Privatizing Jeopardizes Safety and Harms the Community

By Donna Jeanne Carver
reprinted with permission

Driven by wrong-minded public officials and corporate greed, contracts for public services are doled out without regard to cost effectiveness or quality. Time and time again, the public pays more and gets lower quality of services while public workers are laid off and corruption scandals make the news.

The National Education Association is strongly opposed to privatization because of the threat that it poses to the quality of education, the accountability of public schools to the communities they serve, and to the well being of children in school.

When transporting our children to and from school, the Port Jervis community believes the first priority of the school board MUST be the safety of our children. For the safety of our children, we believe in professionalism, not privatization. Across the country, privatization has resulted in greater risk to schoolchildren who are forced to ride in buses driven by unprofessional, low-paid drivers. The profits of privatization are taken from the community and sent to out-of-state companies.

A study commissioned by the U.S. Secretary of Labor's Task Force on Excellence in State and Local Government concluded that privatization does not necessarily result in lower costs and often the quality of service deteriorates when profit becomes the primary motivation. Contractors often provide inferior wages and benefits, which attract less qualified drivers. Paying inferior wages and benefits and hiring less qualified drivers increases the profit of the contractor, takes money out of the community, and places at risk the safety our children. Without adequate pay and benefits, private contractors experience a high turnover rate of drivers. This creates problems when new drivers are unfamiliar with school bus routes. Privatization also diminishes public accountability because the school board members cannot directly address parents' and students' complaints.

We urge you to take a hard look at the proposal to privatize .

It’s a bad deal for ALL of us, everyone who pays taxes, and wants a strong local economy that offers opportunity for working families and the promise of a better life for our children.

Make no mistake about it: Privatization will cost more than they’re telling us.

It means cutting corners on quality.

It will hurt the economy in our community by eliminating local jobs. 93 jobs in our offices alone. Who will be next? Grounds and Maintenance, Support and Cafeteria Staff?? Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

It will make our community more vulnerable than ever to corruption that steals taxpayer money. Sure, they’re telling us that privatization will save money. That’s because the contractors usually low ball their bids to get their first contracts. But, once they get their foot in the door, and once they get their hands on the taxpayers’ money, we all had better watch out.

It costs more for private companies to provide public services because these companies HAVE to make a profit. And they usually pay their top executives huge salaries, perhaps even more than the half million dollars per year our Thompson Street TRIO is currently making.

While costs will be going up, the quality of public services will be going down. Contractors cut costs by cutting corners. They pay by the run time not by timed worked.. Do you think a private contractor is going to care if little Johnny is locked out of his house in the afternoon? No, it will certainly be a dump and run ….

In many ways, it will be a terrible mistake that this School District can never completely correct.
One thing is certain: This all is going to hurt the economy in our community.

When this School District starts laying off their regular employees, everyone in this community is going to suffer.

We’re going to lose the taxes these workers pay. We’re going to lose the money they spend right there in our community. We all may have to pay for unemployment benefits or even public assistance until these workers find new jobs. Although many of us have been offered night shift jobs at a ten dollars less an hour by Ms. Case.

As if this all isn’t bad enough, privatization can cause corruption. Billing the taxpayers for work they never did. You name it — it all can happen here unless we stop privatization dead in its tracks. That is why I urge you to take a careful look at privatization and to REJECT IT before it’s too late.