Lake County Lags in Wages, Loses 6.6% in 2009

The Bureau of Economic Analysis just released its report on county compensation by industry for 2009. Average compensation per job increased 1.2%, to just about $57,000. Unfortunately, fewer people had jobs, so the total amount of compensation went down 3.2%. Some smalll relief: inflation was only 0.2%.

Two-thirds of our 3113 counties saw compensation go down in 2009. The map shows a familiar pattern (click image to enlarge):

The center of the country does better than the coasts. The most populous counties generally saw larger decreases in compensation (3.7%) than medium and smaller counties (2.2%–2.3%)

South Dakota looks pretty healthy, with lots of counties in the blue upper quintiles (remember, blue is good on this map, while gold shows where there's less gold). But hey, zoom in: what's that gold spot in East River South Dakota?
Discover the Unexpected™: Lake County bucked the statewide trend and landed in the lowest national quintile for compensation growth. Statewide, average compensation per job increased 1.3%, from $32,702 to $33,136. Total compensation statewide went down 0.7%. But in Lake County, the average wage decreased 1.8%, from $28,993 to $28,466. Total compensation in Lake County dropped 6.6%.

Only four counties—McCook, Marshall, Union, and Harding—saw worse declines on total compensation. Harding lost the most compensation, dropping 15.7%, with average wages per job dropping $3200 in one year. Weep not for Union County, though: they have the highest average wage per job in the state, just over $39,000.

Investing in Higher Quality Teachers Yields Economic Returns

Via Dr. Mankiw:

Eric Hanushek's work popped up earlier this month in our blog discussion of how the U.S. isn't producing enough smart kids and how spending more on teachers might boost our kids' math scores. Dr. Hanushek now offers a new paper that quantifies the economic good that may come from hiring better teachers.

According to Hanushek's research, an above-average teacher working with a class of twenty students creates $400,000 in additional student future earnings. Replacing the least effective teachers with just average teachers nationwide would add $100 trillion of value.

I welcome suggestions as to how we identify and recruit higher-quality teachers. But free market rules suggest that attracting quality is relatively straightforward: you get what you pay for. As I apply for jobs that pay $60K rather than $30K, I get the impression that I'm up against a tougher talent pool.

So just imagine: Suppose South Dakota raised its average teacher pay by $10,000 (which would vault us in our national ranking from dead last in teacher pay to 41st place). Suppose that pay boost drew and kept some better talent. If that increased incentive to enter the field replaced only one out of 40 average teachers with above-average teachers, we'd break even on our investment.

2010 Initiative Job Growth Concentrated in Big Towns

Gotta beat Montgomery to the Pivot Tables!

Among the milk and honey Governor Rounds says flowed from his 2010 Initiative are job gains in South Dakota. Some folks say government can't create jobs, but I'll let Governor Rounds sort that out with his fellow Republicans. Let's just look at the numbers.

If I'm generous and look at the statewide seasonal numbers from the state Department of Labor, I find that from October 2002 to October 2010, South Dakota added 18,220 jobs, an increase of 4.5%. Over the same period, the size of our workforce increased by 24,480, a 5.8% rise.

But those job gains were not shared by every area of the state. 32 counties gained jobs. 33 counties lost jobs (Clark County broke even.) Minnehaha County led the pack, adding 5655 jobs. That's almost a third of the state's growth. Lincoln County added another 4780 jobs (a state-leading 29.7% job boom). The Sioux Falls metroplex, two counties, thus accounted for over 57% of the job growth of the last eight years.

The biggest losers by raw number? Meade County lost 570 jobs over the last eight years. Turner County lost 550. My home county of Lake lost 395. McCook lost 345. Hmm... all counties within commuting distance of a big metro county.

The full data is below. The data follow a pattern similar to the population growth numbers we discussed here back in March: South Dakota is growing, but the growth is happening mostly in a few urban centers at the expense of rural communities.

If I were the governor of the state trying to create jobs, I might try to spread that employment growth a little more broadly.

