Members of the taxpayer-funded Tennessee School Boards Association may not like it, but public records laws apply to their organization and they must provide their information to the public.
This, according to a ruling that 20th Judicial District Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal filed this month.
As reported last year, the legal arm of the Beacon Center of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against the TSBA demanding access to the group’s records.
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Nashville Mayor John Cooper shows double standards and enforces bad COVID-19 policies upon the city, staff at the Beacon Center of Tennessee said Thursday.
Beacon is a right-of-center think tank. Staff criticized Cooper in an emailed press release.
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The City of La Vergne is the “Freest City” in all of Tennessee.
This, according to a study that Beacon Center of Tennessee staff call the City Freedom Index. Beacon staff published the study Wednesday. Beacon, based in Nashville, is a right-of-center think tank.
“The Beacon Center says the reason La Vergne ranked in the number one spot is credit to its strong showing Free Enterprise (ranked 1 out of 30) and Cost of Government (ranked 3 out of 30),” La Vergne officials said in a press release.
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Officials with a Nashville-based right-of-center think tank on Wednesday harshly criticized members of the Metro Nashville Council for jacking up property taxes by 34 percent.
Members of that think tank, the Beacon Center of Tennessee, said this in a press release.
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Tennessee’s highest court declined Thursday to take up an appeal of a lawsuit challenging the legality of a school voucher program that would let parents use public tax dollars for private school tuition.
Voucher supporters had hoped the Tennessee Supreme Court would reach down and take up the case after an appellate court set an Aug. 5 hearing to review the case.
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The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee released a new solutions guide for Gov. Bill Lee and the state legislature on Friday that focused on making some of the deregulation done by executive order during the COVID-19 pandemic permanent.
This, according to an emailed press release Beacon put out Friday.
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A judge ruled that the Tennessee Education Savings Account (ESA) Pilot Program is unconstitutional, and a nonpartisan think tank says that could harm children.
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The Beacon Center of Tennessee released a set of 20 policy solutions focused on what policies the state should and shouldn’t enact moving forward when it deals with COVID-19.
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On Thursday the Beacon Center of Tennessee filed a motion to intervene in Nashville Democratic Mayor John Cooper’s lawsuit to strike down Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).
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On Wednesday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – guest host Ben Cunningham welcomed Beacon Center of Tennessee’s Ron Shultis to the newsmakers line.
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Members of the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee passed a resolution to add Tennessee’s Right to Work law to the state constitution.
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The Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance announced this week that its Division of Regulatory Boards licensed more than 129,000 professionals in fiscal year 2019 while decreasing the average processing time required for the approval of new applications for those seeking professional licensure.
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Tennessee’s economy is flourishing.
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The legal arm of the Beacon Center of Tennessee filed a lawsuit this week against the taxpayer-funded Tennessee School Boards Association demanding access to public records.
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Government officials throughout the Volunteer State wasted millions of taxpayer dollars this past year through fraud, abuse, and incompetence, according to the 2019 Tennessee Pork Report, released Wednesday.
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Rather than use taxpayer dollars to expand broadband into Tennessee’s rural areas, the people holding the government purse strings are better off giving local libraries enough money to purchase mobile hotspots.
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Good government and free market policies — and not government programs that hand out incentives using taxpayer dollars — are the best way to help Tennessee’s rural communities get ahead.
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Bluff City Law, which films on location in Memphis in exchange for taxpayer money, isn’t getting the ratings it hoped for, and the show will stop filming for a time because of it.
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Nashville officials are demanding scooter companies turn over GPS and route information that would allow the government to track people who ride scooters in real-time.
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The Memphis-based FOX 13 has uncovered what it says are major discrepancies between how many people listen to city’s taxpayer-funded podcasts versus how many people officials involved with it say listen.
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The new NBC series Bluff City Law takes taxpayer money from the state and local governments to film on location in Memphis, but one government subsidies expert said evidence shows they aren’t worth Tennessee’s investment.
