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Privatization of public services
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Section One
Residents may be throwing away more than trash when the city run garbage trucks collect their rubbish. Government run solid waste collection costs approximately twenty-five percent more than when a private contract company is utilized. (Teel 1993) The concept of privatizations of solid waste collection services is nothing new. This change from using government employees and government owned trucks and landfills to contracting with a private company for solid waste collection is a trend that is getting more attention lately. The move to privatization is usually driven by the desire for cost savings. (Hyres, 2010)
There is much debate over the quality of public versus private contracts of municipal services. The other branch of this debate is the cost benefits to taxpayers. One of these municipal services is solid waste collection. Waste services can be broken down into three areas, all of which are available to be contracted out to private companies. The stages are collection of solid waste from households and businesses, recycling (collection and processing), and disposal of non-recyclable products at landfills. (Wright & Nebel, 2002) There are costs incurred for each stage especially at the landfill. From the collection, to the sorting, to final disposal all of this ends up being a costly process for the taxpayer. In this economic climate, many cities are facing budget shortfalls and waste collection is getting close attention. Medina County is no exception, Medina is looking for ways to save, and more efficiently use taxpayer’s money. One viable option is to privatize garbage collection. The policy for solid waste management in Medina County needs to be amended from being a flow-control system manag...
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There will be resistance with privatization, but it is still worthwhile. It is an option that needs to be thoroughly considered. To minimize resistance and job loss, it can be requested for a company to hire some city workers in the contract. (Hyres, 2010)
The benefits of privatization are undeniable. Privatization manages liabilities, improves efficiency, cuts costs, and improves accountability. (Raphaelson, 1998) Between the economic conditions, and local governments being faced with many projects that need taxpayer’s dollars, it is a good time to push for privatization of garbage collection and landfills. It is a very difficult decision for an elected official to make, but today’s economy is giving them the “political cover” to make the move towards privatization, and if it is done properly, it is a win-win decision for all involved. (Segal, 2000)
The municipal restructuring in Ontario from 1996 to 1999, whether voluntary or involuntary, was the most comprehensive process of municipal reforms since the Baldwin Act of 1849 (Frisken 30). After the election of Harris’ Conservative government in 1995, municipal reform took on a life of its own as it was followed with substantial activity between 1996 and 1999 (Sancton 135-56). This research paper looks to categorize, describe and evaluate the substantial activity that took place between the province and its municipal subordinates. While other papers have argued whether the change of the fiscal relationship was to benefit the province or if the structure of local government had simply become outdated, the issues of why the reforms occurred is not the focus of this research. However, what this paper will evaluate is whether the substantial activity made any long-term changes in the system by outlining the numerous reforms and examining their impact. This paper will begin by assessing the financial reform, which was the starting point for more extensive changes, followed by functional, structural and legislative reforms during 1996 to 1999.
Municipal control or an alternative delivery method? This is the question that has intrigued all levels of local government and created intense debates between taxpayers across municipalities. The services that municipalities provide are often vital to the existence of a local area. The issues of accountability, cost savings, quality of service and democracy often arise when choosing the best options to deliver services to a municipal area. In recent years the concepts of privatization, alternative service delivery and public-private partnerships are often promoted as ways cut down on overburdened annual city budgets and promote a higher quality of service to citizens. Municipalities have historically always provided basic services such as fire protection, water purification/treatment and recreational facilities. However, would private companies or another municipality be able to better deliver the same services more efficiently or at a lower cost? The city or town often provides a political grass roots approach to most local problems. Municipalities are better positioned and have a wider scope to provide services to their constituents in order to ensure quality of service that does not erode accountability and transparency, or drive the municipality deeper into debt.
Private universities, private jails, private health-care and private water testing. What do all of these things have in common? They are all services the Tory government in Ontario has been trying to privatize with some disastrous results and possibly more to come. The Ontario government, lead by Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris, has been slowly trying to do away with services that are currently administered by the province. The ideology in question, privatization, has been a hallmark of the Common Sense revolution. But so far the Tories have been slow to make a success of it. Attempts to privatize the Liquor Control Board and TV Ontario were put on the back burner because of low public support. As well, privatizing hydro utilities has already led to charges of price gouging. But by far the biggest headache is coming from the public outcry over the deaths from the E-coli outbreak in Walkerton, Ontario. Regardless of who the Tories look to blame, the issue continually keeps coming back to the privatization of water labs by the province. Yet now, with these other efforts stalled or creating political turmoil, the government is pushing ahead with its prison agenda.
One social con of the RCRA program is the lack of attempt to address landfills being in low-income communities. Even though the RCRA give a critical municipal service, they have failed to combat the issue of the placement of landfills near low-income homes. The problem is continuing to grow. These issues focused upon the fact that the waste mostly comes from outside the community, which eventually causes impacts to residents and degraded the environmental conditions. This issue also causes a decrease in property value because people do not want to live near landfills.