South Dakota Labor Stats, 2002-2010
Area	Jobs Gained	Job Gain %	Workers Gained	Worker Gain %
Statewide	17470	4.3%	24315	5.8%
Statewide Seasonal	18220	4.5%	24480	5.8%
Aberdeen MiSA	1080	5.0%	1215	5.5%
Brookings MiSA	1495	8.8%	1735	10.0%
Dewey-Ziebach LMA	45	1.4%	160	4.6%
Huron MiSA	600	6.8%	630	7.0%
Mitchell MiSA	265	2.1%	405	3.2%
Pierre MiSA	820	7.2%	930	8.0%
Rapid City MSA	2220	3.6%	3415	5.4%
Sioux Falls MSA	9540	8.4%	12115	10.5%
Spearfish MiSA	1115	9.3%	1300	10.5%
Vermillion MiSA	470	6.8%	530	7.4%
Watertown MiSA	220	1.2%	420	2.3%
Yankton MiSA	-85	-0.8%	75	0.6%
Counties
Aurora	95	6.6%	120	8.1%
Beadle	600	6.8%	630	7.0%
Bennett	-35	-2.6%	-15	-1.1%
Bon Homme	-335	-10.2%	-300	-8.9%
Brookings	1495	8.8%	1735	10.0%
Brown	1095	5.6%	1225	6.1%
Brule	-15	-0.5%	15	0.5%
Buffalo	-50	-10.1%	-20	-3.7%
Butte	310	6.3%	385	7.6%
Campbell	-85	-9.2%	-90	-9.4%
Charles Mix	-200	-4.7%	-135	-3.1%
Clark	0	0.0%	-20	-1.1%
Clay	470	6.8%	530	7.4%
Codington	205	1.4%	370	2.4%
Corson	-10	-0.7%	10	0.7%
Custer	390	8.9%	460	10.2%
Davison	140	1.3%	270	2.5%
Day	-245	-8.3%	-200	-6.6%
Deuel	-20	-0.8%	25	1.0%
Dewey	30	1.2%	155	6.1%
Douglas	75	4.5%	90	5.2%
Edmunds	-15	-0.7%	-15	-0.7%
Fall River	70	2.0%	125	3.4%
Faulk	-30	-2.6%	-25	-2.1%
Grant	-85	-2.0%	-25	-0.6%
Gregory	-125	-5.1%	-110	-4.3%
Haakon	-90	-7.3%	-85	-6.8%
Hamlin	15	0.5%	50	1.8%
Hand	-55	-2.9%	-60	-3.0%
Hanson	130	7.4%	135	7.5%
Harding	45	5.9%	55	7.1%
Hughes	725	7.6%	800	8.2%
Hutchinson	-25	-0.7%	0	0.0%
Hyde	-35	-4.5%	-30	-3.8%
Jackson	-5	-0.4%	25	2.1%
Jerauld	200	16.5%	205	16.5%
Jones	-40	-5.4%	-40	-5.3%
Kingsbury	-185	-6.1%	-140	-4.5%
Lake	-395	-5.9%	-255	-3.7%
Lawrence	1115	9.3%	1300	10.5%
Lincoln	4780	29.7%	5265	32.0%
Lyman	-40	-2.0%	0	0.0%
Marshall	130	6.8%	155	7.9%
McCook	-345	-11.9%	-295	-9.9%
McPherson	-150	-11.9%	-140	-10.8%
Meade	-570	-4.6%	-370	-2.9%
Mellette	-20	-2.2%	-5	-0.5%
Miner	50	4.4%	70	5.9%
Minnehaha	5655	6.3%	7650	8.4%
Moody	5	0.1%	110	2.9%
Pennington	2790	5.6%	3785	7.5%
Perkins	-170	-9.8%	-155	-8.7%
Potter	-65	-4.7%	-55	-3.9%
Roberts	335	7.5%	405	8.7%
Sanborn	-185	-12.2%	-170	-10.9%
Shannon	-100	-2.8%	125	3.3%
Spink	160	4.9%	170	5.1%
Stanley	95	5.3%	120	6.5%
Sully	45	4.6%	55	5.6%
Todd	245	7.6%	350	10.3%
Tripp	-200	-6.4%	-210	-6.5%
Turner	-550	-12.1%	-505	-10.8%
Union	505	7.1%	645	8.8%
Walworth	10	0.4%	55	2.0%
Yankton	-85	-0.8%	75	0.6%
Ziebach	15	1.8%	0	0.0%

p.s.: Yesterday Dakota War College urged us liberals to do more fact-checking. Dakota War College then ran a post parroting the state press release in praise of the 2010 Initiative. DWC, I say with all due respect: I check more facts before breakfast than you check all week. Pass the raisin bran.

More Jobs, Even More Job Seekers: Lake County Unemployment 4.6%

The good news on local labor: Lake County put 100 more people to work in October! That's 1.6% more jobs in one month—good thing harvest keeps people busy.

The kinda-bad news: unemployment still went up in Lake County from 4.3% in September to 4.6% in October. 125 more people joined the workforce... which some people argue is a good economic sign. And let's keep in mind that almost anywhere else in America, 4.6% unemployment sounds like Nirvana. (Include that in your grateful commentary over turkey tomorrow.)

