Governing Magazine/April 2008 OBSERVER By Alan Greenblatt POLITICAL EDUCATION Alabama's public colleges are getting the tough scrutiny they deserve. The two-year-college system in Alabama has been, for decades, a patronage scandal waiting to happen. Now it is happening. Over the past couple of years, state and federal authorities have engaged in a widespread investigation that has led to numerous indictments, guilty pleas and plain old firings among college officials and state legislators alike. More are certain to follow. The trouble goes back to 1963, when the legislature endorsed Governor George Wallace's vision for a two-year-college system. It was a very different vision than the one being pursued elsewhere. "Most states in the '60s tried to create a comprehensive statewide network of community colleges," says Stephen Katsinas, director of the University of Alabama Education Policy Center. That isn't what Alabama got. What it got was a collection of political fiefdoms. Wallace shared the desires of that era to expand educational opportunity, but he also saw the chance to set up a massive patronage operation. Many presidents of the new colleges were semi-retired politicians with minimal qualifications. Contracts were awarded on the basis of political friendships, with little centralized control or even auditing of expenditures. Over the years, the system has remained a political base for funneling dollars, contracts and jobs to the well connected. "The origins are purely political from top to bottom," says Auburn Montgomery University political scientist Carl Grafton. "It's a natural progression from Wallace's approach to having legislators highly interested in protecting their own junior colleges." A Birmingham News analysis found that 43 legislators had financial ties to two-year colleges between 2002 and 2006. Some of the relationships were clearly legitimate, but others involved no-show jobs that turned up for legislators or their relatives as soon as they won election. In 2006, state Representative Bryant Melton resigned his seat and his college job after pleading guilty to guiding grants his own way to pay off gambling debts. Earlier this year, Representative Sue Schmitz was arrested on fraud charges. More indictments are expected following the recent guilty plea of Roy Johnson, a former legislator and chancellor of the two-year system, in an $18 million bribery case. The ongoing investigation has become a political issue in itself. Most of the targeted legislators are Democrats and there are complaints that the investigation is partisan in nature and an attempt to break the influence that the Alabama Education Association, which represents both administrators and teachers, holds over the colleges and state politics in general. An AEA official has called Bradley Byrne, the system's new chancellor, a "Fuhrer." Many believe Byrne has his eyes on the governorship. It's become a real war, with billions of dollars and thousands of jobs at stake. But even if political ambitions are involved, there's little question that the community college system provided a target-rich environment for anyone who cared to take financial malfeasance seriously. The investigation may end up hurting one party more than the other, but it stands a chance to help Alabama substantially in the long run. WORLD VIEW "Houston and San Antonio are the least of our issues." Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, noting the importance of making his city competitive in a global economy Source: Dallas Morning News GOING FOR BROKE An old California town faces a mess it largely made for itself. The city of Vallejo pulled itself back from the brink of bankruptcy last month--but not by much. Local leaders struck a short-term deal with employee unions to avoid outright default, but that only gives the Northern California city enough money to hobble through to the end of June. After that, continuing deficit problems will still leave it vulnerable to insolvency. Virtually all California governments are having a tough time right now, but Vallejo is in some ways a special case. An old shipbuilding center on San Pablo Bay, a short distance north of San Francisco, the city has never recovered from the closing of Mare Island Naval Shipyard a dozen years ago. Little has been done to take advantage of its choice location to attract commercial investment. "Our fee structures are as high as anybody's in the area," says Chamber of Commerce CEO Rick Wells, "and our turnaround times on permits and plans are slower than any comparable city in the area." But Vallejo's real underlying problem isn't moribund economic development, or the real estate slowdown. It's the unaffordable contracts the city signed with its police and fire unions. Some 74 percent of Vallejo's general fund budget is devoted to police and fire costs, and that's 25 percent higher than the state average--a huge expenditure. As part of last month's deal to stave off bankruptcy, the unions agreed to defer half of the $3.5 million in buyout packages owed to 21 police officers and firefighters who had recently retired. Active personnel accepted a temporary reduction in the 10 percent salary increase they had been granted this year. But everyone involved agreed it was a short-term solution that will still leave the city with zero dollars on July 1--and that assumes no further revenue downturns or expensive retirements. "Right now, we're not staving off bankruptcy, we're deferring it," says Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes. Vallejo, with a population of 117,000, is by far the biggest municipality in California to flirt with bankruptcy. It also is the only jurisdiction in the state's history to come so close to going broke based on regular operating expenses, as opposed to a legal judgment or severe losses in financial markets. But will it be the last? Some see Vallejo as a localized mess. Michael Coleman, of the League of California Cities, argues that the city's particular problems are both more chronic and more pronounced than any other municipality faces. But with the state itself in heavy debt and certain to cut aid to local governments--and with real estate losses and health benefits causing problems all over--other California cities are certain to feel a pinch. Dean Gloster, a San Francisco bankruptcy attorney who advises municipalities, warns that "this is an iceberg that many, many ships are headed toward." IRON JON New Jersey's governor has delivered the bad fiscal news. Now, he must get his state to accept it. Jon Corzine's job keeps getting tougher. He has invested more than two years as governor of New Jersey in trying to convince legislators and residents that their state is in dire financial trouble. He finally seems to have made the case. But the question remains whether he will be able to sell his painful remedy. Corzine got off to a rocky