We’re all acutely aware of how our own healthcare management effects our personal bottom line, so it comes as no surprise that healthcare management of individuals under the care of the state represents significant investment.

With the number of prison detainees on the rise in Vermont, Corrections healthcare costs for prisoners represents an important opportunity for review by the state auditor’s office.  

To that end, State Auditor Doug Hoffer has just concluded an examination of the Dept. of  Corrections healthcare costs under the contract it holds with Correct Care Solutions.  

Here is a link to the entire 41-page report; but, if you want to cut to the chase (ie. Opportunities for Cost Savings), turn to page twelve.

Some clear opportunities for savings exist in ensuring that when inmates are covered by programs such as Medicaid, healthcare costs are billed to those programs rather than to the State of Vermont,  a practice that has not been universally observed in the past; and in providing inmates, upon release into the community, with their prescribed medications drawn from the more economical Dept. of Corrections pharmacy rather than sending them to outside retailers at Corrections’ expense.

The objective is, of course, to provide quality care to the incarcerated population but not at a premium price.  As often proves to be the case, the ideal balance has been difficult to achieve.

Auditor Hoffer sees better monitoring as essential to protecting both interests.  Noting that monitoring of the contract has improved since 2012, Hoffer says

“Since it’s a cost-plus-management fee contract, the state bears the financial risk and the contractor lacks incentive to minimize costs.” The audit report stated that DOC’s “cost monitoring was not robust during the earlier years of the contract

and

“DOC’s failure to levy contractually allowed penalties for two years represented a lost opportunity for the State to offer a monetary incentive for CCS to correct its deficiencies in a timely manner.”

The report identifies “personnel and operational changes in the Department” as contributing to this failing; once more demonstrating how government cost-cutting efforts that target staff don’t always have the desired effect.

As a member of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, I am more than aware that a $17 trillion dollar national debt and a $700 billion deficit are serious problems that must be addressed.

But I am also aware that real unemployment is close to 14 percent, that tens of millions of Americans are working for horrendously low wages, that more Americans are now living in poverty than ever before and that wealth and income inequality in the United States is now greater than in any other major country — with the gap between the very rich and everyone else growing wider and wider.

Further, when we talk about the national budget, it is vitally important that we remember how we got into this fiscal crisis in the first place and who was responsible for it. Let us never forget that when Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, the U.S. had a budget surplus of $236 billion with projected budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. During that time, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected a 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, enough to erase the entire national debt by the end of 2011.

What happened? How did we, in a few short years, go from a large budget surplus into horrendous debt? The answer is not that complicated. Under President Bush we went to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — and didn’t pay for them. We just put them on the credit card. The cost of those wars is estimated to be between $4 trillion to $6 trillion. Further, Bush and Congress passed an expensive prescription drug program that was unpaid for. They also reduced revenue by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. On top of all that, the Wall Street collapse and ensuing recession significantly reduced tax receipts and increased spending for unemployment compensation and food stamps, further exacerbating the deficit situation.

Interestingly, the so-called congressional “deficit hawks” — Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Jeff Sessions and other conservative Republicans — all voted for those measures that increased the deficit. These are the same folks who now want to dismantle virtually every social program designed to protect working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. In other words, it’s okay to spend trillions on a war we should never have waged and large defense budgets, and provide huge tax breaks for billionaires and multi-national corporations. It’s just not okay when, in very difficult economic times, we try to protect the most vulnerable people in our country.

Where do we go from here? How do we now draft a federal budget which creates jobs, makes our country more productive, protects working families and lowers the deficit?

For a start, we have to understand that, from both a moral and economic perspective, we cannot impose more austerity on the people of our country who are already suffering. The time is now for the wealthy and multi-national corporations who are doing phenomenally well to help us rebuild America and lower our deficit.

