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Reason's Annual Privatization Report 2007 highlights the latest in privatization, transportation, education, and more
By Leonard C. Gilroy, AICP
 As editor of Reason Foundation's Annual Privatization Report (APR), I am proud to announce the release of APR 2007. Now in its 21st year of publication, APR is the world's longest running and most comprehensive report on privatization news, developments, and trends.
APR 2007 details the latest on privatization and government reform initiatives at all levels of government. In addition to the latest news on President Bush's continuing efforts to bring more competition to federal programs and save billions of taxpayer dollars, APR 2007's "Federal Update" includes an expanded section on the federal Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART), used by the administration to rate programs and determine budget priorities. Dr. Patrick Mullen, professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, offers readers a detailed assessment of the PART process, its successes to date, and implementation challenges that still remain.
The "Local and State Update" section offers a wide-ranging review of the latest action across state and local government that includes a state privatization roundup and budget outlook, an article on new accounting rules covering government liabilities, and the latest on Mayor Richard Daley's extensive privatization efforts in Chicago, managed competition in San Diego, and Georgia's new and innovative contract cities.
As always, this APR provides a comprehensive overview of domestic and international developments in air and surface transportation, including a summary of Reason's groundbreaking 2006 study, Building Roads to Reduce Traffic Congestion in America's Cities, which provides a detailed analysis of the looming national congestion crisis and quantifies the investments needed to remedy it.
Readers will also find the latest news on highway tolling and public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the "Surface Transportation" section. For instance, we present a detailed overview of long-term toll road concessions, which can mobilize large new sums of capital investment to meet a significant share of the need for new highway capacity. And given the controversy generated by PPPs and concessions over the past year, APR features an article by Deloitte Research's public sector global director William Eggers responding to the most commonly-voiced concerns, objections, and misperceptions about PPPs.
We also spotlight two important issues attracting a great deal of attention in policy circles this past year in APR's "Emerging Issues" section. First, we review federal and state efforts to make government more transparent by allowing taxpayers access to spending information, typically through "Google government" Web databases. Second, we provide a roundup of several states' proposals to privatize their lottery systems.
APR's "Education and Child Welfare" section includes comprehensive updates on school choice and child welfare privatization, as well as two articles on the promise of the weighted-student-funding program for improving low-performing school districts and giving parents more choice.
APR 2007 also dives in to the ever-changing world of telecommunications policy, with updates on video franchise reform, network neutrality, and the municipal provision of broadband services. The "Telecommunications" section also includes an assessment of the rocky start for Provo, Utah's municipal broadband system, as well as a summary of Reason's 2006 study, A Dynamic Perspective on Government Broadband, authored by the Mercatus Center's Jerry Ellig.
With private property rights remaining a hot topic in state legislatures and at the ballot box two years after the Supreme Court's controversial Kelo vs. New London decision, this APR highlights the latest state action on eminent domain reform. In APR's "Land Use and Property Rights" section, we also feature an analysis of Arizona's Proposition 207, a comprehensive package of property rights protections approved by Arizona voters last November that's designed to protect property owners from both eminent domain abuse and regulatory takings via land use regulation.
Given its broad policy coverage and depth of analysis on hot issues, there's something for everyone in APR 2007—policy makers, public officials, journalists, and citizens alike—to help them keep up with the fast-moving arenas of privatization, government reform, and private solutions to public sector challenges.
Leonard Gilroy is editor of Annual Privatization Report 2007 and is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation. An archive of Gilroy's work is here, and Reason's privatization and government reform research and commentary is here.
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