JobsOhio is back in the news:

Kasich defended his administration’s privatized economic-development agency in the wake of a complaint filed last week with the Ohio Ethics Commission by Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the likely Democratic nominee for governor in 2014. FitzGerald requested a “thorough ethics investigation” by the commission of possible conflicts of interest by JobsOhio board members.

But the commission could not take the case because it has no authority over JobsOhio. Kasich signed a bill in June exempting the nonprofit agency from scrutiny by the state auditor and from the purview of the ethics commission, subjecting it instead to annual audits by a private firm it hires and self-policing on ethics questions by JobsOhio board members.

They’re not elected, they’re not subject to public records laws, they’re not subject to any outside audit or ethics review yet they’re directing public policy in Ohio and spending millions of public dollars. Aren’t public-private partnerships great? The public has absolutely no information or power other than that which the board members deign to give us. There’s no “public” role in this at all.

I love the assumption behind these privatization schemes-that private entities spending public money are much more ethical and honorable than public employees so require no oversight at all other than “self-policing on ethics questions by JobsOhio board members.” The people who represent wealthy business interests and sit on this board aren’t just smarter than public employees or the rest of us dopes in the cheap seats, they’re better people. Has that been your experience in the private sector? It certainly hasn’t been mine, on either “smarter” and “better.” It’s self-perpetuating, too, because the more privatized government boards hand out tax breaks and public payments to private entities, the less money there is to fund public entities and public government, leading to still more demands for privatization from the same cast of characters. Nice racket they got going.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/08/15/private-government-was-the-logical-next-step-of-course/