theOmahaRag

One thing many argue is that mar­kets are not capa­ble of deliv­er­ing ser­vices of essen­tial impor­tance and the gov­ern­ment must do some things in order to main­tain the pub­lic com­mons. Here are ways Omaha can encour­age mar­kets to solve pub­lic problems.

1) Pri­va­tize the fire depart­ment.  Mar­kets evolve effi­cient solu­tions through com­pe­ti­tion. Although imper­fect, a pri­vate solu­tion can work effi­ciently, effec­tively and prof­itably. While some may argue that this may give rise to 19th cen­tury com­pe­ti­tion, such as you had in New York, we are far more evolved today. Our busi­ness acc­u­men is focused on dri­ving qual­ity and ser­vice. This solu­tion would cre­ate zones of ser­vice whereby the pub­lic can vote on the com­pany they wish to choose to pro­vide their fire ser­vice in their zone. A con­tract would be writ­ten for a spe­cific period of time for each zone. These con­tracts would be renewed by the zone, not the city government.It is a pri­vate con­tract between indi­vid­u­als in the com­mu­nity and the fire depart­ment selected in the zone.

Con­tracts can essen­tially be writ­ten as a pay-for-action (calls are billed directly to the recip­i­ent of the ser­vice) or sim­i­lar to an insur­ance con­tract where the com­mu­nity pays a reg­u­lar pre­mium to cover the risk involved. It could be a mix­ture of both. In cases where  the fire depart­ment requires more resources, they can con­tract with neigh­bor­ing zones to lever­age the man­power and equip­ment if needed.

Retire­ment plans, ben­e­fits, etc, are the respon­si­bil­ity of the fire ser­vice for the zone. No more pub­lic fund­ing of retire­ment plans or ben­e­fits. These costs must be inter­nal­ized by the ser­vices and remain their responsibility.

2) Police should become a more for­mal con­trac­tor. The pub­lic should no longer directly fund police pen­sions. Instead, the con­tracted busi­ness will be required to man­age and main­tain their own pen­sions and ben­e­fit plans. I defer to my prior zon­ing point. The res­i­dents in zones should have con­trol over the qual­ity of polic­ing. Costs should be more directly incurred where crime occurs. Peo­ple will learn the true cost of crime giv­ing them the incen­tive to be more actively engaged to reduce the costs they incurr.

3) Voucher­ize the school sys­tem. Let par­ents send kids to what­ever schools they want. End bussing and stop sub­si­diz­ing it. Trans­porta­tion costs can be fig­ured into the voucher value.

4) Stop pub­lic fund­ing of public/private projects. Sell the Qwest Cen­ter entirely, Sell the base­ball sta­dium to a pri­vate busi­ness if one will buy it. Here’s a big clue to whether a huge pub­lic, enter­tain­ment project is worth it: would a pri­vate busi­ness build it? If a pri­vate busi­ness won’t build it, it isn’t worth having.

5) Cut out an elim­i­nate per­mits for pri­vate busi­nesses. Reduce the bar­rier to entry.

6) Elim­i­nate any city reg­u­la­tion of taxis and buses. Pri­vate solu­tions work and they work very well. Here’s a hint: look at the Philip­pines. With excep­tion to the price caps, the bulk of the “pub­lic” trans­porta­tion is pri­vate busi­nesses that are very effec­tive at what they do. The price caps only hurt dri­vers who can’t con­trol their expenses with a fixed cap on what they can charge.

7) Let prop­erty own­ers and home­owner asso­ci­a­tions fund and pay for their parks directly by subdivision.

Let prop­erty own­ers in spe­cific zones deter­mine eco­nomic incen­tives for attract­ing businesses.

There’s 8 to start with –just to get you think­ing that just because it is “pub­lic” doesn’t mean you should stop think­ing out­side of the box.

Tags: hypothetical, ideas, solutions