Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 11, 1993 TAG: 9303110430
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
BARBS, BOUQUETS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY
THE 1993 General Assembly isn't quite history yet, as there's likely to be more than the customary backing and filling when lawmakers reconvene April 7 to receive amendments and vetoes from Gov. Douglas Wilder.But here's a preliminary list of barbs and bouquets:
A barb to Del. Frank Hall, D-Richmond, and those who supported his bill granting governmental powers to the owners of at least 51 percent of the land in a district accepted by the local city council or board of supervisors as a private-development authority.
Such authorities would have the power to issue tax-exempt bonds to finance improvements, and the right to levy special taxes to service same. In effect, they would function as a government within a government.
This isn't really new and not particularly sinister, but there are hazards.
Under the bill, unwilling property-owners can be forced to accept obligations they may neither want nor be able to afford.
Given the veto over initial creation vested in the local governing body, coercion of the unwilling may prove the exception. But communities are sure to get carried away when tempted by lavish promises of new jobs.
The rub then will occur when such authorities founder. While the local government wouldn't be on the legal hook, it might have no choice but to mount a rescue.
Enterprise zones, private industrial authorities, outright government subsidies to businesses willing to favor one location over another, tax abatements, etc., are all part of a new economic order in which every major decision by the private sector will be conditioned by political decisions.
It is a system inherently unfair and corrupting. But there's no turning back now - rather, only signs of rushing forward to embrace a brave new world of state planning and intervention to determine winners and losers.
While no one should begrudge a round of pay raises for state employees averaging 6.8 percent, a barb to legislators for concocting a merit-pay plan classifying some 98 percent of state workers as meritorious.
You have to be suspicious of the internal politics that will occur in each agency in deciding which workers deserve the highest merit raises, but that at least gives administrators some leverage in imposing discipline.
But you must be dubious of the efficacy of any plan operating on an assumption of near-universal merit. The budget as passed assumed that only one-fifth of 1 percent of all state employees would fall into the category of "failing to meet expectations" and definitely denied a merit raise!
A bouquet to legislators for passing a bill prohibiting residency requirements for most local government jobs. Its chief sponsor, Sen. Joe Benedetti, R-Richmond, expressed it well when he said, "I think you would consider it an essential freedom of citizens to live and work where they desire." Passage was assured when teachers joined with firefighters and police to lobby for the bill.
You can certainly argue that it's only fair to require those feeding at the public trough to live where they feed. But in the real world, such policies cannot fail to engender resentments and inequities.
While the courts have upheld residency requirements in the case of public-safety personnel on the grounds that it's reasonable to have them live near their jobs, they have not been persuaded to extend the requirement to such larger categories as teachers.
A half-barb to legislators for requiring schools, effective next year, to offer breakfast where 25 percent or more of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
There's nothing wrong with schools opening their cafeterias for breakfast - and many do it now - but here is both another mandate and a further inducement to expand the mind-set of the welfare state. Will the next step be to keep the school cafeterias open for supper? Not any time soon, but that's the road we've chosen and no one knows where it will end.
Still, if taxpayers are going to spend $30 a day educating a child in the public schools, perhaps it makes sense to spend another dollar to put a decent breakfast in their stomachs. Lord knows, it would be wrong to expect older students to fix their own breakfasts.
On the less hopeful side of the youth front, a bouquet to legislators for passing bills recognizing that juvenile crime is no longer mainly a matter of pranks. Under the package pushed by Wilder, selected officials (including educators) would have access to previously sealed information on serious juvenile offenses.
Finally, a bouquet to legislators for codifying a 1977 decision of the state Supreme Court prohibiting collective bargaining for state- and local-government employees. In the public sector, where gains in productivity are scarce as hen's teeth, the bulk of all increased costs must come back on the private sector.
Obviously, there must be a balance, and I believe we have that now. Public-sector employees have tremendous political leverage, as witnessed by such goodies as non-contributory pensions and the option to retire at 55. In the private sector, the outcome of all labor contracts is constrained by market forces that operate poorly, if at all, upon government.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
930311 GARLAND STORY #11898 TOPIC KEYWORD DESK AUTHOR:REMOTE30003/11/93 CORRECTED oped column (garland) for thurs march 11, htk assembly barbs: headline byline author
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