Tag Archives: Center

Hemlock, Beef, Film Incentives Make ‘Pork Report’ List

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News release from Beacon Center of Tennessee:
NASHVILLE – The Beacon Center of Tennessee today released its eighth annual Tennessee Pork Report, exposing more than $511 million squandered by state and local governments over the past year. The annual report published by the Beacon Center, the state’s leading free market think tank and taxpayer watchdog, is the only one of its kind in Tennessee.
Examples of wasteful spending outlined in the 2013 Pork Report include:
•A corporate welfare deal gone sour, costing taxpayers $95 million after Hemlock Semiconductor closed its plant and laid off hundreds of workers;
•$73 million in improper unemployment benefits, including cash paid to existing state workers and the deceased, of which only $15.3 million has been recouped;
•Wasteful film incentives to Hollywood elites totaling $13.5 million;

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Johnson Succeeds Bonnyman at TN Justice Center

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Michele Johnson has been named the new executive director of a Nashville group that supports greater access to Medicaid.
Johnson will succeed Gordon Bonnyman at the Tennessee Justice Center at the end of the year.
Bonnyman and Johnson co-founded the organization 17 years ago to advocate for Tennessee’s vulnerable population, particularly those struggling to find access to health care.
Johnson is nationally known for her legal work with children who have special health care needs.

Senator’s Concerns Helped Sink UT’s Plan for $98M Investment

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The University of Tennessee may have abandoned tens of millions of dollars over the next decade from a proposed partnership that it is no longer pursuing with a proton therapy center in West Knoxville because of legislative and financial challenges associated with it, reports the News Sentinel.
The proposal, which was strongly backed by key university officials, called for using the additional revenues generated to fund new academic and research programs and facilities that were considered a step toward becoming a top 25 public research institution, according to documents obtained by the News Sentinel through a public records request.
The university dropped its legislative efforts in March, a month after a bill was filed by Sens. Randy McNally and Doug Overbey, ending a two-year effort to affiliate itself with Provision Center for Proton Therapy, much like how the University of Florida has partnered with a proton therapy center in Jacksonville, Fla. (Note: The legislature’s website shows Overbey as prime sponsor of the bill, SB1194, with Rep. Ryan Haynes, R-Knoxville, as House sponsor. It has not been withdrawn, the website shows, but was never moved in the Senate and taken off notice in the House.)
… While the university was projected to receive a minimum total financial benefit of $80 million in 2023 that could reach more than $180 million, questions were raised about the financial risk to the university, and ultimately to the state of Tennessee, as well as uncertainty about lower reimbursement rates and effectiveness of the treatment.
Among those with concerns were McNally — chairman of the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee — and local health care officials.
“Even if it benefited the university, there were philosophical differences,” UT President Joe DiPietro said in an interview, noting that various people were sympathetic to McNally’s concern about using taxpayer dollars to benefit a private enterprise.
McNally worried the public-private partnership would put the university and state at too great of a risk and potentially compete with local health care providers. It also would set a precedent for other schools, while allowing the center to cherry pick the best patients with private insurance.
“I might be pessimistic when it comes to those projects, but the state would have taken a lot of risk through the university. We found that out with Hemlock. It has not performed like it had promised,” McNally said in an interview, referring to Hemlock Semiconductor in Clarksville that received some $130 million in state and local incentives and announced last month plans to lay off 300 of its 400 workers and shut down its facility.
“I can’t say that I’m right on this, but I felt it was a risk to the state that it didn’t need to be taking,” he added. “I couldn’t tell you with everything the return would justify the risk. It was something new the state hadn’t gotten into and would open itself up for others.”
Proton therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses a beam of protons to more precisely irradiate tumors without harming surrounding tissue and reducing treatment-related side effects. Local businessman Terry Douglass has spearheaded the development of the proton therapy center currently under construction in Dowell Springs as part of a comprehensive clinical outpatient health care center.
… DiPietro said in the interview that McNally wasn’t the only person to express concern over the proposal, though he declined to say who the others were.
Douglass conveyed his frustration over the lack of progress to university officials in December, questioning why McNally’s “nonissues” took precedence over the benefits of the legislation.
“Why is it that one or two individuals can defeat something that is potentially so good for UT, our community and our state?” Douglass wrote in an email to DiPietro, Executive Vice President David Millhorn, lobbyist Anthony Haynes and Chancellor Jimmy Cheek. “I have been around long enough to know that when one door closes a better one opens. I just hate to see this door close for UT.”
… McNally brushed off any notion that he was the reason behind the university’s decision.
“It did concern me, but I’m one of 33 senators. I wouldn’t think that it was anything that I had to do with. I think it was a decision made by the university,” said McNally, who last year sponsored the original bill, which didn’t move forward.
McNally said he didn’t discuss the latest bill with its sponsors or any of his legislative peers, though he did talk with local health care officials, who questioned the university’s role in a business that also provided traditional radiation therapy services.
Covenant Health has been in a dispute with Provision over its radiation therapy center, which received a Certificate of Need in December 2011. Covenant declined to comment for this story, citing its ongoing appeal.
McNally works for Cardinal Health, which runs the pharmacy program at Methodist Medical Center, a Covenant Health hospital. McNally’s wife, Jan, retired as a Covenant executive in December.

