Why Student Government Matters

From a post by RecSports director David Bowles to the Facebook group “I’m voting no on “Hand Scanners” at UF”:

I find in interesting that no one from SDS has talked to the director of RecSports about the scanners. The info they provide is wrong. Students have been involved in the decision to install scanners. The scanners have already been bought and cost approx $5k. We are putting in turnstiles and gates at the SRFC which will cost $35-50k. The gates will be installed with or without scanners.

UF is giving a private company thousands of dollars in student activity fees to invade our privacy. The Alligator had that the hand scanners would cost up to $50,000 per location.

In other words, the turnstiles and gates are part of the system that will deny you entry if your hand-scan doesn’t match biometric data on file with UF. Bowles is splitting hairs.

When the administration crafts some plan students might find unsavory, like the Aramark contract, they tend to get opinions from our representatives in Student Government, and perhaps a few select campus goups they know can be trusted.

Lately, SG has tended to rubber stamp these things and feel important for taking the side of power when other students raise objections.

This is how millions of our activity fee dollars are handed over to private companies that are useless or worse, while administration can claim they got our opinions first.

UF Trustee was Aramark Lobbyist

In 2001, when Aramark Correctional Services first landed its now-aborted contract with the Department of Corrections, its lobbying team included longtime Jeb Bush associate Courtney Cunningham.

In 2005, Cunningham was appointed to UF’s Board of Trustees.

He continued to lobby Florida’s executive branch for the Aramark subsidiary, while Aramark was under contract with UF, until the last quarter of 2007, according to state disclosure forms.

If he lobbies for a company under contract with UF, is ending his lobbying activities as that contract comes up for renewal really enough to avoid a conflict of interest?

Hand-Scanner Scam

It looks like students will have some say on this terrible plan, in which UF will shell out $50,000 per location to a private company to put hand scanners in our recreational facilities. Student activists got enough signatures to put a referendum on the matter on the ballot in this fall’s SG elections.

Apparently photo IDs aren’t secure enough, and there’s a problem with unauthorized people using the gyms on campus so somebody decided to start tying Gator IDs to biometric data. We’d actually be paying for the “service” of having our privacy invaded.

The money would come from student activity fees.

Here’s to hoping the student Supreme Court doesn’t shoot this down. The wording on the ballot question is painfully neutral for a plan this outrageous:

“Should UF require students to submit to a “hand scan” in order to gain access to recreational facilities?”

The Worst is Yet to Come

A year ago, it looked the Fed had proven it was capable of handling what was then called the subprime mortgage crisis. By now we ought to know better, and things are actually worse than you think.

Much worse. You think the collapse of Lehman Brothers (proud business partner of the State of Florida and the UF Investment Corporation) was big news? It’s got everyone talking, but the future’s even uglier.

For $695, you can get access to Highline Financial, an organization that has ranked the strength of the 10 largest financial institutions on a scale from 0-99, with the larger numbers indicating the most sound. Like most Americans, I don’t have that kind of money lying around, but radio consumer advocate Clark Howard apparently does. He reports:

Citigroup gets a 1; Wachovia gets a 6; and Bank of America gets a 17. These are ugly numbers. On the flip side, U.S. Bancorp and the Bank of New York Mellon score 81 and 71, respectively.

Woah. On a scale of 0-99, the largest banking corporation in the world has a soundness rating of one. The official banking partner of UF has a six. We’re in a lot of trouble.

But wait, you say, oil is falling. That can fuel an economic recovery.

Not so fast. That may be the worst sign of all.

Falling oil prices represent bets against US economic growth, which demands oil. After all, we are the world’s largest oil customer. We’re in the middle of hurricane season, which threatens domestic supplies in the Gulf, and violence is rocking Nigeria, our fourth-largest supplier. We know that would normally drive up prices. Remember January? But oil has reached a 7-month low. The smart money is not optimistic about our future. The trouble, it appears, is only beginning.

There are two ways to deal with an economy that appears poised for a dramatic contraction. The first, advocated by John Maynard Keynes and employed by Roosevelt to end the Great Depression, is to use the public sector to stimulate economic growth. Government investment in infrastructure, scientific research, and services that ensure the general welfare of citizens (like healthcare, education and welfare) can ensure people can continue to live comfortably and contribute to the economy.

The second is to allow private companies to take over those tasks. Rather than using the democratic institutions of government to help everyone and help provide for long-term prosperity for the many, some state, local and federal governments are letting well-connected companies take over the public sphere to make money. In many cases, this restricts access to those who can afford it.

Goodbye, Aramark!

Maybe not on campus. But they’re on the way out of our prisons.

“The state rushed into it, and like most shotgun weddings, the marriage has been pretty tortured,” said Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach.

The divorce may be painful for the state, as the article notes. Finding another provider won’t be easy, because food inflation is squeezing the industry’s profits.

Now’s the time to scale back Jeb Bush’s privatization drive, which left us beholden to for-profit companies in the first place. It appears Aramark decided to bail when it had to choose between meeting the state’s standards of decency and maintaining a healthy profit margin. Repeated fines also proved costly.

We need to insulate the security of our prisons (in which edible, accessible food plays a major role) against the fluctuations of the market. Florida can still afford to feed its prisoners, as an audit cited in the article suggests, but we can no longer afford to subsidize corporate profits in the process.

Check it Out

Hopefully by now you’ve checked out my Aramark article.

It may come across as a bit one-sided, but there are reasons for that. Our public institutions are being hollowed out and turned into profit centers for private corporations, and the trend has been treated uncritically by the media. Politicians who want to put schools, roads, our military and our prisons on the auction block are regarded as innovators, reformers, “mavericks” who are willing to try unconventional solutions to tackle today’s problems, like opening public services to private-sector competition.

 

When another piece of the public domain goes up for sale, or contracts some aspect of its operations to the private sector, it’s rarely pointed out that these companies are not in business to serve the public. They are in business to make money.

When The Alligator finally reported UF’s Aramark contract, it did not explain the fact that the bidding process was structured in a way that kept out competition, the problems surrounding Aramark’s performance in Florida’s prisons, or the fact that the company was not obligated, as was reported, to reduce the number of missed meals purchased by meal plan customers. It’s merely obligated to “work with” UF.

Another obstacle to objectivity was the refusal by Aramark’s officials at UF to take questions. Of course, private companies aren’t as open to scrutiny as public institutions.

The purpose of this blog is to start holding them accountable. Florida is on the cutting edge of privatization in many respects, especially when it comes to eduction, and its high time this was questioned.