HIGHLIGHTS
- New IPS Report on USPS Privatization
- Community Schools the disruption we need?
- Private homes, Federal land?
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National: Who would pay the price for postal privatization? “The U.S. Postal Service delivers—to everyone. Would a privatized version have the same obligation?” Donald Cohen asks. A new report by the Institute for Policy Studies goes into the problems with potential privatization. “With its extensive and valuable human resources and infrastructure, USPS has a strong foundation on which to continue providing a vital public service for all Americans for generations to come,” says IPS. The IPS report’s author is Sarah Anderson, with research assistance by Reyanna James.
2) National: Eileen Appelbaum, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, takes a rigorous look at public pension fund management. “Private equity is on the prowl for new sources of funding and workers’ personal retirement savings are in the cross hairs.”
3) National: Unions and good government organizations have formed a legal network to help federal employees whose jobs have been lost or threatened under the Trump administration, The New York Times reports. “The nation’s largest federation of unions has put together a pro bono legal network that aims to help federal employees whose jobs have been lost or threatened under the Trump administration. More than 1,000 lawyers in 42 states have completed training in order to offer their services, organizers said.” “We knew that time was of the essence because this was coming, and we are expecting a big influx of questions from feds as they start getting notices of reductions in force,” Rob Shriver said.
4) Massachusetts: AFSCME reports that “members of AFSCME Local 1358 (Council 93) recently thwarted the Brookline School Committee’s efforts to privatize nearly 100 jobs, ensuring that school custodians and food service employees remain public employees. The victory, achieved through a strong coalition of labor unions, community support and direct worker action, highlights the power of Council 93 members in standing up for essential public services. The committee’s plan would’ve partially outsourced custodial and food services jobs to private contractors to close a budget deficit. Council 93 presented evidence that any savings would be temporary at best, while disrupting the lives of dozens of workers, diminishing service quality, and leading to a loss of trust in the school community.”
5) Think Tanks: The World Bank has published a new report, Demand and Supply Curves in Political Markets: Understanding the Problem of Public Goods and Why Governments Fail Them. “This paper brings the economic tools of demand and supply curves to better understand how political markets shape the selection of government policies. It does so to tackle a problem at the intersection of political science and economics: government failure to pursue policies on the basis of sound technical evidence.”
6) National/Oklahoma: Aaron Tang and Ethan Hutt offer a broad overview of the legal dynamics at play in the Oklahoma case involving state funding of a religious school. “‘Given the court’s pro-religion majority, some have already portrayed the case as a likely moment of conservative triumph,’” they write. “Maybe so. But the case will also be an originalist moment of truth. That is because the most eye-opening aspect of the religious charter schools’ legal argument is its utter incompatibility with the originalist approach to constitutional interpretation that the court’s conservatives have applied in a slew of recent cases. The most prominent of these history-focused rulings, of course, is Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe vs. Wade.” Tang is a law professor at the UC Davis School of Law and former clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Hutt is a professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
7) National: ProPublica reports that the Trump administration may outsource a major federal payments system to Ramp. “GSA is eying Ramp to get a piece of the government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay. In recent weeks, Trump appointees at GSA have been moving quickly to tap Ramp for a charge card pilot program worth up to $25 million, sources told ProPublica, even as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency highlights the multitudes of contracts it has canceled across federal agencies. (…) It is clear that Ramp has never had a client like the federal government. The only public-sector partner listed on its webpage is a charter school network in Nashville, Tennessee. Still, even before the RFI was publicly announced, Ramp had begun reaching out to contacts in the payment industry asking about the special bank identification numbers required to process government payments, said an industry source. Such steps, two former GSA officials said, were another sign that Ramp was preparing to work on the program.”
