Non-Profit Welfare

Posted on by Dave Roland

Back in April, I noted that the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles exercised “good fiscal planning” by asking the city (which the head of the Foundry’s board referred to as “daddy”) to give the Centre $100,000 to help them meet their budget of $645,000. It seems that this effort paid off, at least to an extent, as seven members of the City Council have advanced legislation that would donate $30,000 to the centre. This payment would be on top of the $2 million of taxpayers’ money that the city has already dedicated to the development of this organization. The city government is also planning to pay up to $10,000 to hire a consulting firm that would “recommend ways to improve the 4-year-old artist studio and exhibition facility’s operations.”

St. Charles has about 63,000 residents. Assuming that the city approves the $30,000 subsidy and the $10,000 consultation fee, it would mean that, on average, the city government has forced local taxpayers to contribute more than $32 for every man, woman, and child in the city in order to subsidize the Foundry’s presence in their community. In the meantime, the Foundry claims to draw more than 90,000 visitors per year, charging an admission fee of $2 per adult and $1 per student or senior citizen. It also hosts events, for which it charges rental and use fees. The rest of its operating budget seems to be drawn from private donations.

To be sure, I am all in favor of the fine arts. But it is exceedingly poor policy for a local government to force taxpayers to support businesses — even non-profit businesses — that otherwise could not support themselves. If an organization’s presence in the community is truly valuable, the market will provide the means for it to sustain itself. If the visitors to the centre are really impressed with what the Foundry has to offer, they should be willing to pay an additional dollar each in order to make sure that the organization can meet its budget.

Similarly, if the 90,000 annual visitors to the Foundry bring additional customers to nearby businesses, the benefited businesses should be willing to make donations that will keep the centre viable. But if the Foundry’s presence isn’t valuable enough to patrons or nearby businesses to warrant an additional dollar in admission price or additional donations, why in the world should taxpayers be forced to pick up the slack?

Pig in a Suburb

Posted on by David Stokes

Most cities in urban areas strictly limit the number and types of animals you can own. You know what, I’ll take back the “strictly” adjective. How they enforce the laws generally depends on how well you get along with your neighbors. Most people, who might have one more dog or cat than allowed, or may have a ferret or chicken or pig, are violating some sort of ordinance — but nobody cares or reports it, so everything is fine … until you get that one neighbor who doesn’t like you and actually bothers to call the inspectors. This is occurring in St. Charles right now, with one family struggling to keep its family pig. The Post-Dispatch has the story here, but this question applies to every suburb and big city in Missouri. For pretty obvious reasons, this is not much of an issue in the rural parts of the state.

What limits should a city have on the type of pet you can own? In my opinion, this issue relates to property regulation or occupational licensing, in that it deserves a strict reading of the phrase “health, safety, and welfare” to justify government action. That pretty much takes care of the whole argument for me. The cities have a right to regulate poisonous snakes, large predators, or hordes of animals so large they clearly become a nuisance. I support laws against owning 12-foot pythons (which are normally owned by hard-drinking fraternity members — not a good combination). I support regulations of or bans on tigers, or wolf half-breeds, or scorpions, or 15 dogs at once. But that same interpretation would not ban a pot-bellied pig, or a few chickens, or two dogs and two cats in the same house.

I have said before that the best part of local government is watching dedicated citizens try to make their community a better place. The worst part is when citizens with little grounding in history, economics, or political theory try to solve every minor problem with a new law, as though the family with a pot-bellied pig were actually harming the rest of the neighborhood. Now, I realize that most of these types of animal regulations are actually very old, rather than a new, unconstitutional craze like red-light cameras. In days past, it might even have been necessary to enforce these laws strictly in order to differentiate between what was a farming area and what was not. But nowadays, these limits mostly just serve to increase the petty powers of government, and the annoying neighbors who enable them.

Challenging Business as Usual

Posted on by Dave Roland

Despite spending more per student than all but two states, maintaining a 14:1 student-to-teacher ratio, and offering among the higher teacher salaries in the nation, Washington, D.C., has long had the absolute worst public school system in the nation. The District’s schools rank dead last in math and reading, as assessed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress evaluations. Washington has struggled for decades to change this culture of academic failure, but to no avail.

But, as Newsweek recently reported, the District is now in the midst of a paradigm-shift regarding the way that schooling is done. The first break from tradition came with the District’s successful introduction of dozens of charter schools. Shortly thereafter, Congress authorized a scholarship program that allows more than 1,800 low-income students (the program had four times that many applicants) to attend the best available schools, whether public or private. Then, shortly after his election in 2006, Mayor Adrian Fenty stripped authority from the school board and appointed Michelle Rhee as the chancellor of Washington’s public schools.