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Nashville’s Chancery Court of Davidson County this week dismissed a lawsuit that a Grammy-winning producer and a hairstylist filed against the city’s regulations restricting home-based businesses. The Nashville-based free market think tank the Beacon Center of Tennessee assisted these two individuals, Lij Shaw and Pat Raynor. Beacon Vice President of Legal Affairs Vice President Braden Boucek discussed the matter with The Tennessee Star Thursday. “The court granted summary judgment to the city of Nashville, saying it is rational to keep a little old lady from cutting hair in her garage and threatened to seize the property of a home studio in Nashville,” Boucek said. “The clients are disappointed, but we build these things to be won at the appellate court level from the ground up. The judge is a good judge. We like her, but she felt bound by her analysis to rule based on metro imagining what would happen if these people were allowed to have home businesses and she felt obligated to disregard the actual facts, which showed that they would have zero impact on the neighborhood in any way. It was a deeper Constitutional question about whether the facts matter when it comes to someone’s ability…
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Outgoing Nashville Mayor David Briley was a disaster for Nashville, according to a new column on the Beacon Center of Tennessee’s website.
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Shelby County commissioners recently voted to spend more than $100,000 of taxpayer money to create their own podcasts, according to various news outlets.
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The Beacon Center of Tennessee says that Sumner County is just another example of lawmakers balancing their fiscal irresponsibility on the backs of the taxpayers.
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A federal judge has halted enforcement of a new state law that state legislators passed earlier this year that forces online auctioneers to get a state license. This, according to Braden Boucek, vice president of legal affairs for the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee. Beacon is a free-market think tank. Boucek argued against the law in federal court. “We are confident that the law was unconstitutional and today’s ruling reinforced our conclusions. Tennesseans believe in freedom and shared economic opportunity. This law was a step in the wrong direction,” Boucek said. “The judge was correct to find it unconstitutional. As a state, we should be looking for ways to lower the barriers to employment, especially in rural counties. Instead, we passed a law that eradicated hundreds of good paying Tennessee jobs at the stroke of a pen.” In emailed statements to The Star, Aaron McKee from Purple Wave Auction said he was “really relieved that we are able to continue to conduct auctions without having to worry about breaking the law in Tennessee.” “I’m thankful that we live in a country with a Constitution that protects us in situations like this. It is difficult enough to do good business…
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Legislators in other states likely want to duplicate a new Tennessee law that’s currently under a temporary restraining order, per a U.S. federal judge, said someone involved in the legal proceedings. As The Tennessee Star reported this week, U.S. District Court Judge Eli Richardson of the Middle District of Tennessee issued the temporary restraining order. The order prevents state officials from enforcing a law that forces online auctioneers to get a state license. The temporary restraining order expires July 11 at noon. An injunction hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 10 at 9 a.m. Legislators in other states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky, will no doubt monitor the case, Will McLemore, one of the plaintiffs in the case, told The Tennessee Star this week. McLemore said he runs an online auction company out of Nashville. “Tennessee is looked to as a bellwether state for auction regulation. It has always been one of the most heavily regulated states for auctioneering,” McLemore said. “I do know there are a lot of other states who have watched this bill passed into law and are looking to it as a model or a possible model for the way they might proceed.” McLemore…
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Conservative think tank Beacon Center of Tennessee has placed the 30 largest Volunteer State cities on notice: On Independence Day 2020, it will call them out on how free their citizens are – or are not. The Beacon Center of Tennessee announced Tuesday it will release a City Freedom Index on Independence Day 2020. As many of our state and local elected officials know, thousands of people across the United States move to Tennessee each year. While their reasons may vary, many choose to live here due to state-level policies such as: Right to Work, a lack of a state income tax, low taxes per capita, and low levels of debt. These policies are well known and their benefits well documented. While certainly the state you live in has a large impact on your life, so does the city you live in. However, we have found there are few resources on the best places to live within Tennessee due to local level polices. In an emailed press release, Mark Cunningham, vice president of communications and outreach, said the center will rank the 30 cities according to an overall freedom score. Because this is a brand new report, Beacon is giving cities a…