Tourism Business Wants to Add a Little ‘Fee’ to Nashville Sales Tax

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Sales tax on certain goods sold in downtown Nashville would effectively increase by a small fraction under state legislation Mayor Karl Dean’s administration supports as a way to generate new funds to recruit conventions to the Music City Center, according to the Tennessean.
The proposal, which originated with the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau and a handful of Lower Broadway merchants looking for new ways to attract large conventions, would institute a new 0.025 percent fee on goods and services within Nashville’s downtown business district.
Tourism officials plan to use the funds to underwrite the rent of Music City Center as an incentive to lure conventions here. Sales tax in Davidson County is currently 9.25 cents on every dollar.
The legislation calls the measure a “fee,” one that would produce an estimated $1 million to $1.5 million annually. It would go into effect in 2014.
“The CVB and downtown business owners brought forward this idea and we support it as something that will further bolster our tourism industry,” Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling said in a prepared statement.
The bill, introduced by state Rep. Mike Turner, D-Old Hickory, and co-sponsored by the majority of Davidson County’s state delegation, heads to the State Government Subcommittee this week.

UT Abandons Bill to Invest in Proton Therapy Center

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The University of Tennessee said Tuesday it will not pursue legislation that would allow it to become a stakeholder in a Knoxville proton therapy center currently under construction, reports the News Sentinel.
The bill was withdrawn because “it was going to be very cumbersome to gain the needed approvals legislatively,” President Joe DiPietro said.
The university had hoped to get state approval to guarantee up to $98 million of the project’s costs. It would have gained a 30 percent interest in the company in exchange for the development and funding of related academic programs and facilities, including a Joint Institute for Radiological Sciences and Advanced Imaging at Cherokee Farms.
The Provision Center for Proton Therapy is being built in the Dowell Springs Business Park and is a project of the Provision Health Alliance and Terry Douglass, a local businessman and UT alumnus.
“I think there are differences of opinion that we were catching from various people about state taxpayer dollars being utilized to help a private-sector business. One can argue about that I guess if you look at bringing a Nissan or a Wacker (Chemie) or other big companies, but this is a different kind of thing,” he said.
It also might have precluded campuses at Martin or Chattanooga from getting the best interest rate on a note if they wanted to pursue a capital project, DiPietro said.
Bill Hansen, vice president of business and strategic development for Provision Health Partners, expressed disappointment at the decision but acknowledged the bill had “a small but vocal minority opposition from the local health care community and a senior legislator.”
“We continue to believe this bill was good for the University of Tennessee, good for the state of Tennessee and good for the local community,” Hansen said.
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Note: This refers to HB918/SB1194. As of Wednesday, the legislative website does not reflect that the bills have been formally withdrawn.

Report Critiques Growth in TN School Administrators

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Tennessee teachers could have gotten annual raises of $8,367 over an almost two-decade period, if school boards had curbed growth in the number of administrators they employ, says TNReport.
That’s the message in a new report by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, based in Indianapolis.
The bump represents a 17.8 percent increase in pay on the $47,000 salary a typical Tennessee teacher takes home.
Using student population as the benchmark, the foundation examined growth in the central offices in school districts across America, from 1992 to 2009.
The number of non-teaching staff jumped 46 percent nationally, compared to a 17 percent increase in students – or less than half the rate of growth in the administrative ranks.
Tennessee closely followed the national trend line, with administrators and staff increasing 49 percent, compared to a 17 percent increase in students.
“As the dramatic growth of non-teaching staff in public schools shows, throwing more money at education is not the answer,” said Justin Owen, with the free-market Beacon Center in Nashville. The Beacon Center works with the Friedman Foundation to promote school choice.
….Tennessee would have realized more than $543.2 million in savings annually. Nationally, the figure was more than $24.2 billion annually.
To derive the teacher raises estimate, the foundation took the $543.2 million in savings, divided by the number of teachers in the state in 2009.