Neighboring counties present a similarly mixed October jobs picture: Brookings, Miner, and Moody counties all added jobs but added even more people looking for them. Kingsbury saw its jobs and labor force each grow by 60. McCook lost five jobs but found ten more willing workers. Minnehaha saw declines in both categories, shedding 310 jobs and 240 members of the labor force.

Locally, our noble Lake Area Improvement Corporation has a shot at meeting its Forward Madison job creation goal. We are now just 765 jobs short of meeting the 400-new-jobs goal set by the LAIC back in 2006. Kind of like cramming for exams during finals week....

TransCanada Inflates Keystone XL Job Predictions

Hat tip to Great Plains Tar Sands Pipelines!

In September, I reacted with skepticism to very optimistic economic impact study TransCanada paid for to make its proposed Keystone XL pipeline look good. Now so has the National Wildlife Federation, which says TransCanada is exaggerating Keystone XL's job-creation potential by an order of magnitude in order to exploit American economic anxiety. They find private consultant Perryman Group inflating job numbers nearly 13 times over State Department estimates:

Comparison of State Department and Perryman Group Jobs Estimates for Keystone XL Pipeline, from National Wildlife Foundation, "TransCanada Exaggerating Jobs Claims for Keystone XL," November 2010 [click image to enlarge].

NWF also emphasizes the facts that TransCanada does not: that as few as one in ten jobs on the pipeline will go to local folks (just as we saw with the original Keystone pipeline), and that most of the jobs are temporary.

Of course, TransCanada isn't lying to us. They're just offering "forward-looking statements," which they can trumpet in their propaganda yet happily disown with the same fine-print disclaimers they use to avoid legal liability for anyone who loses money taking TransCanada at its word and investing accordingly. Even TransCanada will tell you that if you believe TransCanada (and its local quislings) and then don't get the benefits you were promised, you only have yourself to blame.

Lake County Unemployment Drops to 4.3%

Is the stimulus working? We can debate that.

But more Lake County residents are definitely working! The latest figures from the South Dakota Department of Labor show Lake County's unemployment rate dropping a whopping seven tenths of a percentage point, from 5.0% in August to 4.3% in September. That number is straight-up good any way you slice it: 75 people joined our workforce (now at 6,590), and 120 new jobs got filled (total jobs now 6,310). That means the number of unemployed folks dropped from 325 to 280.

Our neighbors in Brookings County fared just a tick better, with September unemployment dropping from 4.2% to 3.4%, with gains in both labor force and jobs.

Around the septa-county neighborhood, the unemployment rate dropped for everyone but Miner County, where unemployment stayed steady at 5.2%. Elsewhere:

• Kingsbury County: 4.4%, down from 4.9% in August, but labor force and jobs both shrank.
• McCook: 4.3%, down from 4.7% in August, labor force down five, jobs up five.
• Minnehaha: 4.2%, down from 4.5% in August, fewer workers, more jobs.
• Moody: 5.7%, down from 8.7% in August, fewer workers, more jobs.

And in our ongoing tracking of the big Forward Madison job creation metric of sustaining the expected job growth of the status quo, we are now have only 375 fewer jobs than when the Lake Area Improvement Corporation started its big job creation push in October, 2006. We need to create just 775 jobs over the next fourteen months to meet the Forward Madison goal of creating 400 new jobs. Work harder, Boxer!

Bonus Local Stat: Taxable sales in Lake County in August increased 6.9% over last year. What recession?

Iowa Gov. Candidates Debate Hyperion and Jobs

I just found this really good article from Matt Vasilogambros in the Iowa Independent about the proposed Hyperion refinery in Elk Point. Apparently the thus-far pipe-dream-only project is sparking more disagreement between Iowa's gubernatorial candidates than between South Dakota's.

On our side of the Big Sioux River, both Republican Dennis Daugaard and Democrat Scott Heidepriem have said they support the refinery (Scott! Come on!) but have doubts about whether it will come to fruition. But in Iowa, Governor Chet Culver and challenger (and former governor) Terry Branstad appear to stake out opposing ground on the refinery. Branstad says environmental concerns expressed by the Sierra Club and Iowa's former Department of Natural Resources chief Richard Leopold are just bunk that stand in the way of economic development. Governor Culver's team responds that jobs are priority #1 but that the state still needs to protect the environment. Culver likens Branstad's position on Hyperion to the same pro-corporate thinking that led Branstad to open his state to huge polluting hog operations and the unhealthy DeCoster egg operations. (Worth noting:Branstad himself calls Jack DeCoster a rogue businessman.)