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The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee has filed suit against a new law that state legislators passed earlier this year that forces online auctioneers to get a state license. This, according to a press release Beacon officials released Thursday. The same press release said the state exempts big online auction sites, including Ebay. Beacon is a free-market think tank. “This law is not just unfair but is also unconstitutional, as it clearly violates the First Amendment,” Beacon spokesman Mark Cunningham said in the release. “Beacon is suing the Tennessee Auctioneer Commission before the law takes effect on July 1.” In an emailed statement to The Star, Beacon Vice President of Legal Affairs Braden Boucek (pictured above) said the law is “a step in the wrong direction.” “Tennessee is a state that values freedom and equal opportunity. A barrier to work is out of step with what Tennesseans value, no matter how ‘in step’ it might be for auctioneers who want to try and debilitate the upstart,” Boucek said. “As a state, we need to be committed to giving people access to good paying jobs, especially in rural counties.” As The Star reported in April, online auctioneers will suffer, as…
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The NBC drama Bluff City Law will reportedly film on location in Memphis, and it’s also presumed Tennessee officials will hand out corporate welfare in exchange. This, according to Monday’s Memphis Commercial Appeal. The show stars Jimmy Smits. But Tennessee taxpayers may lose out, said Ron Shultis, policy coordinator for the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee, in an analysis on the group’s website. Beacon is a free-market think tank. “The reason Tennessee should continue to give little—or, even better, outright eliminate these programs—is because film incentives have been shown to be a terrible value. State film incentives became popular in the mid and late 2000s. By 2009, 44 states offered some kind of film incentive. What those in the industry won’t tell you is that since then, thirteen states have completely eliminated their programs and several more have reduced theirs because these programs have been shown to be a bad value for taxpayers,” Shultis wrote. “In fact, a recent study by Tennessee’s Dept. of Economic and Community Development (ECD) found that the $69.1 million given over the life of Tennessee’s program has resulted in $14.7 million in state tax collections, or a 21-cent return on the dollar. This estimate…
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Online auctioneers will suffer, as will Tennessee’s economy, if state officials require them to get a license, which certain members of the Tennessee General Assembly hope will happen this legislative session. This, according to an official with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank. As The Tennessee Star reported, a bill going through the Tennessee General Assembly would, for the first time, require a license for certain types of online auctions. “The vast majority of complaints about online auctioneering came from business competitors who don’t like having to compete with a new business model. And of course, this artificially inflates prices of goods, all of which are passed on to the consumer. It’s not different than a tax hike” said Braden Boucek, Beacon’s vice president of Legal Affairs, in an emailed statement. Boucek linked to an Institute of Justice study that examined state and national estimates of the economic costs of occupational licensing. The Institute for Justice is a Virginia-based and libertarian law firm that pursues civil liberties and other public interest cases, according to its website. “According to this study, over 21 percent of Tennessee’s workforce is licensed. It costs us 46,068 jobs. We lose $173…
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A bill going through the Tennessee General Assembly would, for the first time, require a license for certain types of online auctions, according to a legal expert with the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee. Beacon’s Vice President of Legal Affairs told The Tennessee Star Thursday that people who do these auctions have safely conducted their business over the Internet for years with no state interference. “Everyone has a right to earn a living. There are many Tennessee homegrown businesses that have flourished as online auction businesses. Auctioneering provides a great deal of opportunity, especially in rural communities that oftentimes feel left behind when it comes to economic development,” Boucek said in an emailed statement. “By requiring a license, we will force these businesses to lay off un-licensed people or move out of state. And there is no public reason why we need to require an auctioneer license simply to sell something online. Tennessee’s own auctioneering task force, the one pushing the law showed that there were very few consumer complaints regarding this type of auction format.” State Rep. Kevin Vaughan, R-Collierville and State Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, sponsor the bill. Vaughan and Yager did not immediately return The Star’s request…
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The bill that lays out the details of Governor Bill Lee’s proposal for Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) passed its first hurdle in the House Curriculum, Testing & Innovation Subcommittee. The 16-page amendment that “makes the bill” was presented by Speaker Pro Tem Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville), who is carrying the legislation as HB 0939 in the House before a standing room only House Hearing Room IV. Of note were the many attendees wearing “children are more than a test score” stickers, something with the color red, or red Vision 20/20 shirts showing support for the Tennessee Education Association, the state affiliate of National Educators Association, the largest union in the country. Earlier this year, Dunn was honored for his work on school choice when he was awarded the Tennessee Federation for Children’s 2019 Champion of Choice award, as reported by The Tennessee Star. In his introduction of the bill, Dunn said, it comes to us from Governor Bill Lee and his administration and deals with school choice and the idea that each student is a unique individual and unique circumstances lead to different needs when it comes to education. “We all know that Governor Lee, when he ran…
