Public Values Discussion Forum Results 4-19-2012

Section #1 Broad Public Values
As an initial discussion starter the audience was asked to rate the following list of public values against each other on the scale described below.

• Effectiveness
  • The ability of a governing body to turn policy into action, and the extent to which that action has the desired effect
• Fairness
  • The level of evenhandedness with which the government treats all citizens and organizational interests
• Socio-Economic Stewardship
  • A broad values category that captures various aggregate facts about society such as over-all economic health, aggregate well-being and quality of life
• Equality
  • Every citizen’s basic claim to equal treatment
• Transparency
  • The degree to which government functioning is open to public scrutiny
• Efficiency
  • Cost vs. Benefit considerations for both the function of governance and the policies it creates
• Accountability
  • The degree to which the operations of government are subject to appropriate oversight and answerable to the public
• Liberty
  • Every citizen’s right to as much reasonable freedom as possible
• Participation
  • The degree to which the functioning of government reflects the active engagement of the population

Ratings Scale

1 = PERPHERAL VALUE, usually not decisive by itself.

5 = CENTRAL VALUE, often decisive, but is just as often also overridden by another value or values.

9 = INVIOLABLE VALUE, virtually always overrides any and all conflicting values.

Unfortunately the real-time data analysis was corrupted by old data. The actual result of the survey is below:

Transparency and efficiency seemed to be the values that should make way for other values most easily of the values surveyed. In other words it is more important for a government to preserve liberty, participation, equality, and fairness, and be itself accountable and effective as well as pay attention to aggregate well being, than it is for the government to be open to public scrutiny and be efficient.

On the other hand equality and accountability were held to be closer to core values that may only be overridden under rare circumstances.

These were of course only rough intuitive ratings that do not give definitive answers in any particular applied case, though they may serve as guides on how to weigh various values impacts of a policy against each other. 
For those in the audience who wanted to see more detailed data on the survey I have included below three graphs representing the individual-rights-based values, the aggregate-well-being-based values, and the procedure-based values respectively. In each case the three values are mapped against their cousin values on the basis of the frequency of each rating for each value.

It is interesting to note that there was significantly more agreement on where Equality should fit in than there was on Liberty and Fairness

In this case there was significantly more agreement on Accountability than on Participation and Transparency

Finally, there was more agreement on where Socio-Economic Stewardship fit in than on Efficiency and Effectiveness.

Section #2 Case Studies

Case Study #1
 “Taxing The Titan”*

Cambridge Mayor George Harris is both a capable Mayor as well as a fully certified assessor. Titan Autoworks has been a mainstay of industry, and a crucial tax source, in the small city of Cambridge for over 50 years. However, the company has been in a steady decline along with other independent automobile manufacturers. This year Titan Autoworks is assessed at $2.2 million (10% higher than last year). In response to the new assessment Titan’s Director of Operations Peter Carver has sent a letter of protest. Harris and Carver agree to meet and discuss the assessment. 
At the meeting Carver asserts “The assessment is just plain too much. We want it lowered by a half to one million.” Harris replies that, given that Titan had paid on the $2 million assessment without protest last year, and that the assessment process had followed the letter of the law, this was not an argument he thinks Titan can win. Carver indicates that nevertheless his corporate counsel and the president of Titan insist that the assessment be adjusted or they will take the city to court to fight it. Carver gives the impression that Titan is prepared to take it all the way to the State Supreme Court. 
After the meeting Harris consults with the city attorney, Bill Stout. Stout indicates that he believes that the assessment will withstand any legal scrutiny, but that there were other considerations. By demanding a reduction of $1 million Titan is essentially trying to avoid paying about $60,000 in taxes. Not all of that tax income would go to the city: 60% ($36,000) goes to the school district; county and special districts get another 25% ($15,000); and the city gets about 15% ($9,000). Taking a case to the State Supreme Court would cost at least $20,000. 
Given their financial interest Harris inquires as to whether the school or special districts would absorb some of the cost of such a court case. But using these dedicated funds to fulfill a function legally relegated to the city (tax collection) is illegal, even if they had been willing. 
At the next meeting Carver reveals that the company has failed to make any profit this year. If the company can’t cut taxes drastically and immediately he claims that their doors would be closed by the end of the year. In response Harris points out that there is a procedure for “hardship” cases that can be brought before a state board. Carver responds that a public hardship case would similarly result in a shut-down as Titan’s reputation with suppliers and contract customers would be severely damaged, likely leading to a loss in business the company could not afford. Therefore the company will go to court before it goes to the state board.  
With respect to a possible court case Carver makes two points. First, he thinks that a local judge and even the State Supreme Court might be sympathetic to the idea of keeping over 600 local jobs. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there is an argument to be made for an adjustment given only some flexibility in the assessment procedure. If, instead of the replacement value of the property, Harris will agree to take the re-sale value of the manufacturing plant as the basis of assessment things would look differently. Carver points out that the company has recently had the value of its property appraised by a respected national appraiser of manufacturing properties. Given the lack of interest in used automobile manufacturing plants the property has been assessed at approximately the value of the building and the land, or about $1.8 million. On that resale value basis the assessment would be approximately $900,000. He makes the point that the law does not mandate that specific assessment approaches be used in each case, so there is room in the law to make a claim for another assessment approach. Harris then adjourns the meeting, promising to take everything Carver had said into consideration.    
*True story (with names and some details changed) summarized from: William Thompson & James Leidlein, Ethics in City Hall, 2009, Jones & Bartlett Learning, Sudbury MA.

The question put to the audience was:

What would you do?
A.         Adjust the assessment down to $900,000
B.         Split the difference and adjust the assessment down to $1,500,000
C.         Deny the adjustment

The results of the survey are below:

Answer B is a bit of a red herring. Given that there are legitimate assessment bases for answers A & C, it would be unacceptably arbitrary to simply split the difference. There is no legal basis upon which to apply an assessment of 1.5 million. 

Interesting that the most popular answer (though not the majority) was adjusting the settlement to $900,000. If we make the admittedly controversial assumption that the adjustment is the right thing to do to keep the community prosperous this result would seem to elevate the value of socio-economic stewardship over the value of fairness to the other commercial taxpayers who were assessed on a different basis.

Case Study #2
The Municipal Accountability Act 
2012 HB 1891

The act provides a mechanism whereby a municipality is called to account for the continued failure to provide basic services (at least 75% of the list below) to its constituency. The trigger for the process is a petition signed by 30% of the voters in the subject municipality. After the petition is certified by a the election authority and circuit court the first consequence is a mentoring program in which a board of elected officials and senior management employees from other area municipalities that has been appointed by a local university reviews the services in question and recommends remedies. 
Should the sub-par services continue to be a problem the petition may be presented to the circuit court within 12 months of election authority certification. The court will conduct a hearing to determine whether the municipality is operating below minimum standards. If the hearing finds that the municipality is operating below minimum standards then the municipality will have 90 days to rectify the deficiencies. If they do not the court has the authority to:

At the end of 180 days, if standards are still not met, remove from office any or all elected officials in the municipality and appoint new ones

If such a merger is not successful (it must be approved by voters in both municipalities) then, if 40% of the voters submit a petition for disincorporation, the court shall place on the ballot a proposal to order the disincorporation of the municipality, effective on a date set by the court. 

List of Basic Services:

Although there was a strong debate about the pros and cons of such legislation, when asked whether they would support it in the end 100% of the audience that voted answered that they would support the legislation!