At a time when the richest 1 percent own 38 percent of the financial wealth of America, while the bottom 60 percent own a mere 2.3 percent — we cannot balance the budget on the backs of people who have virtually nothing. When 95 percent of all new income during 2009 through 2012 went to the top 1 percent, while tens of millions of working Americans saw a decline in their income, we cannot cut programs that these workers depend upon.

Instead of talking about cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, we must end the absurdity of one out of four corporations in America not paying a nickel in federal income taxes. At a time when multi-national corporations and the wealthy are avoiding more than $100 billion a year in taxes by stashing money in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, we need to make them pay taxes just like middle-class Americans. The truth of the matter is that according to the most recent information available profitable corporations are only paying 13 percent of their income in federal taxes which is near a 40-year low.

While in January 2013, we successfully ended Bush’s tax breaks for the richest 1 percent, the truth is that they continue to exist for the top 2 percent, those households earning between $250,000 and $450,000 a year. That must end.

At a time when we now spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defense, we can afford to make judicious cuts in our military without compromising our military capabilities.

Frankly, it is time that Congress started listening to the ordinary people. Recently, the Republican Party learned a hard lesson when the American people stated loudly and clearly that it was wrong to shut down the government and not pay our bills because some extreme right-wing members of Congress do not like the Affordable Care Act. Well, there’s another lesson that my Republican colleagues are going to have to absorb. Poll after poll make it very clear that the American people overwhelmingly do not want to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In fact, according to a recent National Journal poll, 81 percent of the American people do not want to cut Medicare at all; 76 percent of the American people do not want to cut Social Security at all; and 60 percent of the American people do not want to cut Medicaid at all. Meanwhile, other polls have made it very clear that at a time of growing income and wealth inequality, Americans believe that the wealthiest among us and large corporations must pay their fair share in taxes.

It is time to develop a federal budget which is moral and which makes good economic sense. It is time to develop a budget which invests in our future by creating jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure improvement and expanding educational opportunities. It is time for those who have so much to help us with deficit reduction. It is time that we listen to what the American people want, and not just respond to the billionaire class and major campaign contributors.

I am proud to serve on the board of the VCV and wanted to share news of a challenging job opportunity with our GMD readership who I know are so well-equipped to get the word out to everyone who should become involved.

On October 9, the Vermont Natural Resource Council and Vermont Conservation Voters announced an exciting new partnership, intended to empower both organizations with a palette of collaborative  possibilities through which to effect positive change for the environment and for sustainable communities.

As Executive Director, Brian Shupe has the full confidence of both entities to conduct a search for a shared Political Director. This is a new position, created to increase the capacity of  both organizations to fulfill their complimentary missions.

It’s a wonderful opportunity for a bright and dexterous candidate, with a strong commitment to our sustainable future, to truly make a difference.

Although the VNRC/VCV is already receiving many excellent applications from highly qualified individuals, they recognize that, in order to maximize the potential of this powerful new union, it is necessary to find just the right person who will compliment the culture of the VNRC’s excellent program staff with strong political skills and a sensitivity to the distinct missions of the partnered organizations.

This means that they are not just looking at those with by-the-book educational qualifications, but are expanding their invitation to those whose broad experience in activist leadership has gained for them a political acumen that compliments their commitment to shared principles of responsible communites, and land and resource stewardship.

If you have a mind to throw your hat in the ring, here is a list of what they are looking for:

•    excellent writing and presentation skills;

•    the ability to work collaboratively in a busy work-environment;

•    excellent verbal and written communications skills, including the ability to communicate complex policy positions in a concise, value-based manner that resonates with average Vermonters;

•    Excellent political and strategic skills, including an ability to read the political landscape and design effective strategies for navigating that landscape whether it involves a campaign to enact legislation or to elect a candidate to office;

•    effective fundraising skills, including an ability to nurture donor relationships and identify and solicit new donors;

•    a working knowledge of state and federal election laws; and

•    a passion for Vermont and protecting its environment and communities, and a belief that individuals working together can affect positive change.

