Here’s a curious line from a Post-Gazette story about the current labor unrest in Pittsburgh Public Schools, unrest that could result in the first teacher strike in the district in more than 40 years:
“Union leaders also were upset that the fact-finder suggested granting scheduling power to school principals, rather than letting teachers set their own schedules. The union said that provision would result in ‘increasingly poor morale’ for members.”
Good grief. Time for this axiom tutorial: Everybody has a boss. Silly us, we thought principals are supposed to be in charge of their respective buildings.
That said, it’s difficult to imagine what leverage Pittsburgh Public Schools teachers have in this dispute – other than “professionals” unprofessionally walking off the job and throwing the lives of students and their parents into chaos, that is.
As Allegheny Institute President Jake Haulk reminded last May (in Policy Brief Vol. 17, No. 21), the district spends about $22,000 per year per pupil for “pathetic results.”
Striking for a better contract after delivering such educational nonfeasance isn’t likely to resonate with the tax-paying public.
What, exactly, should local governments do for start-up businesses?
It’s an evergreen question and one to be posed anew following reports of a proposed new program in the City of Pittsburgh.
Councilman Corey O’Connor has introduced legislation to create an Entrepreneur Support Fund that, as the Post-Gazette reports, would foster start-ups “with grants, loans or other help available to qualifying new businesses.”
O’Connor sees a beginning pot of between $75,000 and $100,000 in grants to go toward start-up expenses such as permits, licenses, software and other non-payroll costs.
One reason cited for the “need” for such a program is a dearth of venture capital investment.
Which brings us to the age-old question: What is the proper sphere of government?
Is it to promote the creation of business with other taxpayers’ dollars? Or is it to promote the creation of business by lessening the strictures that government permitting and licensing so often impose?
And the great unspoken in all of this is the behavior of venture capitalist – i.e. private investors who bankroll projects in hopes of turning a profit.
Is there truly this supposed dearth of venture capitalists? Or is it the dearth in the quality of the start-ups that don’t necessarily merit the venture capitalists’ time and money?
And, if the latter is the case – if venture capitalists are speaking with their wallets because prospective start-ups aren’t up to snuff – what business does government, conscripting taxpayer dollars, have in perverting what the marketplace has declared to be sub-par?
So, back to the opening question: What, exactly, should local governments do for start-up businesses?
Get out of the way.
As optics go, this one’s pretty bad:
With much mutual admiration, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is installing his chief administration officer and human resources director in the newly created position of chief corporate counsel and chief of administration of the very troubled Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.
The bad optics? Debbie Lestitian has been the PWSA’s board chairwoman for the past nine months and long has orbited as Peduto’s political moon.
The cozy appointment comes after various groups, including a special panel and the state auditor general, said such political coziness had to be removed from the badly broken water and sewer agency if it is to have any chance to survive.
It’s difficult to imagine the public having much hope for true reform when the mayor who helped to oversee the growing dysfunction of the PWSA during the four years of his first term creates an even deeper bureaucracy and installs one of his administration’s acolytes to trade one PWSA hat for another and run things.
The new bosses certainly look like the old bosses. Sound public policy demands far better.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
