Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Privatization vs. Profiteering vs. Accountability

Yesterday, I pointed out that the workers responsible for the mishandling the case of Christopher L. Thomas, Jr., and the harassment of the foster parents who had wanted to adopt young Christopher, were employed by a private agency. Said agency "provides these services" under a contract with the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare.

I also stated in an earlier post that I felt that the privatization of the child welfare system removed accountability from the system.

Nick Schweitzer might argue that this isn't real privatization, and per his definition, he would be correct. This would be profiteering. Nick's version of privatization would not occur in this field. The service agency would have to charge either the biological parents to have their kids removed, or charge the children, who usually don't have that kind of money. Not to mention all the ethical quandaries of whether said agency was snatching kids for their safety, or for their profit margin.

For the sake of convenience, I ask Nick to overlook the semantics for now, and call it by its common term of privatization instead of the more accurate profiteering.

Dad29 feels that I was wrong that the privatization removes accountability. He feels that it is more of an issue of the failure to demand accountability. Dad is wrong. Just this morning, concerned citizens organized a small protest demanding that accountability. Unfortunately, that will probably not do the trick by itself. I don't see Denise Revels Robinson, director of the BMCW, or the heads of the private agencies falling to their knees and begging forgiveness.

Privatization removes accountability in various ways. One of the first and most common ways is that it opens the door to a lot of finger pointing. The Bureau will blame the agency for not doing its job. The agency will blame the Bureau for not giving it the necessary resources or funding, causing them to take untenable positions. The Bureau will blame the agency, claiming poor management. The agency will return with the accusation that the Bureau set them up for failure.

Meanwhile, nothing gets done, and more children get hurt and/or killed.

But the finger pointing doesn't always go very far either. This is because, like a den of thieves, they don't want to make too much noise in an effort to blame the other because of the risk of self-incrimination.

The agency doesn't want to tick of the Bureau because they represent the agency's gravy train. The Bureau doesn't want to tick of the agency because they make an effective foil from them having to take ownership of their own systematic flaws, which were created by the bureaucrats and the politicians in Madison. The politicians don't want to make too much noise because then they would lose their politically popular myth that privatization saves tax payer money.

So the agency will blame the Bureau, and the Bureau will blame the agency. Then they will both hide behind the cloak of confidentiality, and not release the real facts of the case. Meanwhile, the politicians will either ignore the problem and hope it goes away, or they will grandstand that they will fix the problem to gain some brownie points with the voters, then they will sit on their thumbs until the story gets lost in the next issue of public outrage, like the next bailout, for example.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: While I can understand the popularity of the myth that privatization saves money, it doesn't. Furthermore, there are some things, like the life of a child, that shouldn't be weighed against the bottom line of a spread sheet.

8 comments:

  1. it opens the door to a lot of finger pointing. The Bureau will blame the agency for not doing its job. The agency will blame the Bureau for not giving it the necessary resources or funding, causing them to take untenable positions. The Bureau will blame the agency, claiming poor management. The agency will return with the accusation that the Bureau set them up for failure

    You are not engaging the question; you are ignoring it.

    Walker, or the woman-in-charge, should simply FIRE the agency.

    THAT is "demanding accountability."

    And, by the way, that fits very well into Nick's scenario, as well.

    They failed. Fire their asses.

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  2. I agree with Dad29 in this case. If we demand that public money has to be used in this case, then hiring a private angency to use that money is the best route, with one very important proviso.

    If we find that those funds are mismanaged, misused, then you have to stop using that company.

    Simply pointing your finger, and saying you did bad is worthless. That is not accountability. That's blame.

    Accountability is taking the money from that company and finding a new one. Otherwise, you might as well have a government agency run the whole thing, as it would do no better, because you can't fire a government agency either.

    The whole point to my post on Privitazation is that what makes the whole thing works is the FEAR OF FAILURE. But the only way you instill that fear is if you actually let things fail for doing a bad job.

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  3. One more thing...

    I recc'd outright firing b/c this was a fatality case.

    By the way, Cap: should I claim that the fatality case in Madison, (due to the failure of the 911 people), was 'the natural result of public payroll'?

    I didn't think so. And that's ANOTHER firing case if I ever saw one.

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  4. Dad and Nick-

    After the county was kicked out, the Bureau has hired and fired Lutheran Social Services, Children's Social Services of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Childrens Services Network and Innovative Family Partnerships. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. WCSN was the forerunner of the current one operated by Children's Hospital. I believe there was one in between them as well.

    All the private agencies do is feed as fast as they can at the trough, and run off with the profits when they do get the boot.

    Then like with Children's Hospital's example, they simply reform, join a different agency and get hired again.

    That is not accountability.

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  5. Dad,

    For your second point...

    Well, to be honest, I haven't followed the Madison story all too closely. That said, I do believe that I read or heard that the call center is operated by Dane County. If that is the case, then there should be firings of those responsible.

    If Kathleen Falk doesn't do it, then her bosses, the voters, should fire her. That is where the accountability falls into place.

    In child welfare, that does not exisst.

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  6. More to the point, cap, is that "public employment" and "privatization", per se, do NOT 'remove' (or not-remove) accountability.

    It is either demanded or not.

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  7. And what I am saying is that firing the people is appropriate, but it will not fix the problem. The problem is not just who provides the services, but it is also systemic.

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  8. Umnnnhhhh....

    Actually, what we have here is a cost problem, which happens to be endemic to public AND private employers.

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