A master’s degree in political science, environmental studies or related field is preferred, although direct experience running political campaigns, grassroots organizing, policy advocacy and/or lobbying are highly valued and can substitute for academic background.

It is my personal hope that a lot of excellent female candidates and people having diverse backgrounds will apply.

C’mon people, let’s live in full color!

The news of a local employer leaving our green and pleasant land is, I’m sure, warming the cockles of conservative hearts. Huber + Suhner, a Swiss-owned manufacturer of radio frequency cables (well, somebody has to do it), will leave its current location in Essex Junction, and move its assembly operations to New Jersey and its management offices to North Carolina.

H+S employs 63 people, so it’s not exactly an IBM situation. But I’m sure the likes of El Jefe General John McLaughry and Vermont’s Loudest Economist Art Woolf are already drafting their opinion pieces: See, Vermont is business-unfriendly! We’re chasing good employers away!

And at first glance, it looks like they have a point:

“Obviously, the cost of doing business here and the tax perspective is a significant reason why we’re moving,” [H+S President Andy] Hollywood said. “For the most part, (North Carolina) is a lower overall tax implication to the company.”

“AHA!!!” comes the cry, rolling down from the Ethan Allen Institute and the Republican leadership. But wait, there’s more:

A spokesman for the firm, Joe Choquette of the Burlington-based law firm Downs Rachlin Martin, said that lower real estate prices in North Carolina contribute greatly to reduced property tax liabilities.

Huh. Well. So North Carolina’s “lower overall tax implication” has more to do with property values than tax rates. In other words, land in Vermont (and particularly in the Burlington area) is much more valuable than land in North Carolina.

Darn! Vermont’s just too nice!

The company also cited a bunch of other reasons that have nothing to do with Vermont’s tax or regulatory environment, like a shortage of qualified administrative applicants (an argument for boosting education, not cutting government), better and more numerous transportation options (not much we can do about that), and a “competitive salary environment.” In other words, in North Carolina we can pay peanuts and get away with it.  

So, when the business types and conservatives start howling about Shumlin “losing another employer,” just remember that they’re only telling the part of the story that fits their preconceived narrative.  

Well hey, the race for chair of the Vermont Republican Party is heating up. So says our political media, which (following up on an initial post by Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz, although only VTDigger gave him any credit) has jumped on the emergence of two candidates like a house cat on a wounded bird. (After all, it’s a rare day when there’s any relevant, or even halfway relevant, news about the VTGOP. And the political media desperately want to cover the Republicans whenever they can, to “prove” their objectivity.)

Said emergence came, not coincidentally I’m sure, at the same time as sidelined party chair “Angry Jack” Lindley’s recovery from a grave illness. (And I am truly happy to hear he’s doing better. Get well soon, A.J.) After all, it would’ve been unseemly to launch a candidacy to replace a guy while he’s still in intensive care.

But time’s a-wastin’, with the VTGOP set to elect a chair on November 9. And so, we have two candidates — plus, Angry Jack himself has not ruled out a re-election bid. (I seriously doubt he’ll actually run. His health is too big an unknown, and his leadership was in question even before his illness.) I can categorize them as: The No-Hoper, and The Alleged Fresh Young Face.

The No-Hoper is our friend, John “Mr. MacGoo” MacGovern, last seen trying desperately to dig himself out of debt from his failed candidacy for U.S. Senate. You know, the one he lost to Bernie Sanders by a nearly 3-1 margin.

Last time I checked, MacGovern had managed a truly rare feat: he increased his campaign debt in the first half of 2013, spending $13,454 while raising only $11,324, while not actually running a campaign. And he was, once again, begging for money from his head-of-a-pin donor base.

And now, this guy wants to chair the Vermont Republican Party. Balls of steel, I tell ya.

We can dismiss his candidacy out of hand, I think. Not because he’s a complete failure in Vermont politics; no, considering the track records of folks like Darcie “Hack” Johnston and Jeff Bartley, failure is no barrier to upward mobility in the VTGOP. MacGoo is a nonstarter for one simple reason: he’s Not From Around Here. House Minority Leader Don Turner, in VTDigger:

Asked about MacGovern, Turner confessed, “I don’t really know much about him.”