8) Ohio/Resource: The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has established a Report Card Training Hub. “This dedicated resource serves as a guide to effectively navigating Ohio School Report Cards and associated processes. These virtual trainings and pre-recorded videos are designed to provide focused, in-depth learning on single topics. Each virtual session is up to two hours in length and does not require prior registration. Whether you’re a superintendent, EMIS coordinator, administrator, or counselor; an ESC or SST consultant; or an ITC professional, these trainings are tailored to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to understand and utilize Ohio School Report Card Data.”
9) Wisconsin: Public schools supporter Jeff Bryant asks whether community schools are the positive disruptor public education needs. “The community schools approach looks different depending on location, but the basic idea is that schools should serve as local hubs not only for education services, but also meet the broader needs of students and families such as physical and mental health, housing, transportation, after-school care, and neighborhood improvement. To provide these services, schools partner with local organizations, including nonprofits and businesses. And students, parents, community members, and school staff help to determine school policies and activities, such as curriculum offerings and sports programs.”
10) National/Arizona: AZCentral reports that the departments of Interior and Urban Development “are assigning a task force to study the idea of transferring or leasing public lands to local governments for housing projects. Conservation groups say the plan could lead to the destruction of natural resources and allow the Trump administration to start privatizing public lands.”
This occurs against the background of a debate over the national housing shortage, and over the Trump administration’s “Freedom Cities” plan. “The proposal, which was light on details, received a muted response and even some criticism from conservatives. But a prominent conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, is taking the idea seriously. The group’s housing center recently published an ambitious blueprint called ‘Homesteading 2.0’ that identifies hundreds of potential locations for 20 new ‘freedom cities’ and sites for 3 million new homes on federal land.” The plan has also attracted strong progressive criticism.
11) Illinois: Kewanee’s mayor says water privatization is off the table. “When the city advertised for bids on operating the plants, they included language allowing companies to bid on purchase the city’s water sewer system outright. The purchaser would be buying not just the treatment plants, but the water towers, the water and sewer mains and all the equipment the uses to maintain the system. The council would no longer have any say in how the systems are run — or in any rate increases the new owner might impose. At the time, Moore said that the legal advertisement was strictly “exploratory” and didn’t commit the city to selling the water and sewer systems.”
12) Maryland/National: Gov. Wes Moore supports bringing Japan’s high-speed ‘maglev’ train to Maryland. “Following recent photos in the news and on social media of Moore clearly enthused after viewing, riding and meeting with officials and executives about Japan’s maglev technology — which uses magnetic fields to lift and propel trains at well over 300 miles per hour — advocates and opponents alike have seen the governor’s recent support as a chance to speak out. Executives and spokespeople for Northeast Maglev have framed Moore’s stated support for the technology as a momentum boost for their project. The governor also met with Northeast Maglev chairman and CEO Wayne Rogers in Japan during his trip. ‘We are thrilled that Governor Wes Moore, having experienced firsthand the speed, safety and capabilities of Super Conducting Maglev (SCMAGLEV) train, recognizes its potential to transform the Maryland economy and forever change the way we live and travel,’ Bill Scott, the president and COO of Northeast Maglev, said in a statement.”
13) Pennsylvania: Spotlight PA reports that “Pennsylvania American [Water] has made ‘crucial’ updates to Rock Spring Water Company’s shaky system and earned a passing inspection from the Department of Environmental Protection in the past month. But the interim manager wouldn’t disclose how much money it has spent shoring up the rural Centre County water company’s infrastructure. State regulators tasked Pennsylvania American Water Company with managing the troubled Rock Spring Water Company after a judge found that its 1,000 customers faced ‘imminent health risks.’”
14) Puerto Rico: Common Dreams’ Jake Johnson reports that “yet another Puerto Rico blackout heightens anger over power grid privatization.” New York City Councilmember Justin Brannan said ‘This is what happens when you let sketchy private companies run public infrastructure into the ground. No answers. No accountability. Just another disaster for the Puerto Rican people to suffer through. Now more than ever, LUMA Energy must be removed.’”