Gambling in the form of traditional games has always been a part of many American Indian tribes’ cultures. Though many tribes began using other forms of gambling, this continues today. However, the use of gaming to obtain profit was not as successful until the late 1970's and early 1980's. It quickly grew from an industry that made $100 million annually to over $22 billion annually. Gambling started with simple games such as bingo and continued to grow until the states the tribes were in eventually took notice. Additionally, because of the rapid growth of the gambling industry some tribes used this to better their ailing economies. As more states started to take notice of the increased amount of income the tribes were bringing in, the states’ governments began questioning whether it was a legitimate operation or not. In response states began lobbying for the Federal Government to regulate Indian gaming. The states wanting to both counter infiltration by organized crime and tax income gained by Indian gaming. Tribes fought the states to maintain tribal sovereignty and to protect gaming revenues for further economic development and support. Congress responded with the set of compromises which then evolved into what is now known as the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. The Act separated Indian gaming into three separate classes with a different regulatory scheme for each.
Velazquez focuses on the unfair treatment of the poor community by large corporations. Because of this focus, she ignores the fact that in this distribution of waste-transfer stations, it can bring enormous economic values for this country’s development. Velazquez conveys that large corporations dump lots of waste and she has “personally never see a waste-transfer station on the upper East Side of Manhattan, or in the Hamptons” while almost forty percent of New York City’s waste-transfer stations are in her district (766). As a representative of her district, it is reasonable for Velazquez to be outraged by the waste-transfer stations’ distribution from her district’s residents’ points of view.
As of January 1, 2003, the Canadian city of Toronto, Ontario started to ship one hundred percent of its garbage into the landfills of Michigan. In 2003, Toronto exported garbage at a rate of 7.2 tons per minute. Garbage trucks from Toronto run seven days a week twenty-four hours a day, so at the rate of 7.2 tons per minute it works out to be that Michigan imports 10,368 tons of Toronto's garbage per day. But it wasn't always like this, Governor John Engler and his administration turned garbage into a growth industry. The state lowered the liability standards for landfill owners and also provided tax-free financing for new facilities. The result of these changes lead to too many landfills and not enough garbage to fill them. So the landfill owners lowered their prices and searched even harder for garbage. Today, Michigan's private landfills charge ten to fifteen dollars per ton to dump while other landfill owners in neighboring states charge twenty five to fifty dollars per ton. Toronto did the math and realized that it is cheaper to haul its garbage 300 miles and dump it in Michigan then it is to dump it close to home. And on top of that, Michigan has eliminated funds fo...
Privatization of governmental functions has a direct relationship with the number of contract employees in government and an inverse relationship with the number of civil servants. As privatization has become more acceptable, contract employees are being hired to do the jobs, thus, replacing civil servants.
To implement a recycling program requires a collection process that includes the containers to gather the materials, the trucks to transport them to the processing site, and the manpower to manage the program. Unfortunately, recycling is more of a business than an attempt to save the environment. The value of the material being recycled overshadows the negative impact of dumping items into the landfill. At a point in time, the demand for recycled paper declined, so recyclers stored the material in hopes that values would increase. “The hope is that eventually the markets turn around and that the materials is sold, but I have heard of instances where it gets landfilled, because a community doesn’t have the demand or the space or the company to deal with it, “ says Gene Jones, the executive director of Southern Waste Information Exchange (Westervelt,
Nightingale, Demetra Smith and Pinus, Nancy. "Privatization of Public Social Services: A Background Paper". 1997. Internet http://www.urban.org/pubman/privatiz.html
Solid waste pickup services will exist, preventing litter and garbage accumulations. Large fines will be issued if improper garbage and recycling activities are noticed and reported. Almost everything will be recyclable and taken to nearby cities to their recycling plants. Garbage will also be sent out to a nearby dump.
Public Administration involves the development, implementation and management of policies for the attainment of set goals and objectives that will be to the benefit of the general public. Since Public Administration involves taking decisions that affect the use of public resources there is often the question of how to utilize public resources for maximum public good. The National Association of Public Administration has identified four pillars of public administration: economy, efficiency, effectiveness and social equity. These pillars are equally important in the practice of public administration and to its success. This paper seeks to explain the role of each of the pillars in the practice of public administration.
Since the Regan era more and more people have taken the idealistic political stance that governments should act more like a business with President as both CEO and Commander in Chief and voters as costumers and shareholders. There are three main reasons that adopting this ideology and borrowing the principles and practices of business undermines the essence and core values of Public Administration. The first reason is the most obvious to the casual observer, businesses are based on profits and governments are based on people. Success in the business world means profit, therefore asking government to run more like a business is asking the government to start maki...
Policy is needed to regulate which course of action should be taken and how it should be implemented. Because of this, many plans and policies revolving around the management of solid waste have been put in place. Sometimes however, a particular policy can have its shortfalls, potentially resulting in its negative aspects outweighing the positive ones. According to the Conference Board of Canada Report, “Canadians dispose of more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country” (2013). Solid waste management in particular, involves many aspects, ranging from packaging waste, food waste, etc. (White & Franke 1999), hence, the following analysis revolves around household and commercial waste – referred to as Municipal Solid Waste (White & Franke. 1999) – in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Municipal waste is a major health and environmental concern as it contributes to numerous problems like habitat destruction, surface groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Waste disposal methods like incineration create toxic substances, and landfills emit methane, which contributes to global warming. According to the Zero Waste Objective Report, “The impact of climate change and the increasing awareness of the role of “waste” and “wasting” in the production of greenhouse gas emissions is a constant environmental pressure… (2009). This leads to an increasing limitation of government to prevent and control the volume and toxicity of products in the waste stream and a growing need to shift responsibility to the product manufacturer.
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...