Vasilogambros also notes that Hyperion assures Iowans that they will get lots of the Hyperion jobs. (Does Hyperion provide a lesson for South Dakotans complaining about the Larchwood casino?) But Jim Redmond of the Northwest Iowa Sierra Club says that both Iowa and South Dakota will probably get the same bum deal from Hyperion that South Dakota got from TransCanada: Hyperion will import a lot of the labor it needs from other states.

August Labor Data: Lake County Unemployment up to 5.1%

South Dakota Department of Labor data show unemployment in Lake County crept up a tick in August to 5.1%. We continued the pattern from July, adding a few jobs (10) but seeing a few more job-seekers (15) jump in the pool. Those new jobs bring the Lake Area Improvement Corporation within 895 jobs of reaching its Forward Madison goal of 400 new jobs by the end of next year. (Insert pessimistic snort here.)

Around the neighborhood, none of our neighboring counties showed gains in August. Brookings County managed to keep its unemployment rate steady (within the rounding margin) at 4.2%, adding 175 jobs and seeing 190 new faces in its labor force. The unemployment breakdown for the other counties adjoining Lake:

• Minnehaha: 4.5% (+0.1)
• Moody: 8.6% (+0.5)
  
• Kingsbury: 5.0% (+0.5)
  
• Miner: 5.1% (+0.2)
  
• McCook: 4.8% (+0.4)

September and October usually bring a surge in jobs with harvest kicking in (the other peak in our local labor market is March–May, planting season). September was awfully wet for work, so we'll have to wait and see whether we get that fall jobs boost.

America Feeds the World: Thank Immigrant Labor!

Troy Hadrick cites this AP article finding Americans won't take low-wage farm jobs and offers this sanctimonious conclusion:

Regardless of your position on immigration, the bigger story here is that many people don’t want to work even when jobs are available. Unfortunately, many people don’t develop a work ethic and would rather rely on the government for an unemployment check. It’s a rather sad commentary on our society [Troy Hadrick, "Americans Don't Want Farm Jobs," Advocates for Agriculture, 2010.09.29].

Leave it to a professional propagandist for the ag industry to offer pompous distractions from practical policy issues. Hadrick pops off with arrogant, manly-man horsepuckey about how the rest of society obviously isn't as industrious or independent as he is. He deliberately spins away from the bigger story, which is that your cheap groceries come thanks immigrant labor, much of it driven here by our own predatory trade practices, and the immorally low wages the ag-industrialists pay their workers.

Hadrick's agriculture industry likes to repeat the mantra Tell Your Story. The immigrant workers who ensure our food supply would like to have time to tell their story, too, but they're too busy doing our work and feeding America.

So the next time the ag-industrial complex tells you to Thank a Farmer®, maybe you should walk over to the Mexican part of town and say gracias to an immigrant.

GOP Costs South Dakota 5000-10,000 Clean Energy Jobs

The stimulus package is creating jobs, even against fundamental shifts in the nature of our economy. To tackle those fundamental shifts, we need to revamp our economy. That revamping includes revolutionizing the energy economy. Commiting America to a policy of clean, renewable energy would create loads of jobs, including 5000 to 10,000 right here in South Dakota.

But the oil industry's best friend, the Republican Party, has kicked, screamed, and mythologized to keep us from passing any sensible energy legislation this year. Thanks to Republican obstructionism (not to mention some Blue Dog collaboration), America is giving up 1.9 million new-energy jobs to foreign companies. Plus, the defenders of the energy status quo are also keeping an extra $208 million a day from being invested in the U.S. economy, as folks who want to build new-energy businesses say, "Heck, the U.S. won't get serious, but China and Europe will. Let's invest elsewhere!"

In kitchen-table terms, the denialism of Republicans like Senator John Thune and Congress-wannabe Kristi Noem means your household will miss out on as much as $1175 a year in income.

You can read the full report from the nice folks at the Small Business Majority, Main Street Alliance, American Businesses for Clean Energy, and We Can Lead. These are all business groups—business groups—telling the Republicans to get with the program on energy security.

Faint glimmer of hope: Senator Al Franken and some other good liberal Senators are signing on to a bipartisan bill from Senators Bingaman and Brownback to establish a national 15% Renewable Energy Standard. That proposal by itself wouldn't bring all of the above jobs and income back to South Dakota and the rest of the country, but it's an important step in the direction of the energy future that our competitors in the world economy are already embracing.

The Republicans seem determined to apply their "Invisible Hand" wishful thinking to everything. Don't just do something; stand there! The economy will sort itself out. Oil will magically bubble from new holes in the ground. We can keep doing things the way we always have, because we're Americans, and Americans are always right.

