of Representatives for House Ethics Committee as well as the cochair and three additional members appointed by the Senate/House minority leaders. The bipartisan committee serves a two year term.

What are the problems?

Some problems with the committee include vague rules and no independence or objectivity to address the merits of an ethics complaint. The entire process is tainted by a lack of independence. Fear is also a primary demotivator. Fear of retribution (as was the likely motive for the Mascaro complaint -which ended up being dropped- since he was one of five legislators that filed the complaint against Walker) and fear that they might offend an ally, losing a deciding vote next time they try to get a bill passed. Is it any wonder that to date only 4 complaints have come forth in 22 years?

Why hasn't the process been changed?

There was recently a call for change coming from within in the form of HB 130 and it proposed that a State Ethics Commission be formed. Utah is still only one of eleven states who have not formed an ethics commission. Other states have not only formed an ethics commission but continue to have one or more ethics committees. You can look at a brief comparison of commissions and committees on the National Conference of State Legislatures website.

Despite agreement from Republicans and Democrats that HB 130 was needed, the bill failed to make it out of the House Rules Committee. The responsibility of changing the process comes from the very group that benefits from not having it change and keeping it the way it is. If the process changes then Legislators may actually be held accountable whereas the process now holds them blameless, so why should they change it? Legislators that were in favor of HB 130 were frustrated when it wasn't even put out there for public comment and noted that it is increased public support that is needed in order for this change to occur. I don't think a single one of us public people are questioning the need for such a bill. We're all in support of change when it comes to ethics in our government and polls such as the one mentioned at the beginning of this post put emphasis on it. What more shall we do, I wonder? Maybe the representatives serving on the 2008 House Rules Committee have some answers?