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The Memphis Regional Megasite, which has already cost Tennessee taxpayers more than $140 million is reportedly three years away from completion, according to The Jackson Sun. Justin Owen, president of The Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank, previously called the megasite “an empty field of broken promises.” This, Owen said, despite “big talk by state officials” to bring thousands of jobs to a downtrodden area. The Jackson Sun quoted Tennessee Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe as saying the eminent domain process will take several more months. The wastewater pipeline process, meanwhile, will take 18 to 24 months, the paper quoted Rolfe as saying. “The largest hurdles facing the Megasite right now are the approval of permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and using the eminent domain process in order to lay the wastewater pipeline,” according to The Jackson Sun. According to the paper, the ECD has hired the consulting firm Gresham Smith “to determine what company would be best for managing the utilities on site.” Gresham Smith has received roughly $500,000, the paper said. Quoting TNECD Deputy Commissioner of Business Community and Rural Development Allen Borden, The Jackson Sun said the site will…
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Country Music singer John Rich made some interesting observations this week about New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal. “I think a lot of the sensible Democrats are scared to death of what she’s talking about because they all know that’s crazy talk,” Rich said on the talk show, Over-Caffeinated. The Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank, produces the online show. “To think that you could do away with all combustion engines in the next 10 years or 30 years. Let’s talk about our military. What are you going to do about the military? I think it shows a real naïveté on her part that she probably didn’t think this through before she put that down on paper. It’s one thing to sit in a bar, maybe, and discuss some crazy notion like that,” Rich said. “I have seen a lot of the Democrats, (Diane) Feinstein is a prime example, she has been in the Senate almost 40 years, and she said ‘That’s impossible. You can’t do that.’ And they don’t like the answer ‘You can’t do that.’” Rich is also a songwriter and one half of the music duo Big and…
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“Free” college education is all the rage, and now it appears that felons are joining in as Gov. Bill Lee proposes to use taxpayers’ money to pay their way to a degree. Lee’s plan could join other “free” education programs. In December Metro Nashville announced a program to spend millions per year offering “free” college to select students, building on similar programs like Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect. Lee on Thursday announced a number of changes to the criminal justice system leading up to his State of the State address on Monday. A press release on his plan is here. “We must significantly improve public safety in our state and I believe that starts with our criminal justice system,” Lee said in the press release. “We will focus on helping individuals to ensure there is a pathway to a productive life beyond crime and ultimately make our state a safer place.” Laine Arnold, Lee’s press secretary, did not reply to questions asking these questions: What is the total cost to implement the criminal justice reforms? Will the inmates pay anything? How much will taxpayers pay for the bachelor’s degree program at Turney Center Industrial Complex and high school education? Lee’s…
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Several of Tennessee’s mainstream media outlets seem to continue a drumbeat for Medicaid expansion in the state, even though some groups have long said it’s a bad idea. In the past several weeks Nashville Public Radio and The Daily Memphian, among others, have promoted the idea of expanding Medicaid in the state. Nashville Public Radio, for instance, reported that Democrats in the Tennessee General Assembly want to move forward with expanded Medicaid this year. They think they can do it with new Republican Gov. Bill Lee during his first year in office. Writers for The Daily Memphian, meanwhile, profiled how House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, urged Lee to widen Medicaid coverage and take back the authority to negotiate a federal plan without state legislators’ approval. Last October, The Tennessee Star quoted the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee on the matter. Beacon is a free market think tank. In an op-ed, Beacon warned all Tennessee officials to resist temptations to expand Medicaid. Beacon Executive Vice President Stephanie Whitt, writing for KnoxNews.com, said there are several important matters to consider, not the least of which is the notion Tennessee gets free money. “This is not free money,” Whitt said. “Expansion would be paid for…