Look around, America. The world is changing. The economy is changing. We must change with it... and that means changing our energy policy. Listen to Senator Franken, and fix it now!
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Update 17:22 CDT: Of course, 15% RES is small potatoes for real forward thinkers. California is working on requiring investor-owned utilities to go 33% renewable.

Noem Claim of "Jobless Stimulus" False

Ask DSU, Sioux Falls P.D., Governor Rounds...

In her new lackluster TV ad, GOP candidate for U.S. House Kristi Noem recycles footage from her Texas ad shoot, footage that her own campaign manager Josh Shields criticized back in April when he was sinking R. Blake Curd's campaign.* What gives? Did your original ad plan collapse, and you had to paste together all the old footage you could find just to satisfy your TV ad contracts? Amateur Hour with Team Kristi continues....

Noem's ad also recycles an old Wall Street Journal headline into a bullet point about the "jobless stimulus."

Jobless stimulus? Really? Then who are those nice folks at DSU with new jobs in health IT, thanks to stimulus dollars? And where did Sioux Falls get those nice new police officers:

"If it weren't for the grants, there's no question we wouldn't be adding police officers this year based on just where the economy is," Sioux Falls Police Chief Doug Barthel said.

The police department hired nine new officers this year through federal grants. They cover salaries and benefits for the next three years. The department also has drug task force detectives who are paid through grants. And the county and city each have a domestic violence detective funded solely through grants [Ben Dunsmoor, "Federal Grants Help Fund Local Law Enforcement," KELOLand.com, 2010.09.15].

Now I don't know if those Sioux Falls police grants are Recovery Act dollars. To find out, maybe we can check with Governor M. Michael Rounds, whose own spreadsheet connects Recovery Act spending in South Dakota with over 6500 jobs. And on SDPB's Dakota Midday, the governor's Secretary of Labor Pam Roberts just said her stats show 1000 more job openings this month than last month.

Hmm... I thought jobless meant no jobs. The above examples look like jobs.

As usual in South Dakota, it's Uncle Sam to the rescue. And it's Team Kristi pretending words mean what Team Kristi says and not what the words actually mean.
-----------------------------
Update 2010.09.17: Add 110 jobs in northeast South Dakota and adjoining areas thanks to broadband stimulus.
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*In an interview with Jonathan Ellis ("Ads in GOP House Race Start with Noem Commercial Filmed in Texas") published in that Sioux Falls paper on April 30, 2010, Shields pointedly observed that the Curd campaign would respond to Noem's opening ad salvo with ads filmed in South Dakota.

Keystone Pipeline Brings Few Jobs for South Dakotans

Plains Justice puts out important information about TransCanada's empty promises of economic gains from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The foreign oil company likes to tell us South Dakotans and others along the Keystone XL route that the pipeline will bring lots of well-paying construction jobs. Sure will... and TransCanada will bring lots of workers from other states to take those jobs and most of that money right back out of South Dakota.

Says who? TransCanada itself. In response to a Plains Justice inquiry, TransCanada provided this data on whom it hired to work on the Keystone I pipeline in eastern South Dakota through July 2009. Out of 2580 workers laying pipe in South Dakota, only 282—just under 11%—were permanent South Dakota residents. TransCanada breaks down the jobs in the following table:

Position	SD Residents	Non-SD Residents	Total Jobs
Supervision (Superintendents, foremen, office manager, clerical, etc.)	20	281	301
Welders, Welder Helpers, Pipe Fitters, etc.	3	395	398
Truck Drivers	32	241	273
Equipment Operators	27	542	569
Laborers	110	691	801
Construction Management, Surveyors, Inspectors, etc.	90	148	238
Total	282	2298	2580

The biggest categories for South Dakotans was the least skilled, general laborers, and even in that category, TransCanada only bothered to fill 13% of its need with our people. The only category in which we came out with a majority of the jobs were in management, surveying, and inspection. We missed out on most of the big money to be had in skilled work like equipment operation and welding (only three welders in all of South Dakota got work from TransCanada? Come on, TransCanada, share the wealth!).

Now let's check: Keystone I crosses 10 South Dakota counties: Marshall, Day, Clark, Beadle, Kingsbury, Miner, Hanson, McCook, Hutchinson, and Yankton. South Dakota Department of Labor numbers tell me that in July 2009, those ten counties had 1870 unemployed people. I'm thinking at least 800 of them would have been fit to operate a shovel. Out of the remaining 1000... well, take any 1000 South Dakotans at random, and I'll bet you can find more than 32 who can drive a truck, and more than 27 who can drive a skidsteer.