Lt. Gov. Phil Scott said pretty much the same thing about MacGoo, and in a small place like Vermont, being unfamiliar is a greater liability than being a failure.

(By the way, what does it say about the VTGOP that its top elected leaders “don’t know much about” the man they nominated to be a U.S. Senator? Pretty damn sad, if you ask me.)

Yeah, I think we can safely consider John MacGovern doomed to roam the barren wasteland of his unrequited ambitions, and safely turn our attention to the only plausible candidate: David Sunderland.  

Sunderland’s an engineer at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and a former State Representative from the Republican redoubt of Rutland Town. He was first appointed by Governor Jim Douglas to fill a vacancy in the House, and later won two terms on his own (in a district so lopsided that a Republican candidate would have to be a confessed serial ax murderer to lose) before stepping out of politics to concentrate on his day job. (Which begs the question, how will he have time to be an effective chair of a party with very little paid staff?)

Sunderland is being touted as a fresh young face: he’s only 48, which is downright pubescent in Republican terms. He’s the Chosen One of the Phil Scott-led “moderate” wing of the VTGOP, but he’s getting rave reviews from the “other” wing as well. No one is willing to openly endorse a candidate, out of respect to Angry Jack and to the process, but the party’s top two lawmakers, Turner and Sen. Joe Benning, are both saying nice things about Sunderland. And Jeff Bartley has recused himself from the race and thrown his support, FWIW, to Sunderland.

Now, I cannot speak to Sunderland’s potential as a party builder. He may be terrific at organizing, fundraising, and convincing good Republicans to run for office. But a moderate, a harbinger of a new era at the VTGOP? Not so much.

In his letter seeking support for the chairmanship, Sunderland harkened to the Douglas era, calling for politics done “the Vermont Way,” a phrase Douglas used.

Oh goodie. In the words of Firesign Theater, “Forward… Into the Past!”

I sympathize with Vermont Republicans who hearken back to the halcyon days of Smilin’ Jim, because they’ve had an unbroken series of failures since he left office. But then Sunderland said this:

“The lack of balance in Montpelier has allowed the extreme left of the Democratic Party to take us in the wrong direction.”

He’s referring to the “extreme left” of people like Peter Shumlin, Jeb Spaulding, John Campbell, and Shap Smith. Yup, a buncha bomb-throwers if I ever saw any.

If David Sunderland thinks of the Shummy Bunch as “extreme left,” that shows you his perspective on the political spectrum. But wait, there’s more.

Sunderland’s Twitter account (@DASunderland) is basically a series of anti-health care reform and anti-government messages like these:

Sound like a voice of moderation to you?

I also found an opinion piece by Sunderland, posted on VTDigger in June 2013, ripping the “Shumlin Gas Tax.” Republican boilerplate, n’est-ce pas?

The lopsidedly Democrat Legislature argues that our crumbling state infrastructure can only be fixed through a regressive tax hike that particularly impacts the middle class.

Please note the use of the pejorative “Democrat” beloved of Republicans everywhere. But not cool if you’re trying to present yourself as a “moderate.” Anyway, Sunderland’s argument is that Shumlin should have cut the General Fund budget instead of raising taxes — ignoring the fact that failing to raise the gas tax would have cost Vermont $60 million in federal transportation funding.

Nope, Sunderland is a hard-liner on taxes. And on health care.

If this is Phil Scott’s idea of “moderation,” then I have to ask: who, exactly, is Phil Scott? And what does he actually stand for?

Again, I have no idea if Sunderland is a skilled organizer and team builder. If he is, then he’ll be a good chairman. But in terms of policy? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.  

And while we’re on the subject of Art Woolf;  I was not surprised that, in his October 17 “How We’re Do’in” column in the Freeps, Mr. Woolf characteristically missed the forest entirely while extracting just the bit of data he chose to from observing a single tree.

