Monday, January 10, 2011

Public Private Partnership to Provide Patronage Positions?

Details of Gov. Walker's plan to replace the Dept. of Commerce with a publicly-financed private corporation were released on Thursday.

Employees of the new entity will not be state workers with civil service protections. They will have the option of participating in the Wisconsin Retirement System. Hiring and salary decisions will be made by a Board appointed by Gov. Walker himself.

Rep. Robin Vos, co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, spoke of the need to bring in the "very best people" and get rid of those who "need to find employment elsewhere." His choice of words reminded me of a Country Club membership committee. The need for "the best" at the new agency could certainly be used to justify inflated upper management salaries.

From Channel 3000:
It's not immediately clear how many private employees there would be at the new hybrid agency. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said last week that they didn't anticipate overall employment levels to differ much from where they are now.

Employment levels will be similar, although most of the Department's regulatory functions will be either eliminated or shifted to other agencies. Hiring decisions will bypass civil service rules. Taxpayers will be paying a similar number of people to do significantly less work. It sounds like the new entity exists largely to create high-paying patronage jobs for the well-connected. Crony capitalism (and your tax dollars) at work.

2 comments:

Tim Morrissey said...

Exactly.

Anonymous said...

They'll use tax dollars to pay inflated salaries to these non public employees, who will decide how to give more tax money to other private companies under the guise of "job creation". Seems like anything goes now days as long as the act is prefaced by the Holy Words "job creation".