Breaking News…
gCaptain has just received word that the Department of Transportation is shutting down the Global Maritime and Transportation School located at Kings Point 100% as of July 2012. Employees told to start checking USAjobs.gov for new employement. Updates coming…
The game is afoot Watson!
What a bunch of retards. A self funded program, with 30 employees. Now being shut down, and the employees are being directed to find ‘work’ within the US Government hiring agency?! To go ONTO the government (taxpayer funded) payroll system. Boy, what genius thought up this method of ‘saving’ money? The same bunch who decided to borrow on the next 30 years of budgets!
I’m pretty certain that this has nothing to do with “saving” money.
It seems the government is afraid of anything that is sustainable on its own…meaning GMATS turns a profit, while the rest of DOT just throws money away…
This topic is representative of the difference between BEING a retard, and ACTING like one. I have respect for someone with limited mental faculties. But these rocket scientists in D.C. should be ashamed of themselves for partisan, myopic politics. Douchebags all.
Statement from Maureen Knightly, Deputy Director for Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Transportation:
“The U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy are committed to creating and serving a maritime transportation system that addresses 21st century challenges. As part of this commitment and in response to specific recommendations from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Academy is taking steps to wind down the Global Maritime and Transportation School (GMATS) and determine the Academy’s role in continuing education.”
The Academy is taking steps to “determine the Academy’s role in continuing education.”
That’s rich, they eliminate a self funded program that benefits every mariner so they can defend a phenomenally costly program that benefits no one other than its members.
Orwell would be proud of those boys.
Keep the halo around the alumni, the heck with sailors.
I’m not sure how you got that. It sounds to me like they are just trying to decide whether/how to keep GMATS open or to close it. That doesn’t sound sinister.to me.
[QUOTE=KPEngineer;58856]I’m not sure how you got that. It sounds to me like they are just trying to decide whether/how to keep GMATS open or to close it.[/QUOTE]
"As part of this commitment and in response to specific recommendations from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Academy is taking steps to wind down the Global Maritime and Transportation School (GMATS) and determine the Academy’s role in continuing education.”
Even in normal English that means KP is in the process of closing GMATS and is also considering if it will have any role at all in “continuing education” which means courses for mariners not feeding off the taxpayers tit.
KP is eliminating a useful program to create the illusion it is making some kind of sacrifice in the public good. Only MARAD is stupid enough to think that makes sense.
There is no such thing as normal English when it comes to the government. There is also talk of transitioning to a 501(c) organization so I would say rumors of its demise are premature.
I really don’t think that this is a financial or budget decision and has nothing to do with with saving any money or to demonstrate any kind of sacrifice but is all related to happenings under previous Superintendents.
retards is right! I am calling that dumb %##^ who;s in charge on Monday. And I will be making calls to my congressthief and senator. Vote all of these %#}^% out of office!
Let’s hope that closing GMATS is the first step in shutting down KP and selling off the real estate.
Rather than remain a drain on the taxpayer, the place could generate tax revenues for New York and employ a large number of productive citizens.
Unfortunately, the rational roadway, lighted by the lamp posts of logic, is again the pathway not chosen by DOT/MARAD. GMATS is a great idea and given that it is self-funding, it’s an unqualified exceptional maritime resource for everyone. WHY then sweet Neptune, does MARAD want to close down GMATS? Again, we’re engulfed in the fog bank of irrationality!
However now … the USMMA, a grand and useful idea from the glory days of last mid-century, is nowadays a petrified white elephant and a blood drain on the federal budget. The KP of the past three decades has provided nothing that the state academies/college provided in triplicate - and that is only more true of today and tomorrow. Best of all, the state training costs the Feds next to nothing - Republicans, Democratics, Tea Baggers, Libertarians, 99%ers, where the heck are you??
So keep GMATS alive instead of deep-sixing it. And Mr./Mrs. MARAD, turn your energy to do something into the only logical action staring you in the face, and shut down Kings Point now and forever. Or, if you don’t kill that golden goose, then open similar freebie trade schools for truck drivers, train engineers, and aeroplane pilots. There’s logic and then there’s MARAD logic!!
Here’s an interesting little number from the Office of Personnel Management. At the beginning of this lastest “recession” (generally considered December 2007), there was one solitary Department of Transportation employee with a salary over $170,000.
While the rest of the US economy has continued its plunge to the bottom that number has climbed to 1690.
I guess they do need to cut expenses.
I am wondering why one needs a ‘golden parachute’ from Samuels Hall?
So the GAO has decided to cut the part of KP that actually doesn’t cost money while it ‘considers its options’ for the part that squanders it! Sounds about right for self insulated bureaucracy in govt.
[QUOTE=KPEngineer;58862]
I really don’t think that this is a financial or budget decision and has nothing to do with with saving any money or to demonstrate any kind of sacrifice but is all related to happenings under previous Superintendents.[/QUOTE]
So does that mean you believe the decision to close the only part of that swamp that doesn’t suck blood from anemic taxpayers is based on spite and vengeance for real or perceived insults or some such schoolgirl nonsense?
This latest episode of MARAD insanity goes a long long ways to show just how incompetent, ignorant, corrupt, and useless are the “leaders” of that cesspool.
My letters are on the way to every government office, news medium, and politician I can find an address for. Someone somewhere has to think, like many of us, here that this has gone beyond simple mismanagement and incompetence and has become an Orwellian version of pre-revolutionary Versaille. Ms. Knightly makes Marie Antoinette seem like a conscientious and caring civil servant.
It is time to close Kings Point and clean out the rot at 1200 New Jersey Avenue.
[QUOTE=TunaTom;58927]Unfortunately, the rational roadway, lighted by the lamp posts of logic, is again the pathway not chosen by DOT/MARAD. GMATS is a great idea and given that it is self-funding, it’s an unqualified exceptional maritime resource for everyone. WHY then sweet Neptune, does MARAD want to close down GMATS? Again, we’re engulfed in the fog bank of irrationality!
However now … the USMMA, a grand and useful idea from the glory days of last mid-century, is nowadays a petrified white elephant and a blood drain on the federal budget. The KP of the past three decades has provided nothing that the state academies/college provided in triplicate - and that is only more true of today and tomorrow. Best of all, the state training costs the Feds next to nothing - Republicans, Democratics, Tea Baggers, Libertarians, 99%ers, where the heck are you??
So keep GMATS alive instead of deep-sixing it. And Mr./Mrs. MARAD, turn your energy to do something into the only logical action staring you in the face, and shut down Kings Point now and forever. Or, if you don’t kill that golden goose, then open similar freebie trade schools for truck drivers, train engineers, and aeroplane pilots. There’s logic and then there’s MARAD logic!![/QUOTE]
God bless sir you for your most astute and profound words of truth and rational thought!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I think you have to go back to VADM Stewart and the blurring of lines between non-appropriated and appropriated funds and personnel. That was what got GAO looking in to how the Academy was operating in the first place. I think framing the announcement in terms of today’s budget issues or the happenings surrounding RADM Greene are short sighted. The government just doesn’t move that fast.
Kudos to you for actually taking the time to follow up your words with action. Anyone can bitch and/or moan about something but without action it just sounds like whining.
I don’t really weigh in on the pros and cons of things regarding KP because frankly I don’t think my opinion wouldn’t be considered on its merits and I would be looked at as just one more ring knocker trying to look out for his fellow ringknockers and screw everyone else. I do try to point out a few places where I think issues are misinterpreted or contexts not fully considered or in this case where the memo is being misread.
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