When I visited the Keystone I construction site in Miner County last year, I found Michels Pipeline Construction of Brownsville, Wisconsin, in charge. I have no reason to suspect these pipeliners weren't decent men doing good work to earn a living. But having a few more South Dakotans working on a big oil pipeline running through our state would do more than circulate more money in our economy. It would bring a little more comfort knowing that more of the workers building this environmentally hazardous project will be sticking around to live with the consequences of their handiwork.

Now building a pipeline does create temporary jobs. 282 jobs is certainly better than none. But the jobs data on Keystone I makes clear that TransCanada does not transmit the bulk of the benefits of pipeline construction to the South Dakota labor force.

SDSU Charging Catangui $908 for Hearing Transcript

The American Association of University Professors remains concerned over what they see as South Dakota State University's denial of full due process to fired entomology professor Mike Cantangui. In a September 10 letter to SDSU president David Chicoine, the AAUP notes that SDSU has asked Dr. Catangui to pay $908 to obtain a copy of the transcript of his hearing before the faculty members empaneled by the university to address Catangui's termination.

$908. For a transcript. Uff da!

Now I know documents like this can get hefty. I have a good ream-and-a-half worth of paper recording my own eight hours of fun and excitement with the Madison school board a few years back. But transcripts do come in electronic form nowadays. Providing Dr. Catangui with his hearing transcript probably requires 15 seconds of mouseclicks and keystrokes (new e-mail, address, attach, send). That's $60 a second.

The AAUP recommends standards and regulations for faculty dismissals, including a recommendation that transcripts of formal dismissal hearings be made available to dismissed faculty without cost. Charging a fired employee $908 for the single most important document that employee needs to pursue any further due process is unnecessary and unfair.
-----------------------
On the good side, the university does appear to have acquiesced in restoring Catangui's salary through August, to the point where he actually received something resembling due process. It's too bad SDSU seems inlcined to use the transcript charge to nickel-and-C-note Catangui to claw back some of that money.

Daugaard on Education: Send Kids to Work

Among some things that catch my eye in Dennis Daugaard's just-released education plan is his focus on career and technical education (CTE) in high school. I always get nervous when folks talk about education as preparation for the workforce. In my ideal world, education is about forming a complete citizen, a well-rounded human being, not just another cog in the corporate machine. The focus on turning kids into workers is reason #347 why we plan to home-school our daughter as much as possible, to keep out her outside the walls of the factory-school.

But on CTE, Daugaard also talks about helping kids learn outside the school walls. He talks about expanding the Dakota Seeds program to find internships and job training for high school students along with the undergrads and grad students currently served. Daugaard wants kids to get high school credit for such on-the-job experiences... which is fine, assuming the kids will have time to get out and get those credits on top of the science, math, and other graduation requirements the state is fond of piling onto students.

One line I really like: "We can offer high school students valuable experiences with potential employers and save schools the expense of purchasing duplicative equipment for classroom-based training." Instead of buying a fancy auto lab or machine shop for the school district, schools could save money by sending kids out to get the same experience doing real work at Prostrollo's or Laser Cut. That's officer thinking... but I wonder: student labor for private business... does that count as a subsidy?

Herseth Sandlin vs. Noem: Get a Job! Get Lots of Jobs!

Part 8 of the Madville Times' South Dakota State Fair Congressional Debate analysis

The last question at Sunday's debate: What specifically would you do to fight unemployment and create jobs in South Dakota?

Kristi Noem blasted the failed stimulus package, saying the U.S. has lost 300,000 jobs and seen unemployment shoot past the President's assurances to 9.6%. The stimulus, said Noem, has done little but pile debt on our children. Noem defended her vote in Pierre to accept those stimulus dollars for use in South Dakota because the Legislature did not have the option to send those dollars back to Washington to pay down the national debt. We made the best decision for you, said Noem, to use those stimulus dollars here in South Dakota.

Noem then turned to her legislative record, saying she carried a bill on wind energy (HB 1263, I'm assuming) that dealt with easements and development periods. Noem said the bill passed unanimously and creates more opportunities for wind developers to come to the state. Noem said one potential wind project may create 3000 jobs, all without spending any tax dollars or creating any government debt.

Herseth Sandlin came out swinging again, saying, "The question is on what we will do." (That's the second time Herseth Sandlin explicitly pointed out that Noem wasn't answering the question.) Herseth Sandlin piled on the specifics of what she'll do to create jobs and opportunities for South Dakotans: she said she will promote blender pumps, investment tax credits, and continue to work bipartisanly to increase the Small Business Administration's loan authority to $5 million. She recalled the trade agreement point Noem made earlier in the debate and said she will work to get the South Korea trade agreement moving.