This time, Mr. Woolf’s topic was poverty, something about which he has apparently experienced little to inform his conveniently contrived theory.

To make a rather long story short, he takes exception to the federal count of how many poor people there are in the country right now.  

Tracing a history of the USDA’s calculations on minimum nutritional requirements and how that translates to dollars and cents and then into poverty statistics, Woolf contends that we are overestimating how many people in this country do not earn enough to feed themselves.  Presumably he is implying that we shouldn’t be giving nutritional assistance such as food stamps and WIC to so many people.  

Nice.

His reasoning?  Citing the high number of students represented in Burlington’s working population, and its relatively high statistical poverty level, he argues (not unreasonably) that since students frequently get support from parents who live elsewhere and only contribute incidentally to their own support through part-time jobs, those poverty statistics are misleading for the City.

I’ll give him that, although with some reservation, because I suspect there may be some effort at compensating for such an anomaly in the federal calculus.  Perhaps Doug can enlighten us here.

Be that as it may, Mr. Woolf attempts to extrapolate from Burlington’s high concentration of well-heeled University students to urban populations all over the country.  He comes to the rather astonishing conclusion that there are so many lucky college students nationwide who enjoy the generous support of their doting parents, that their combined number skews national poverty statistics, allowing a whole lot more money to go to WIC and food stamps than is entirely necessary.

Are there no workhouses?

No there aren’t; but apparently there is no dearth of ivory tower academics who can’t quite grasp the enormity of our income inequity issues in America.

Whereas, neo-con crepe hangers like Art Woolf would have us believe that Vermont’s cup is half-empty,  according to the 2013 Opportunity Index, Vermont’s glass is way more than half-full.

The 2013 Index ranks Vermont as #1 among all states for providing its citizens with opportunity.

Apparently, it all depends on who one chooses to believe; or perhaps, about whose opportunities you are more concerned.

Ethan Allen Institute hack Art Woolf, Jim Douglas, and every Republican who has run for statewide or national office in the past twenty-five years would probably choose to believe CNBC’s take on who has the top spot in terms of opportunity. CNBC awards the top position to Texas, and places Vermont in thirty-eighth place.

That’s because, CNBC being the stock-market’s mouthpiece; their sole interest in “opportunity” is  in business opportunity, which they rather narrowly interpret as the opportunity to operate a business free of any environmental constraints or financial regulations.

If that is your standard, Texas may be just the ticket!  Of course, wholesale rape and neglect of the environment comes at a huge price to the planet as a whole and to the future of Texas in particular; but if business is happy, CNBC concludes that everybody should be happy.

The Index doesn’t necessarily agree:

The states that do best on the Opportunity Index are the states that have made investing in their people a top priority, with good schools and early childhood education, real efforts to help young people find jobs when they graduate or to keep them from dropping out, and a commitment to improving opportunity for all. Perhaps because of its investments in K-12 education, Vermont has the highest on-time high school graduation rate in the country, and more than 91 percent of its students leave school with a diploma.

Yes, Art Woolf, you read that right, we do rather well by our students here in Vermont.  If they leave to explore opportunities in other places, that is because they are well-prepared to do so.

And, I’ve got news for you: they leave other states, too.  Separation remains an important ritual in the adventure of youth.  

But we can be optimistic that the quality of life here in Vermont will draw many of our young people back home to Vermont to put down roots and raise their children here.

I have only anecdotal experience in the matter, but if my 27-year-old son and many of his friends are anything to judge by, we’re doing all right.

After living in other states and even other countries, they are returning to work hard and think creatively in order to support themselves right here in the place that nurtured them.  

Therein lies the business opportunity that CNBC might overlook, but our kids will not.,

The buzzard on Bruce Lisman’s shoulder, Tom Pelham, has disgorged another dire warning of imminent financial shipwreck:

Vermont’s state budget is about to hit the rocky shores of fiscal reality.