The article does an excellent job of highlighting how the city’s schools had been paralyzed by the teachers’ unions’ staunch opposition to any changes that would have made it easier to remove ineffective administrators and educators, and it gives a snapshot of how D.C.’s leadership is making its first concerted effort to transform the city’s public education landscape in a fundamental way. In addition to their willingness to consolidate underpopulated schools and fire ineffective-but-popular administrators, Rhee and Mayor Fenty have raised the possibility of nearly doubling the salaries of the city’s teachers, provided that they are willing to abandon the security of tenure. These changes are terrifying for the educational establishment, which has mobilized an enormous effort to try and maintain the status quo, but these are precisely the kinds of fundamental reforms necessary to ensure that public schools are more focused on meeting the needs of their children than they are on creating job security for education professionals.

Given that St. Louis shares many of the same challenges facing Washington, D.C., the city would be wise to watch Washington’s progress as we evaluate the future of our own school system.

The Fashion Police

Posted on by Calvin Harris II

It has been a little more than two months since Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins began enforcing the anti-sagging ordinance that the municipality’s aldermen passed. According to the Post-Dispatch, “The ordinance calls for fines of up to $100 for those 17 and older who wear pants below the waist that expose underwear or skin. […] Parents of those 16 and under face up to a $500 fine or 90 days in jail if they knowingly allow their children to wear pants in such a manner.”

Personally, I think sagging is uncongenial, representing the antithesis of a gentleman. Despite my views, I believe that government does not have the right to enforce family values by acting like the fashion police. Besides being difficult to implement and patrol, this policy is also unconstitutional. There are many forms of expression that are not protected by the First Amendment, such as fighting words, libel, commercial speech, and obscenity. While some try to place sagging under the umbrella of obscenity, it would be relevant to put it through the “Miller Test,” which is the standard for determining whether material is obscene. In the 1973 case of Miller v. California, the Supreme Court ruled that material is legally obscene if:

  1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would conclude that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests.

  2. It depicts sexually explicit conduct, specifically defined by law, in a patently offensive manner.

  3. It lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

I believe tha sagging passes the ‘Miller Test’ with flying colors. For young people who are part of our country’s inner-city hip hop culture, it is a form of rebellion and identity. To some, it is just plain fashionable. This ordinance in Pine Lawn is just another example of how our liberty and freedom of expression are in danger today.

Other cities around the country, most recently Flint, Mich., are also taking stride to incorporate the same ordinance in their efforts to restore family values and ethics. I do applaud the importance of ethics in American society, but how ethical is it for government to deny our freedom of expression?

Saint Louis County Blue Ribbon Commission Issues Its Report

Posted on by David Stokes

The Commission that was charged with reviewing the capital needs of the county and recommending solutions has issued its final report. (My testimony about it begins on page 226.) The recommendations are a little long on tax increases, but I also recognize that, in the end, it is up to the voters of the county to decide. I like the commission’s recommendations to consider resources outside of central Clayton in certain situations (nobody wants to move the bulk of county facilities from Clayton), and, of course, I really like the support for public-private partnerships to meet some of these needs.

The list of final recommendations on page 14 is the key part of the report (aside from page 226, obviously). It is interesting that the County Council acted against the recommendations of the commission, and placed this use tax on the November, 2008, ballot instead of waiting for April 2009. No further comments — it’s just interesting.

As of right now, it appears that county voters will get to vote on three tax/bond issues this Novermber. As it stands right now, I am in favor of the bond issue, against the use tax, and undecided (leaning in favor) on the Metro tax increase. I live near MetroLink and use it, so a very careful cost-benefit analysis of the service probably benefits me. I have to doubt it would work out that way for most people.

Briefly back to the commission report: Every member of the volunteer commission deserves thanks for dedicating their time to it. Especially Skip Mange, the chairman, who took time away from his grandkids to once again serve the people of the county.

Crashing the Party

Posted on by Calvin Harris II

This week, I have been very intrigued by all of the coverage and media attention received by college and university administrators and their efforts to mitigate some of the behavioral issues on campuses throughout the country. Some of the most publicized attempts by groups such as the Amethyst Initiative, which consists of chancellors and presidents from universities and colleges, have been targeted at lowering the drinking age from 21 years of age to 18, to prevent the culture of binge drinking. While opening up debates about lowering the drinking age is fine and dandy, I must say that I was tickled pink when I read an AP article at the Post-Dispatch site titled “Universities try to control students off campus.”