15) National: According to CBS News, “The Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News, and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities. The plans have not been finalized and might need congressional action to fully fund, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly. ‘The claim that the FDA is suspending routine food safety inspections is false. FDA is actively working to ensure continuity of operations during the reorganization period and remains committed to ensuring critical programs and inspections continue,’ an FDA spokesperson said in a statement.”
16) National: The Associated Press reports its sources say the Trump administration plans to end the IRS Direct File program for free tax filing. “There was some hope that Musk, with his DOGE team of computer programmers, could take over Direct File and improve it. But the two people familiar with the decision to end Direct File said its future became clear when the IRS staff assigned to the program were told in mid-March to stop working on its development for the 2026 tax filing season.” For background on the tug of war between public interest groups and private, for-profit interests, see ITPI Executive Director Donald Cohen’s, “Slaying the Tax Prep Giants: How the corporations fought against Direct File.”
17) National: The Federal Contractor Minimum Wage has been cut to $13.30 under recent executive order by President Trump. “The now-defunct regulation, established under Executive Order 14026, raised the federal contractor minimum wage in 2021 to $15 and indexed it to inflation, bringing it to $17.75 in 2025. It was designed to ensure that janitors, cooks, maintenance workers, and other federal contract laborers earned a livable wage. More than 327,000 workers saw an average pay bump of $5,228 annually. Under Executive Order 14236, ‘Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,’ the policy is gone, and workers are left exposed to significant wage volatility.”
18) Iowa: Iowa City staff say that cuts at the Veterans Administration could push the system beyond its limits. “In 2023, the VA reported 67 percent of its hospitals earned four or five stars in federal quality ratings—compared to 41 percent of non-VA hospitals. The following year, 91.8 percent of surveyed veterans said they trusted the VA with their care, following a record year for appointments and benefits. ‘Most people don’t realize, just because we don’t advertise it, that VA health care is the largest, but we also have the highest quality scores and best outcomes across the health care spectrum, [and] our costs are lower,’ Kearns said.”
19) New Jersey: Route Fifty says the Garden State is aiming “to leverage the private sector to help advance its goal of leading in artificial technology innovation.” It’s part of a national trend. “State and local governments across the nation are increasingly exploring how artificial intelligence could help reduce workloads, streamline operations and improve service delivery to residents. From public transit to disaster recovery response, artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a valuable tool for governments. As AI becomes more pervasive in government operations and services, New Jersey officials are moving to position the state as a leader in the technology, which is estimated to reach a market size of $244.22 billion this year.”
20) National: Writing in Sentient Food & Farming, Grace Hussain asks, Could People in ICE Detention Centers Be Forced to Work in Slaughterhouses? The precedent in prisons exists. “As detention numbers creep upward, some advocates are worried that detainees could be compelled to work to fill gaps in the workforce of some of the most dangerous jobs in the country, including on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. ‘Over the last decade or so, ICE has been contracting with private organizations to run their detention centers, very much like prisons have been doing. Those private companies have been making detainees work for $1 a day,’ Amal Bouhabib, senior staff attorney with the legal advocacy organization FarmSTAND, tells Sentient.”
21) National: Financial services industry veteran John Csiszar cites the pros and cons of Social Security privatization. “Transitioning from the current system to privatization would be messy at best. For starters, if Social Security was immediately privatized, it would turn off the flow of funds from current workers that is used to pay benefits for retirees. In short, the only available funding for paying benefits would be the Social Security Trust Fund, which is already being depleted even with current worker contributions.”
22) Nevada/National: Kalshi, a corporation that provides gaming services, wins an at least temporary victory on preemption of local authority. “In allowing Kalshi to continue offering event contracts, the court ordered that the Nevada Gaming Control Board is prohibited from pursuing civil or criminal penalties against Kalshi or otherwise attempting to enforce state gambling laws pending the outcome of the case. (…) The ruling is a big step in the process of offering sports predictions in all 50 US states. Nine state sports betting regulators have taken action by either issuing Kalshi a cease and desist, announcing an investigation or asking the feds to shut it down like Tennessee did this week.”