Oh no! Sound the alarms! Man the lifeboats! Abandon ship!!!1!!1!

This lovely little morning pick-me-up appears in the Opinion section of VTDigger, and presumably coming soon to a newspaper op-ed page near you. In it, Pelham provides a laundry list of the alleged financial crimes and misdemeanors being perpetrated by our state government, and prescribes his usual cure: A return to the policies of Jim Douglas.

Including — and I guess he’s actually serious about this — a re-adoption of Douglas’ long-discredited “Challenges for Change” hornswoggle.

Yes, them’s was good times for Pelham, who served as Douglas’ tax commissioner. And, before then, as Howard Dean’s finance commissioner, which is supposed to “prove” his bipartisan bona fides. (Thanks to his time in the Dean Administration, back when Dean was a devoutly centrist fiscal hawk, Pelham provides a thin patina of bipartisanship to Lisman’s pro-business vanity project public policy NPO, Campaign for Vermont.)  

It all started, as Pelham never tires of reminding us, with the Legislature’s 2009 override of Douglas’ budget veto. That single action “turned [Vermont] away from a safe course” and “set Vermont on a course of unsustainable spending, chronic underfunding, hidden cost shifts, higher taxes and a ‘kick the can down the road’ approach to problem solving.”

Well, actually, anyone in the Shumlin Administration would tell you that they spent much of his first term unraveling all of Douglas’ cost-shifting and can-kicking, not to mention undoing the damage done by “Challenges for Change.”

But unlike Pelham, I’m not here to reair old grievances, but to point out the unacknowledged elephants in his rhetorical room. You may have heard of them: the financial meltdown of 2008, America’s growing income inequality, and Tropical Storm Irene.  

Let’s start with 2008’s fiscal calamity. You know, the one that happened while Bruce Lisman was an officer on the bridge of Bear Stearns when it precipitously sank (but was, somehow, not at all involved or responsible). Well, Pelham pulls one of the basic film-flams of fiscal conservatism: using 2008 as a base year.

Whenever you see 2008 as the base year, immediately realize you’re being bullshitted. Because the Wall Street meltdown caused massive disruptions to our economy, massive drops in tax revenue, and massive increases in public-sector spending (stimulus, bailouts, human services). So when Pelham asserts that Vermont’s budget has grown dramatically since 2008, he’s got his thumb pressed firmly on the scale. He doubles down on the deception by pointing out that the state budget has grown far faster than the state’s economy.

Since 2008.

When the economy went into the toilet, and is only just starting to recover.

Which triggered huge increases in government spending, to mitigate the economic (and human) cost of Wall Street’s misadventures.

And which also caused huge losses in public-sector pension funds, which were, of course, invested in a wide variety of Wall Street products. (Indeed, due to a quirk in federal law, public-sector pension funds are not subject to the same “prudent man” conventions as private-sector funds. Which means public-sector funds can be invested more dangerously, and often are*.) So when Tom Pelham rehashes his rant about Vermont’s underfunding of pensions, remember that a lot of the blame lies at Wall Street’s door, and that the current Administration has been trying very hard to increase pension funds at a time when finances are extremely tight.

*See Matt Taibbi’s excellent article in Rolling Stone, entitled “Looting the Pension Funds.” The “prudent man” reference is from page 2 of the online article.

Pelham also moans about Vermont’s bond rating, despite the fact that it remains at AA+ and was actually upgraded by S&P last year. He gives the Shumlin Administration and the Treasurer’s Office absolutely no credit for this; rather, he says that Treasurer Beth Pearce “inherited” that rating “from the responsible fiscal management” of past Administrations. You know, the “responsible fiscal management” of wise men like, ahem, Tom Pelham.

You gotta admit, the man has gall.

Pelham also fails to make any mention of Tropical Storm Irene’s huge impact on the Vermont economy and government spending and borrowing. Nope, nope, all this mess has one single cause: the infamous Budget Veto Override of 2009.

