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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Watchdog Group Calls for Full Transparency on Snyder Administration’s Secret “Skunk Works” Voucher Project
Press Relese
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News from Progress Michigan
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Contact: Jessica Tramontana, jessica@progressmichigan.org, 517-974-6302
Snyder officials used private email accounts to circumvent FOIA laws
LANSING – Today the citizens’ watchdog group Progress Michigan called on Gov. Rick Snyder to publicly release any and all documents related to the secret “Skunk Works” voucher plan. According to the Detroit News, at least five Snyder administration officials “were instructed in a memo to use ‘alternative’ email accounts.”
While Snyder has attempted to distance himself from the group, yesterday the governor defended the use of private email accounts to conduct business, saying, “Yeah, they should’ve been using their private email addresses if it was private work, and we’ll follow up on that.”
“It’s time for Gov. Snyder to live up to his campaign promise of more transparency in state government,” said Zack Pohl, Executive Director of Progress Michigan. “The citizens of Michigan deserve full disclosure of any and all taxpayer dollars that were spent on this secret voucher group. If the governor believes his staff has done nothing improper, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t publicly release all documents related to this project – including staff time and emails exchanged during normal business hours. Citizens deserve a more honest and open government, not more excuses from Lansing politicians.”
As a candidate in 2010, Snyder promised, “As Governor, I will ensure that government is open, fair and accountable to the citizens by making Michigan a national leader in transparency and ethics.”
One of several “Skunk Works” memos that were exchanged between special interest lobbyists and Snyder administration officials defines itself as a group “tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.” In another memo, a section labeled “Assistance” lists “Executive Office/DTMB: support, credibility, access, advice, politics,” which indicates support for the group from Gov. Snyder’s Executive Office.
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ProgressMichigan
About ProgressMichigan
Progress Michigan is a first-of-its-kind organization. Our mission is to provide a strong credible voice that holds public officials and government accountable, assists in the promotion of progressive ideas and uses state-of-the-art web based new media to creatively build grassroots support for progressive ideas.
View all posts by ProgressMichigan →
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Sat Apr 27, 2013 7:35 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Fri Apr 26, 2013 10:41 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Progress Michigan
Something stinks about “Skunk Works”
Categories: Blog
April 23, 2013
Chad Cyrowski
RickSnyderSecretSkunkWorksBlog
Last week, the Detroit News ran a stunning expose on the up-until-then secret meetings between Gov. Snyder’s executive office and Mackinac Center co-founder Richard McClellan. Their goal is simple: making a profit while educating our children by turning Michigan’s public education system into a voucher-like hybrid. They call their project “Skunk Works.”
The phrase “Skunk Works” is commonly used in business, and describes:
…a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.
Setting aside for a moment the fact that “bureaucracy” in this case means undercutting nuisances like people we elected to represent our interests, “Skunk Works” is also the official alias for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs and currently applies to one of the most expensive ($1 trillion) and over-budget projects (with grave field performance and pilot safety concerns) ever conceived by man: the F-35 Lightning II.
Does that sound familiar? Well it should, because a recent report raised these same concerns about Michigan’s expanding for-profit charter school system. In fact, most privatized government services see budgets overrun with poor results:
•Federal government employees were less expensive than contractors in 33 of the 35 occupational classifications POGO reviewed.
•In one instance, contractor billing rates were nearly 5 times more than the full compensation paid to federal employees performing comparable services.
•Private sector compensation was lower than contractor billing rates in all 35 occupational classifications we reviewed.
•The federal government has failed to determine how much money it saves or wastes by outsourcing, insourcing, or retaining services, and has no system for doing so.
The true irony of the Mackinac Center’s argument in favor of privatizing government services to save taxpayers money is that it’s simply not true. In reality, their entire existence is premised on the fact that private, for-profit companies are always more efficient than government and can always deliver equal or better services at a lower price. But that’s just not true; it has never been true.
However, this hasn’t prevented Gov. Rick Snyder’s office from meeting with the Mackinac Center’s co-founder behind closed doors with the goal of turning Michigan’s education system into another failed experiment in privatization. Just yesterday, he defended it by saying:
“That’s what I would view a group like that — just working together to say they want to come up with new ideas and throw them out there. That’s how you come up with new ideas. Most of them don’t go anywhere, but you don’t want to discourage people from trying and being creative.”
This, from the candidate who in 2010 promised, “As Governor, I will ensure that government is open, fair and accountable to the citizens by making Michigan a national leader in transparency and ethics.”
If you ask us, something stinks about Gov. Snyder’s “Skunk Works.” Call on Gov. Snyder to release all documents related to this project – including staff time and emails exchanged during normal business hours. |
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Fri Apr 26, 2013 10:44 am |
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