Private and Public Sectors Married, Give Out Cash to L.A. Teachers

Just another reminder that the government is no more inefficient than the private sector. As previously stated, private sector waste and error falls into the dustbin of collapsed companies, when not continuing year after year with faulty product and bad service. You can never make a valuable policy analysis based on the oft repeated mantra that the private sector is somehow less wasteful or more competent.

In California we have the nation's second largest school district-- L.A. Unified --overpaying employees, then demanding the money back, and with some refusing to return the money and forcing court action.

The conservative side of our brain will immediately leap to snark and easy criticism and link this payroll error into a larger diatribe about the general incompetence found in public education. "We need to free up the private sector to find modern solutions to today's educational needs," McCain would be saying ,if he were not too busy doing nothing. (Which of course he is pretty busy doing). Last heard he was busy criticizing the Obama for not speaking out on Iran, about a day after Obama spoke out on Iran.

But let's read on, and not put ideas in Senator McCain's head.

"It was a devastating blow, an eye-opener for the world to see how incompetent people were in the district," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents district teachers.

"I think the district is vastly different now, but what's still there is a bureaucratic mentality," he said.
Duffy said he's working amicably with senior officials to "resolve these issues one way or another," but he said some lower-level staffers, for example, refuse to review an employee's documentation that conflicts with calculations made by L.A. Unified.

Repairs and other problems related to the $95-million system cost the district at least $37 million; the district received nearly half of that amount in a settlement with the vendor Deloitte Consulting, a subsidiary of Deloitte Touche.

(L.A. Times)

Here we have the public and private sectors united in incompetence and a fitting example that nothing is simply simple. And what's up with the greedy employees and teachers mysteriously on leave and getting overpaid? If we suddenly received an extra few thousand in our check, we would immediately notify someone, or, spend the cash with the full anticipation that we would be paying it back. Perhaps use it as an up front loan, knowing that paying it back can often be negotiated into monthly installments.