I could go on (and on and on) mapping the rich veins of hokum in Pelham’s screed, but I’ll just do one more.

Pelham devotes one section to human-services spending, i.e. WELFARE, which he summarizes as “Higher Spending, Few Results.” In it, he cherrypicks financial data to “show” that Vermont has allowed human-services spending to skyrocket while poverty continues to rise.

He blames this, primarily, on Shumlin’s abandonment of “Challenges for Change,” which would have (per Pelham) solved all our problems. When, in fact, CFC made a hot mess of human services, and the current administration has spent a lot of time and effort on remediating the damage.

What Pelham doesn’t mention — at all — is America’s (and Vermont’s) growing income inequality and poverty rate, and the continuing repercussions of the 2008 meltdown.

Remember last winter, when Governor Shumlin was defending his proposed slashing of the Earned Income Tax Credit program by pointing out its huge growth? A whopping 49% over the past eight years? Well, perhaps you also remember that that 49% was due, almost entirely, to two factors: inflation, and larger numbers of the working poor. And we have more working poor because of the 2008 meltdown and the continuing squeeze on the middle and working classes.  

Same thing goes for the overall rise in human services spending. Pelham whines that we’re getting no bang for our buck, because poverty rates have somehow increased. Well, two things he fails to address: Human services programs are not meant to eradicate poverty, but to mitigate its harsh effects; and those programs have been swimming against very powerful economic tides that are pushing poverty rates ever higher.

Pelham’s arguments look substantial at first glance. But upon further examination, they fall apart like wet Kleenex. Because of his past resume, Tom Pelham gets far more credit than he deserves for being (1) a public-policy expert, and (2) a nonpartisan. He is neither.  

With the government shutdown and everything apparently we missed this story from the Times.

 With early admission deadlines looming for hundreds of thousands of students, the new version of the online Common Application shared by more than 500 colleges and universities has been plagued by numerous malfunctions, alarming students and parents and putting admissions offices weeks behind schedule.

I'm a parent of two grown sons who managed to apply to college electronically (or at least one of them; I'm not sure about my older son) and it went pretty smoothly. 

Nevertheless, I've paid careful attention to the criticism of the Affordable Care Act and the widespread computer problems that have attended the roll-out, so I know exactly how to fix the college application problem some students are encountering.

ABOLISH COLLEGE!

Lots and lots of Vermont journalists have made the soul-stifling but wallet-stuffing move from reportage to flackery — forsaking their chosen craft for the greener fields of corporate, nonprofit, and governmental “communications.” It’s almost like a natural progression: put in your time at an underfunded media operation, build a reputation and make connections, and then cash in your chips.

At first glance, the new staffer in the State Auditor’s office seems like the latest in this lineup. But this time, it’s something very different. Per Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz:

Citing a desire to increase his office’s investigative capacity, State Auditor Doug Hoffer said Monday he’s hired VTDigger reporter Andrew Stein to serve as his executive assistant.

The important clause there is “increase his office’s investigative capacity.” Because Stein won’t be crafting press releases or having plausibly innocuous kaffeeklatschen with his former fellows in the Fifth Estate; he’ll be a working investigator.

According to Hoffer, Stein will be charged with conducting research and investigations with the “rigor” of a full-blown audit, but in a shorter time frame.

… He emphasized that, unlike many ex-reporters who enter government service, Stein would not be focused on public relations.

“This is absolutely not a political job,” Hoffer said. “We don’t have political jobs at the auditor’s office. I don’t. Absolutely not.”

It’s a great fit. Stein has proven his chops as a green-eyeshade explorer of dry government documents. Hell, he even likes to do that stuff. Plus, he knows how to turn complicated policy stories into readable, understandable, and even interesting prose.

His new hire also reflects positively on VTDigger, which may be the only news entity in Vermont that would value a reporter like Stein and give him a platform on which to shine. And Digger’s loss should prove to be the Auditor’s (and our) gain.