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Tennessee is one of four states with a governor that has taken state tax hikes off the table, according to a new article in Forbes. Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are the other three states, according to Patrick Gleason, vice president of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform. Gleason is also a senior fellow at the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free market think tank. Gleason said these four states “have experienced some of the nation’s most rapid population growth in recent years.” This is advantageous for people in those states, particularly now, Gleason said, in his Forbes article. “Congressional Democrats who control the U.S. House of Representatives are already pushing to ratchet up the federal corporate tax rate and hike the top personal income tax rate, which hits a large share of small business income, as high as 70%,” Gleason said. This, while a new lineup of Southern governors carry out low tax and other free market policies in their respective states, Gleason wrote. “One thing that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp all have in common, aside from the fact that they’re all Republicans, is that each one of them signed a…
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Electrolux officials announced Thursday they are shutting down their Memphis plant sometime next year, even though they took more than $100 million in corporate welfare from the city, county, and state governments eight years ago. The Memphis Electrolux plant employs about 530 people, all of whom will likely lose their jobs when the plant closes, according to The Memphis Commercial Appeal. In a press release, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said the “Swedish appliance maker failed to live up to its job-creation promise.” “I’m very disappointed that the employees of Electrolux learned today that Memphis’ economic development investment in one company’s future apparently won’t pay off,” Cohen said. “The company’s abandonment of Memphis will mean potential financial hardship for its employees and suppliers, and should result in more careful review of promises made by corporations about local job creation in the future.” Electrolux officials plan to consolidate all U.S. cooking manufacturing into an expanded facility in Springfield, Tennessee, according to The Commercial Appeal. The article not did specify why Electrolux officials are pulling out of Memphis, but it did cite unnamed company officials complaining about “challenges they face in today’s global economy.” Tennessee officials announced in 2011 that Electrolux would…
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In celebration of National School Choice Week, Tennessee Federation for Children sponsored a Champions of Choice event at the state capitol to present Representative Bill Dunn with the 2019 Champion award. Standing beside Tennessee Speaker of the House Glen Casada (R-Franklin), Shaka Mitchell, Tennessee’s State Director of American Federation for Children, said that as National School Choice Week is being celebrated this week, they wanted to come together to recognize one of the state’s leaders in education and strong advocate for students, Speaker Pro Tem Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville). American Federation for Children (AFC) is a Washington, D.C. headquartered non-profit organization that seeks to “empower families, especially lower-income families with the freedom to choose the best K-12 education for their children.” The event was held in the Legislative Library located at the state capitol with as many as 100 in attendance including legislators and members of Governor Bill Lee’s staff. AFC’s partner organizations in the effort including Beacon Center of Tennessee, Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee and Tennessee CAN (The Tennessee Campaign for Achievement Now) were also there. AFC’s Mitchell started off by speaking about the quality of education in Tennessee, “The reality is we still have a long way to go,” after…
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Tennessee has too many confidential incentive deals, and taxpayers don’t know how much of their money goes to private companies or what return on investment they’re getting, according to a report released Thursday. The Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank, published the report. “To make matters worse, even when companies are required to disclose the number of jobs created as part of their agreement, some haven’t submitted reports in years,” said Beacon Policy Coordinator Ron Shultis, who authored the report, in a press release. “This report actually leaves us with a lot more questions than answers. No matter where you stand on economic incentives, everyone should be for transparency when it comes to how our tax dollars are being spent, and our economic development programs fail that basic test.” Among some of the report’s findings: • State officials do not require that many companies that receive taxpayer money hire the number of workers promised. All 25 FastTrack agreements that Beacon employees reviewed only required companies to hire 80 percent of the promised jobs. • Companies that received FastTrack Economic and Community Development Grants often did not submit the required documentation on time. In fact, only 51 percent of the mandated…