Ned McWherter Center Leadership Under Roy Herron Questioned

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The Ned McWherter Center for Rural Development has been led by former state Sen. Roy Herron, now a candidate for chairman of the state Democratic Party, since 2008 without accomplishing much, according to Steven Hale.
The center, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to Tennessee students, was created with a $900,000 state grant in 2008. The grant was part of that year’s state budget during Herron’s term as senator and while he was the president of the organization.
But since that time, the center’s output has been minimal, according to tax records examined by The City Paper. Between 2008 and 2010, the center awarded no scholarships. The nonprofit began 2011 with $1,045,052 in assets but awarded only $35,750 in scholarships to students that year, the most recent available for public examination.
Herron announced in 2012 that he would not seek re-election, noting that he would devote his efforts to the McWherter center.
The center still bears the name of the late former governor, who died in April 2011, despite a nearly year-old request from the McWherter family that his name be removed from the organization.
Along with Herron, House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh and former Democratic Rep. Mark Maddox are listed as officers for the organization. Michael McWherter, son of the former governor, made the request in a letter to all three dated Feb. 20, 2012.

Some TN Schools Adding Class Time in National ‘Pilot Project’

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Open your notebooks and sharpen your pencils. School for thousands of public school students is about to get quite a bit longer.
Five states were to announce Monday that they will add at least 300 hours of learning time to the calendar in some schools starting in 2013. Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee will take part in the initiative, which is intended to boost student achievement and make U.S. schools more competitive on a global level.
The three-year pilot program will affect almost 20,000 students in 40 schools, with long-term hopes of expanding the program to include additional schools — especially those that serve low-income communities. Schools, working in concert with districts, parents and teachers, will decide whether to make the school day longer, add more days to the school year or both.
A mix of federal, state and district funds will cover the costs of expanded learning time, with the Ford Foundation and the National Center on Time & Learning also chipping in resources. In Massachusetts, the program builds on the state’s existing expanded-learning program. In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy is hailing it as a natural outgrowth of an education reform law the state passed in May that included about $100 million in new funding, much of it to help the neediest schools.

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TN Prison Terms Shorter Than in Most States

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Tennessee’s prisoners have had some of the shortest stays in prison over the past two decades when compared with other states, according to The Tennessean.
A recent report by the Pew Center on the States, which measured average length of stay for people sent to prison in 35 states, found that Tennessee had the fourth-lowest average prison stays in the nation in 2009, behind only South Dakota, Illinois and Kentucky.
Prisoners here could expect an average prison stay of 1.9 years, 6 percent less than they would in 1990 and far lower than the national average for 2009, which was just under three years.
…State officials point out that while offenders spend less time in prison today than 20 years ago for property and drug crimes, there was a 41 percent increase in prison time for violent crimes.

Gov Disagrees With Including ‘Corporate Welfare’ in ‘Pork Report’

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Along with a $266,000 rooftop sign and $500,000 for a museum in Virginia, a self-proclaimed government watchdog group Tuesday included “corporate welfare” to businesses in a listing of Tennessee pork barrel spending.
This year’s “Tennessee pork report” includes $40 million in “headquarters relocation assistance” to companies moving their main offices to Tennessee, a $1.5 million grant to General Motors and $2 million to “incentivize production of TV shows and movies” within the state as examples of wasteful spending of tax dollars.
Gov. Bill Haslam, perhaps not unexpectedly, disagreed with the categorization when questioned by reporters.
“The truth is, in economic development, we live in a very competitive world. We’re not going to just unilaterally disarm” by ending state financial support to new or expanding businesses, Haslam said.
He added that “government waste has our full attention,” though “government waste is obviously defined differently by different people.”
The Beacon Center of Tennessee definition in this year’s “pork report” includes:
-$266,000 given by the state to Volkswagen to put a sign atop its Chattanooga plant that is visible only from the air, also characterized as “corporate welfare.” It’s near the Chattanooga airport, but Beacon Center said that only about 500 people per day fly in or out of the airport.
-The $500,000 grant included in the coming year’s state budget at the urging of Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey for a “Birthplace of Country Music” museum in Bristol, Va., just across the Tennessee state line. “That just goes to show state government waste doesn’t stop at the state line,” said Justin Owen, president of Beacon Center.
-$1.5 million spend on “a mansion and lavish furnishings” by the Upper Cumberland Development District, which was designated “pork of the year.” According to television news reports, the organization’s executive director, Whitney Askins, moved into the mansion, though it was designated to serve as housing for needy seniors. She has since been placed on administrative leave.
-$1.3 million in deficit spending at state-owned golf courses.
Beacon Center said it had listed $468 million in “pork,” up from $371 million in last year’s “pork report.: Most involves state government – ranging from such large items as $25 million for building a West Tennessee “megasite” for industry recruitment to a $50,000 grant to the National Folk Festival, held in Nashville.
But it also includes local government projects, ranging from a collective $22 million in deficit annual spending by various city and county government entities to a $5.8 million property tax break Nashville Metro government gave Dollywood Co. and Gaylord Entertainment for development of a water park in Nashville.

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