start this year. He decided to attack the state's transportation needs and crippling $32 billion debt with big toll increases on the New Jersey Turnpike and other major roads--tolls would rise 50 percent more every four years between now and 2022. But as he toured the state to promote the idea, it quickly became clear that his plan was hugely unpopular with the public and had limited support, if any, in the legislature. That failure led Corzine to turn from the question of long-term debt to the more immediate problem of a 10 percent budget shortfall. In the past, New Jersey politicians have papered over such problems, using gimmicks and one-time solutions. Corzine decided to address things honestly and painfully: He proposed to eliminate 3,000 state jobs and three entire departments. His budget proposal would significantly reduce funding for every major political constituency--localities, public employee unions, hospitals and countless others. Senate President Richard Codey says he hopes to restore funding for some programs that aid the poor and middle class, but concedes that legislators will have to come up with some alternative cuts of their own rather than simply complaining about Corzine's plan. It's that note of realism that has Trenton talking about a revival in Corzine's fortunes. The governor has made such a strong case for the state owning up to its budget responsibilities that there seems to be a decent chance the legislature will pass a tough and honest budget. "The hens have finally come home to roost here," says lobbyist Pete Lillo. "I'm hearing more legislators agreeing with the governor that they have to make hard decisions about cuts." The end result may not be quite as austere as Corzine has recommended. Plenty of lobbyists such as Lillo will spend the coming months trying to limit the pain inflicted on their clients. But they may end up doing Corzine a favor. "I'm the first governor in 25 years who has actually taken anything away from anybody," Corzine said recently. If the legislature softens the blows, Corzine may seem a little less austere when he campaigns for reelection in 2009. COMMUTING TO CLASS DOWNTOWN Des Moines put a school where the jobs were. It succeeded. Lots of cities have been successful in persuading people to move downtown, but one group that has consistently taken a pass on the loft experience is young families with children. In Des Moines, it's playing out a little differently. There are plenty of new condos, but the people most eager to come downtown have been school-aged children. Des Moines' Downtown School was founded 15 years ago as a joint effort between the school district and a business community eager to provide a service that would encourage workers to take jobs in the central city. Parents who work downtown can pop in for presentations or join their kids for lunch. Most parents commute to work alongside their children, but the elementary school has become such a magnet that some parents drive downtown just to drop their kids off, before heading to jobs out in the suburbs. And many more parents want to get involved. For next year's kindergarten class, which will include no more than 55 students, the school has already received 243 applications. Students take full advantage of the resources that come with holding class in office buildings connected by skywalks to the rest of downtown. If they're studying meteorology, students can meet with the weatherman at a local TV station. To learn about finance, they can walk to a bank. When it's time for poli sci, the state capitol is just blocks away. "Businesses are so open to letting our classes visit," says Principal John Johnson, "or having a teacher walk two or three students over to interview somebody when they're doing research." Although plenty of American private schools have campuses downtown, commuter public schools remain rare. But more cities are starting them, says David Feehan, of the International Downtown Association. He calls the Des Moines school "not only one of the best downtown schools in the country but probably one of the best elementary schools in the country." SEMI-REAL ID Maybe there is a way around the federal driver's license law after all. Last year, Washington State became one of a half-dozen states to formally reject the driver's license security requirements of the federal REAL ID Act. This year, it has come up with its own "enhanced" driver's license--and may well get it approved by the federal government. Actually, the move required a little international cooperation. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire and her counterpart in the adjoining Canadian province of British Columbia both worried that new requirements that U.S. citizens show passports when returning from our neighbor to the north would hamper cross-border tourism and trade. Gregoire got her people working on it and they came up with a new idea. Since January, Washington residents have had the option of paying $15 more for an enhanced license, which they can obtain by bringing in documents proving that they are U.S. citizens and residents of the state. Once they have the "EDL," they can use it not just as a driver's license but as a travel document good for land and sea crossings in and out of Canada. The state Department of Licensing received roughly 20,000 applications during the program's first month. Now, other border states, including Vermont, Arizona and New York, are looking into the idea of issuing enhanced licenses that could act as mini-passports for their residents. But the most important benefit of the EDL system may be the possibility that it will win the blessing of the federal Department of Homeland Security. Under it, residency and citizenship documentation are much the same as called for under REAL ID. There could still be problems, because EDLs don't appear to meet federal requirements in every technical respect. But there continues to be so much confusion about what REAL ID actually mandates that Homeland Security has sent signals it might give a break to states with enhanced licenses. It will take more than a zippy new license--there are all sorts of administrative procedures that have to be put in place as well, cautions DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner. But, she says, "they are certainly on their way to being REAL ID compliant." COPIED COURTS State supreme courts with the most decisions followed by an out-of- state court, 1940-2005 STATE DECISIONS California 1,260 Washington 942 Colorado 848 Iowa 788 Minnesota 774 Courts with the fewest decisions followed STATE DECISIONS Kentucky 177 Louisiana 242 South Carolina 261 Hawaii 285 Tennessee 296 Source: Jake Dear and Edward W. Jessen, University of California, Davis Law Review ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2008, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. http://www.governing.com