After those positive specifics (more than Noem laid out), Herseth Sandlin still had time to rebut Noem's stimulus argument. Suppose the Legislature had had the option to send the stimulus money back for debt relief, the way Noem wanted. What cuts, Herseth Sandlin asked, would Noem have made to balance the state budget? Herseth Sandlin said Noem imagines "the economy would have somehow magically cured itself." Herseth Sandlin said Noem is just politicizing the stimulus and not offering specific solutions.

Assessment: I'm still trying to untie Noem's logical knot of how the stimulus can do no good yet be good to spend here in South Dakota. And Herseth Sandlin is right about Noem missing the question. I could be generous and say that by pointing to her wind energy easements bill, Noem was highlighting the general kind of legislation she would craft and support in Congress to create jobs. But Noem herself did not say those words; she left me having to fill in those blanks... and that left a big blank for SHS to fill with a reasonable charge that Noem didn't answer the question with the specifics requested.

Both candidates threw punches here, but Herseth Sandlin is throwing them harder. That's how you win a fight.

On answering the question and the opposition and answering harder, advantage Herseth Sandlin.

Merit Pay? Start at the Top

Sometimes my mind wanders....

Independent candidate for District 8 House Jason Bjorklund supports merit pay for teachers. I've mentioned previously that measuring teacher performance is tricky; I'll need to ask Bjorklund at the first candidate forum just what specific metrics he'd use to determine which math teacher gets a bonus.

But it occurs to me as odd that merit pay comes up for teachers but not for any other public servants. Why would we focus so much attention on making teachers prove their worthwhen there are so many bigger fish to fry on the public payroll?

If we're going to talk merit pay, let's start at the top. Let's experiment with the most highly paid, most powerful public employees first and work our way down.

In the education system, for instance, let's start with merit pay for our university presidents. Enrollment up at DSU? Good for you, Dr. Knowlton! $5000 bonus. Dip in retention at SDSU? Oh, sorry, Dr. Chicoine: that's $5000 off your salary (though he can make that up by attending one Monsanto board meeting). If merit pay works with our university presidents, we can phase merit pay in further down the ladder: add our top VPs and administrators one year, maybe deans and department chairs the next, rank-and-file professors and instructors after that.

Same in the K-12 system. Don't start with the teachers: start with the superintendents and principals. Or maybe go bigger: since the K-12 system is the constitutional responsibility of state government, apply merit pay first to the people at the top of the power pyramid: the governor and the secretary of education. If schools across the state see their ACT scores go down, nick Governor Rounds's and Secretary Oster's pay $1000 each.

We could even apply this principle at the local government level. Take Lake County. Dwaine Chapel, executive director of the Lake Area Improvement Corporation, makes over $100,000 a year, more I think that any public official, elected or otherwise, in our county. Chapel will tell you the LAIC is quasi-public-private, but his salary is paid for essentially by tax dollars. Why don't we test out merit pay on his position first? Every month that unemployment goes up, chop that paycheck by $1000. For every new business that opens its doors, $1000 bonus.

If we see merit pay produce results for the LAIC, then we can try it at other levels of local government:

• Give city engineer Chad Comes a bonus for the year if there are fewer water main breaks and sewer backups.
• Give states attorney Ken Meyer a bonus for a higher successful prosecution rate.
• Give city finance officer Jeff Heinemeyer a bonus for higher satisfaction ratings in the next Citizen Survey.

With so many higher-paid public servants with enormous responsibilities in our state, it strikes me as odd that we focus so much attention on merit pay for the folks at the lower end of that public pay scale. If we really want to test merit pay, let's start by demanding results from the folks at the top.

Lake County Adds 20 Jobs, 30 Job Seekers in July

Lake County just can't get a clean break on unemployment figures this summer. We managed to add 20 jobs in July. Alas, we saw 30 people enter the local labor force, meaning a net increase in unemployment of ten people. We now stand at 5.0%, up 0.1 percentage points from June.

July roughed up everyone in the neighborhood: every county adjoining Lake also saw an uptick in unemployment:

• Brookings: 4.2% (+0.1 from June)
  
• Kingsbury: 4.6% (+0.3)
  
• Miner: 4.8% (+0.3)
  
• McCook: 4.5% (+0.1)
  
• Minnehaha: 4.4% (+0.1)
  
• Moody: 8.1% (+0.6)

Looking for some half-full glasses, a year-over-year comparison finds Lake, Moody, Minnehaha, and Kingsbury counties enjoying slightly lower unemployment in July 2010 than in July 2009. Lake County's unemployment rate is a full percentage point lower than last year: we've lost 40 jobs since last July, but we've also seen 110 people leave our labor force. Miner, McCook, and Brookings counties have each seen small increases in unemployment since last July.

