This week saw the NJ do quite the fluff piece on the IC’s Office newly rebranded effort to increase the Captive Insurance market here in Delaware and today it gives over space on the Editorial page for an effort that isn’t too far from the Press Releases sent out by the IC promoting this expensive rebranding.
We talked about this effort here. But here is the NJ’s description of the effort:
It’s an effort that has been talked about for years, but which is only now getting under way at the Delaware Insurance Commissioner’s Office, which has created a new division and hired a team of well-connected outside experts to help burnish Delaware’s image worldwide.
Well, no — this is an effort that has been underway at least since the Denn term as IC, where there was a consultant (William White) who was leading the effort. And as far as I can determine, he helped grow the number of captives domiciled in DE to 40. The current effort by the IC’s office replaces Mr. White with at least 6 people who have been named in their press releases. That’s why I call this a rebranding. No idea if there are more unnamed staff, but it would not surprise me. Then there’s this preciousness:
In the state’s view, it’s a prize that’s best sought with top talent — Kinion and the bureau’s new director of strategic development, Ed Ianni, are both attorneys with broad industry contacts. Under their contracts with the state, each will be paid $16,000 a month, including expenses, but receive no benefits.
As we’ve already seen, Kinion is an industry lobbyist for an insurance lobbying firm. Wonder why the NJ didn’t find this background important? Or the fact that Kinion was a major fundraiser for KWS during her campaign? Probably because this reporter started with the press releases and then just wrote down what KWS’ Chief of Staff had to say.
But today, this is what the Editorial Board has to say:
Some of these consultants are earning $16,000 a month, including expenses. It’s a hefty amount and obviously not a typical state salary. But Insurance Commissioner Chief of Staff Elliott Jacobson is quick to point out that money paid for insurance department contracts is generated from within by fees and assessments and doesn’t come from tax money. Still, we hope Commissioner Stewart gets her — and our — money’s worth.
Does this look familiar to anyone here? I am completely appalled that Elliott Jacobson is still saying this ans even more appalled that the NJ seems to think that there is nothing wrong in this. And what is wrong? The clear sense of entitlement to do what they want with money that does not belong to them. Whether that money comes from taxes, fees, or they found it at the bottom of the Delaware River, you are still talking about State funds that belong to the people of this state. Spending that money in an unaccountable way is just as bad as spending tax revenues in an unaccountable way.
Another editorial this morning has the NJ cheering on an effort to make teachers more accountable, yet they are more than willing to just cheerlead spending of revenues from the ICs office in an effort that they made no attempt to quantify either the cost or the overall revenue this effort would result in. This office has ramped up spending on this program in a major way and no one at the NJ thinks to ask what they think they’ll be generating in new revenues on a year by year basis. Accountability starts there, right? Accountability also includes wondering why it is that KWS is hiring her cronies and fundraisers.
But apparently, the NJ can only regurgitate KWS’s campaign resume, the spin of her Chief of Staff and urge the rest of us to cheer on a program that we still don’t know much about, much less whether it has any chance of making enough money to cover the massive amount of money being spent on it.
I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised — thinking the NJ is going to ever deviate from being a major enabler of The Delaware Way is probably insane.