Viva La Cola!

Founded in January 2009, PubliCola is a blog about Seattle written by journalists who are dedicated to non-partisan, original daily reporting that prioritizes a balanced approach to news. Started by longtime local editor and award-winning reporter Josh Feit, PubliCola is the first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol.

PubliCola was off and running. In June 2009, PubliCola hired another award-winning journalist, super-sourced Seattle city hall reporter Erica C. Barnett.

People were afraid that blogging would change journalism. Instead, we believe journalism can change blogging. Twenty-first century journalism may look and feel different, and yes Erica isn't afraid to get cranky, but we're committed to making sure online news still delivers independent, reliable, even-keeled coverage. And most of all, we're committed to making sure the coverage sparks honest civic debate.

Bringing you cola for the people, PubliCola is named after Publius Valerius PubliCola, the alias for the authors of the Federalist Papers—the original bloggers.

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The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

Rejoinder of the Day: Gov. Gregoire

This Washington   December 15, 2011 at 5:26 pm Josh Feit

Erica and I just finished a 40-minute sit-down interview with Gov. Chris Gregoire. We talked about the budget (oy vey), gay marriage, education reform, her legacy, Jay Inslee’s chances, President Obama, her recent email conversation with her friend Kathleen Sebelius about Sebelius’ Plan B decision, and, as promised (to a pal who I had whiskeys with last night), “why she was a Republican.”

It was a lively conversation. And I’ll post a full account tomorrow.

Gregoire spent the last five minutes of the interview busting the state Republicans’ “Reform before revenue” mantra. She took the Republican reform recommendations one by one and said “How much are you gonna book against the $2 billion shortfall? … I’ll tell you what you’re gonna book: Nothing.”

Her most exasperated answer came when I reminded her about one of the GOP’s big reform recommendations: Making state employees cover as much of their health care costs as their counterparts in the private sector.

“I’m happy to [make workers pay as much for health care as they would] in the private sector when they’ll pay state workers what they would earn in the private sector.”

She’s got a point: According to this 2010 study, state workers typically earn 11 percent less than private sector workers in comparable jobs.


  • Seth Pilkey

    Stop calling it gay marriage! How about calling it marriage equality!

  • Anonymous

    “She took the Republican reform recommendations one by one and said “How
    much are you gonna book against the $2 billion shortfall?”

    How much did you get from cell phones?  Didn’t fix your $2 billion shortfall, but you talked that up big time.

    A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money, but it only matters when you want it to.  That’s politics and I’m glad we are almost done with her crappy politics.

  • Deb Eddy

    I so sincerely appreciate the Gov’s passion and hard-bargaining for her solutions.  She produced that six-year outlook quickly this week, so we’ll have the holidays to consider it, getting ready to ask questions, fine-tune the numbers and ID the gap between income and outgo in the “out” years.  But Rep. Hunter is quite right when he says, we have to get to 50, 25. And that is going to take some jockeying. The legislative process is … um … messy.

  • BudgetBuster

    “According to this 2010 study, state workers typically earn 11 percent less than private sector workers in comparable jobs.”

    I didn’t realize that there was a private sector job called “taxpayer leech”

  • Anonymous

    >> She’s got a point: According to this 2010 study, state workers typically earn 11 percent less than private sector workers in comparable jobs.

    Another PubliCola “fact.”

    The study goes out of its way to eliminate average compensation as a criteria:
    “The fact that state and local workers are more than twice as likely to have college degrees, seen in light of the large labor-market premium for educational qualifications, makes clear that simple averages in earnings should not be compared across sectors.”

    Why would they do that?  As clearly stated on page 7:

    Average Hourly wages:
        Private    State    Local
    1983    $17.91    $19.03    $18.73
    2008    $20.57    $22.17    $22.15
    All Yrs    $18.98    $21.19    $21.02

    Which forces them to rationalize:
    “Although the raw wage differences in Table 1 suggest higher earnings for state and local workers, they do not adjust for the differences in earnings determinants emphasized in this report. As an illustration, if we limit our data to college-educated workers, those in state government earn 13 percent less than those in the private sector, while those in local government earn 11 percent less than those in the private sector.”

  • jimu

    Private sector employees don’t have the benefits package that public employees do.

    “Overall, total compensation for state and local workers was $39.25 an hour — $11.90 more than in private business.” http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-04-09-compensation_N.htm

  • Blue Light

    As a result of the investigation, SPD will be re-outfitted with Nerf batons and guns.

  • Doug

    Another tool…

  • Doug

    Rather generalized, the BLS data reported in USA Today, compared to more precise state figures.  As well, public employees are more than twice as likely to have and need, a college degree, including advanced degrees, for the services they provide than those employed privately.  Let’s get beyond that though, and compare the “take” private business owners/contractors extract from the public coffers (taxes) as “surplus labor value” when contracting with public entities. Enriching themselves beyond the uninformed’s wildest fantasies about public employees…

  • Perfect Voter

    When I chose to work in the public sector, in addition to higher wages (in my profession), I gave up opportunities for stock options, profit sharing, and bonuses like the one negotiated for Boeing workers. Anyone comparing private and public sector compensation should take everything into account. Please

    Of course those who rant from the right will continue to ignore realities, or if we’re lucky go find something else to complain about.

  • http://profiles.google.com/christopher.stefan Christopher Stefan

    Sure you can talk averages all you like, but what jobs were included in the “average” for the private sector? If you take all private employment as a whole there are going to be a lot of cashiers and restaurant workers dragging down the private sector “average”.

    I know that for IT jobs the state pays substantially less while having greater requirements for similar positions. That is only one example, but in general the state pays poorly for skilled jobs. The City of Seattle and King County BTW pay much closer to market rates as does the UW.