See all of the state's labor force data at the Department of Labor's website.

Local note: those 20 new jobs here in Lake County brings the LAIC's "Forward Madison" initiative within 905 jobs of its anemic goal of maintaining what in 2006 looked like status quo job growth. Just wondering: If the LAIC had not slurped up $2 million in loose change from local businesses, might those businesses have invested that $2 million directly in expansion and hiring and created more job growth on their own?

Good Sign in Madison: Gehl Wants You!

Chicoine Cold-Shoulders AAUP on Cantangui

The American Association of University Professors remains unsatisfied with Monsanto executive board member and SDSU President David Chicoine's response to their concerns about the firing of entomologist Mike Catangui.

Actually, AAUP is saying, what response? In an August 24 letter to President Chicoine, the AAUP says they are still waiting for a response from Chicoine to their July 8 letter protesting the apparent lack of due process in Catangui's dismissal. They acknowledge that the university subsequently granted Catangui a closed-door August 9 hearing before a faculty committee. However, according to AAUP's letter, the Board of Regents officially terminated Catangui's employment August 14, well before the anticipated release of the faculty committee's report on August 30.

AAUP isn't fighting now for Catangui to remain at SDSU; they're simply saying that if you're going to fire a professor, you've still got to accord him due process. Their position: Catangui should remain on staff and receive salary at least until the formal hearing process has concluded and the faculty committee has issued its report.

Whether Chicoine deigns to offer AAUP the courtesy of a response remains to be seen.
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Archive update 2010.09.01: see also coverage in the Brookings Register. Getting fired twice in one summer—that just stinks!

Union Prez: Keystone XL Could Cost Canada 36,000 Jobs

Americans opposed to TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline have some allies in Canada. No, not just the usual cast of fellow hippies and duck-lovers: Canadian workers realize that shipping tar sands oil south will also send good Canadian jobs to Texas:

Rammed through despite serious opposition, the first Keystone, built by TransCanada Corp., cost Canada thousands of jobs. An analysis by the Informetrica think-tank demonstrated that besides exporting 400,000 barrels of heavy crude a day, it also shipped out 18,000 high-paying Canadian jobs. Twice the size of TransCanada’s first Keystone is the new project, Keystone XL. It will shoot out 900,000 barrels of heavy crude in a one-way ride to the U.S. The number of jobs lost is expected to be more than double the 18,000 already gone.

These pipelines are sending our raw, unprocessed bitumen from Canadian tarsands to spanking new oil refineries in the U.S. It is the equivalent of shipping millions of raw logs for others to cut the two-by-fours and create the wood furniture. Like forestry, the best jobs are in processing. We are left with the tarsands’ massive mess. The Americans get the good jobs [David Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, "Pipeline Would Ship Oil and Jobs South," Toronto Star, 2010.08.08].

This Canadian labor position is no different from the position expressed by South Dakota politicians on value-added agriculture: basing your economy on the export of raw materials won't produce nearly as many jobs as developing your own capacity to process those raw materials into finished goods.

If the Keystone pipeline system is all about our great friendship with Canada, then do we really want to deny the Canadians 36,000 while leaving them with the environmental costs of the dirtiest oil in the world?
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Bonus TransCanada notes:

1. Keystone spokesman Robert Jones admits that TransCanada's withdrawal of its safety waiver request is mostly public relations: "We're trying to be responsive." Gee, how about being responsive to landowners' requests that you keep your darn pipeline off their land?
2. In the same article, Jones also hints that I'm dead-on in assuming the waiver request withdrawal is motivated by economic realities of lower demand, not any concern for the environment: "If we ever needed to get to the ultimate capacity, that would depend on market conditions.... I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future." TransCanada will still build the pipe with thinner steel, and they'll keep that safety waiver request in their files, but the market doesn't have enough demand to justify the P.R. battle in the current unfavorable political climate.
3. Montana has granted TransCanada condemnation powers to build Keystone XL. That means Canadians can take your land and your government won't stop them, just as happened here in South Dakota on the Keystone pipeline. Small consolation: Montana reversed an earlier denial of condemnation authority to TransCanada on the condition that TransCanada actually fulfill the "common carrier" definition and allow local oil producers to hook in and transport their product on the pipeline as well. If we can't stop Keystone XL, South Dakota should at the very least make the same demand for a true common carrier... or maybe a nice bike trail over the pipeline route!