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One day Nashville gives away a certain sum of economic incentives to major corporations to get them to come to the city. The next day, as part of one proposal Metro Council members will soon consider, the city would then have to hand out an equal sum of money for more affordable housing units. Nashville Metro Council members Fabian Bedne and Colby Sledge are reportedly pushing the idea. But their fellow council member Steve Glover said the city is broke and taking even more money out of the city’s operations budget is “a double-edged sword, no matter how you slice and dice it.” “We are to the point where I don’t think we can afford many more incentives,” Glover told The Tennessee Star. “Frankly all we have done is give away incentives and not had anything in return to be prepared for all those incentives.” Mark Cunningham, spokesman for the Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free market think tank, said city officials have identified the right problem — but they have the wrong solution. “The whole idea of these incentives is to make your economy better. A lot of times you can make it more affordable for people to…
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Three prominent organizations in Tennessee want state legislators to open the books and let the public know details about incentives the state gives away for economic development purposes, according to The Daily Memphian. Those three organizations are the Beacon Center of Tennessee, Americans for Prosperity – Tennessee, and the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, according to the paper. “A state document released in December 2017 shows Tennessee has $987.6 million in carry-over tax credits from previous incentive packages. Those include $790.5 million for investments in industrial machinery and $197.1 million for standard job tax credits. A new report is to come out before Jan. 1, 2019,” The Daily Memphian reported. The report, according to the paper, doesn’t show which companies received the tax credits. State officials hid five items on the document “to avoid violating taxpayer confidentiality.” “Those involve credits for job creation in high-poverty areas, an environmental project, a headquarters dealing with a net operating loss, for green energy investment and for the purchase of brownfield property,” according to The Daily Memphian. The paper quoted AFP state director Tori Venable as saying “a million-dollar money bomb” will detonate when the economy tanks. “AFP-Tennessee is worried those types of liabilities…
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Former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s choice to spend nearly $175,000 in taxpayer money on an extra-marital tryst just earned her top billing in the Beacon Center of Tennessee’s 2018 Pork Report. Beacon, a Nashville-based free market think tank, releases a report detailing government waste, fraud, and abuse in Tennessee once a year. Beacon released this year’s report Monday. The disgraced former mayor won Pork of the Year thanks to an online poll on Beacon’s website, according to a press release. “We won’t get into the personal aspect of the affair,” said Beacon President Justin Owen, in a series of online videos that accompanied the think tank’s press release. “What matters to us is that Mayor Barry did this on the taxpayers’ dime. She used taxpayers’ money to pay overtime pay to her bodyguard so she could be with him more often. The mayor of Nashville doesn’t need security in Paris, France or in Greece, but, ultimately she used taxpayer money to further her affair and that is why she pled guilty to felony theft as a result.” As for other government excess, Beacon cited a company in Memphis, ServiceMaster, that received $5 million just to move to another part of…
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The Beacon Center on Monday hosted a meeting on school choice issues in the upcoming legislative session for 2019. Taylor Dawson, outreach coordinator for the Beacon Center, spoke about the organization’s legislative goals regarding school choice and the ways in which volunteers can help. The meeting was held at Brooks Shaw’s Old Country Store in Jackson. Beacon’s Justin Owen, president and CEO, also wrote in the Jackson Sun, “Parents should decide the best educational environment for their child. This National School Choice Week, we should remember how educational choice works to empower parents to customize their child’s education that fits his or her unique needs.” In the op-ed, Owens touts the benefits of Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs), which the General Assembly authorized in 2015 for parents of children with special needs. According to a Beacon special report, summarized here, ESAs “provide families a more flexible option than traditional voucher programs. ESA funds can be used to create a truly customized education experience including tutoring, speech and other education therapy, private school tuition, homeschool curriculum and supplies, education technology, and even help save for college.” Beacon’s two-part series is titled, “Counting Dollars and Cents: The Economic Impact of a Statewide Education Savings…
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The State of Tennessee’s and Metro Nashville’s $102 million taxpayer gift to Amazon is not a Prime deal, a public watchdog organization says. Amazon turned down Nashville for its coveted two new headquarters sites, called HQ2, but Nashville landed a $230 million operations center near downtown in the future Nashville Yards. For more on Amazon’s Nashville announcement, see this story in The Tennessee Star. Mark Cunningham, vice president of communications and outreach at the Beacon Center of Tennessee, criticized the deal. The center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to providing empirical research and free market solutions for Tennesseans. Cunningham said, “Nashville was passed over for Amazon’s second (and third) headquarters, yet city and state officials still got scammed into giving the company more than $100 million in taxpayer giveaways for a consolation prize, which includes $80 million in cash handouts. Amazon, one of the world’s most valuable companies, and the government played taxpayers with this incentive deal, and it is time for us to speak up against this type of corporate welfare. While we welcome new businesses and the jobs they create to our state, forcing middle-class Tennesseans and small businesses to give their hard-earned dollars to a multi-billion dollar business is both unfair and immoral.” Rick Manning,…