Many campuses across the country are starting to monitor the off-campus activities of students much more closely, because of the large number of students that pursue off campus living arrangements. Large schools, such as the University of Washington, Penn State, and the University of Colorado–Boulder, have enforced such laws, and have seen progress. According to the article, “Being cited for breaking the city’s noise regulations is enough to score an invite to the [University of Washington’s] student conduct office.”

Granted, a college or university has the right to create a code of conduct that is conducive to the educational environment on campus. If colleges do not want noisy, disruptive students to attend their school, that is their right and academic freedom. The only concern I have is in how they would investigate these occurrences. If a student were to receive a citation for a noise violation, would the school wait to see if the ticket is actually challenged? At Duke University, for instance, the campus codes only require that a student report misbehavior to campus officials. This could easily represent another example of administrators punishing first and asking questions later. There is no liberty in just being accused of something and then reprimanded — there must be due process.

This only leaves a few choices for students in the future: accept these strict regulations; voice their concerns and seek change in the institution; or withdraw and attend a more lenient college or university. For the men in Old School and Animal House, this would be an easy decision.

Assessing Incentives for Academic Performance

Posted on by Dave Roland

One of the more radical (and controversial) ideas in education reform these days is to offer students cold, hard cash in exchange for performance. The idea is that, although some students might not be motivated by the sheer joy of learning, their priorities might change if they are offered concrete financial rewards for academic achievement.

The New York Times has a story today discussing the mixed results of a recent pilot program in New York City. The privately funded program, which included several thousand students in 31 high schools (25 public schools and six Catholic schools, all chosen based on criteria including minority enrollment and prior student test performance), sought to encourage students to take and pass Advanced Placement exams by offering them up to $1,000 for earning passing scores on those tests.

In 2007, 4,275 students from these schools took AP exams, which are graded on a 1–5 scale with 1 being worst and 5 being the best. Of those students, 174 (4.1 percent) attained the highest score, while 403 (9.4 percent) scored 4, and 904 (21.1 percent) scored 3, the lowest passing grade. Overall, 34.6 percent of the test takers in 2007 earned passing grades.

In 2008, knowing that a good score could mean a lot of money, 4,620 students took the exams. Of those, 207 (4.5 percent) scored 5, 398 (8.6 percent) scored 4, and 871 (18.9 percent) scored 3. So, just on the surface — and in the absence of any additional information — the monetary incentive seems to have encouraged an additional 345 students to take the test, as well as spurring a slight increase in the percentage of test takers earning the highest possible score. But the rest of the story is that a smaller percentage of these schools’ 2008 test takers (32 percent) performed well enough to pass.

This was just the first year for this incentive program, and the monetary incentives were announced after the school year had already begun and class assignments were set, so it’s hard to say whether we can learn much of anything from these results. While I know that the idea of paying students for academic performance is somewhat controversial, as a matter of theory I do believe that these sorts of financial incentives are likely to lead to improved student performance. I am also aware that theory does not always translate into reality, so I will be very interested to see future studies assessing the impact of this and similar programs.

What do you think about rewarding students for academic performance?

Textbook

Posted on by Dave Roland

My heart sank when I read this story from the Post-Dispatch today. A commercial developer has targeted a neighborhood in Affton for a new development and has started contacting the area’s property owners with offers. The area’s elected representative on the County Council is already talking about creating a TIF district to subsidize the developer’s efforts. Of course, creating a TIF district also opens the door to eminent domain. This is a textbook example of how eminent domain abuse begins, all over the country.

My advice to the good folks in Affton (and anywhere else where a developer is looking to assemble property) is to immediately read the Eminent Domain Survival Guide offered by the Institute for Justice. It offers invaluable information for those who find themselves in a situation where the government might take away their property. Second, I urge you to contact Anthony Martin, Missouri’s Property Rights Ombudsman. His job is to help Missourians understand the way that eminent domain is pursued in this state. And, finally, contact us at the Show-Me Institute so we can help tell your story and, hopefully, help save your home or business.

Beyond Freakonomics: Steven Levitt to Speak in St. Louis

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

Famed Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt will be giving a free public lecture next month, co-sponsored by Saint Louis University and the Show-Me Institute. From the press release:

Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? What makes a perfect parent? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? These are questions that Steven D. Levitt asks in his controversial, critically acclaimed book FREAKONOMICS: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Levitt will expand on his book’s inquisitive premise during an address on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at Saint Louis University.

Levitt’s speech is part of the economic policy series presented by the Show-Me Institute in conjunction with Saint Louis University and its John Cook School of Business. He will be the third lecturer in the series, which began earlier this year.

If you, or anybody you know, is interested in attending, be sure to register sooner rather than later. Seating is limited, and we expect that demand will likely exceed supply.

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