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The state of Tennessee has misplaced priorities when it comes to how much money public school teachers get versus public school administrators, according to a new study the Beacon Center of Tennessee published this week. Beacon, a Nashville-based free market think tank, also reported fewer taxpayer dollars make their way into the classroom than are supposed to. When taking inflation into account, teacher salaries have decreased by 1 percent while administrator salaries have risen by 7.5 percent, the study reported. The average state, the study went on to say, spends 60 percent of its education budget in the classroom. In Tennessee, barely 52 percent of education spending makes its way into class. Despite an increase in overall spending in the last six years, there has been a 9 percent decrease in spending in the classroom on items such as textbooks and technology, according to the study. “This brief shows that, despite calls from some for more education spending, our current priorities are completely out of line,” said Beacon Center Policy Coordinator Ron Shultis in a press release. “We are dedicating more and more money to administration and administrative salaries, which have little to no impact on the education of children. At the same time, we are paying our…
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The Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based right-of-center think tank, this week announced finalists for its 2018 Tennessee Pork of the Year Award. The winner gets top billing in Beacon’s yearly Pork Report. The report catalogs the year’s worst instances of government waste, fraud, and abuse in Tennessee. As was the case in prior years, people may go online and vote on what they consider the most foolish example. This year, Beacon staff members offered four options. The first example, as explained in a YouTube video, concerns former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry and her extra-marital affair with her former security guard. “Clearly there is no better example of the Pork of the Year than a mayor who everyone thought would go on to be a U.S. senator, maybe even president,” said Beacon Center President Justin Owen. “She has now fallen in disgrace, not even serving in office anymore because she thought it was a good idea to take taxpayer money and give her chief of security overtime pay and to have an affair with him and to travel the world with him and to travel across the world to places like Greece and France, all on your dime.” As Owen…
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Tennessee officials hand out a good bit of corporate welfare, but they could do better to make sure the public knows how that money gets spent, according to a new state Comptrollers report. The report suggests several ways members of the Tennessee General Assembly can make matters better. As the report notes, Tennessee offers several kinds of corporate welfare. The degree of transparency for each differs to a certain extent. Some business incentives require public hearings. Some require business officials hand over annual reports on the status of an incentive program, Comptrollers said. “For other incentives, state law does not require periodic reports on the status of programs, and data and information are not posted online,” Comptrollers wrote in a press release. “The Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability found one type of business incentive with a required evaluation on a periodic basis: business tax credits,” Comptrollers wrote. But that was an exception. State officials do not require evaluations for most business incentive programs, Comptrollers added. Tennessee officials entice businesses and industries to set up shop or stay or expand in Tennessee. To do that they offer Payment in Lieu of Tax agreements, tax credits, and tax exemptions, and…
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A Tennessee businessman said he couldn’t sell his state-of-the-art security software because members of a state board told him no. But those regulators, specifically the five-member Alarm Systems Contractors’ Board, said that’s not true, because they never made a final decision on the matter. But go over the video and transcripts of one key meeting, said Braden Boucek, director of litigation for the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a Nashville-based free market think tank. It all boils down to board members telling the businessman, Adam Jackson, he had to get a license to sell his product. The Tennessee Star went over the transcripts and video of one key meeting. Board members explicitly told Jackson repeatedly to get licensed. “At no point do they ever indicate that he might not need a license, or that if he did his business differently, they’d change their mind,” Boucek said. During the meeting, board members read state law to Jackson to back up their position. At another point, board members said they didn’t write the law, but they were trying to uphold it. As reported, this board has existed since 1993. Members meet regularly to license, register, and regulate alarm systems contractors. They also judge…
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