Bill Batt short CV
One of the earliest Peace Corps Volunteers, with subsequent experience as an academic, a business and not-for-profit administrator, a political leader, policy researcher and advisor, seeks challenging opportunities in academia or the public or private sector. Noted since 1994 in Marquis Who's Who in the East 26th Edition., Who’s Who in America, since 55th Edition.
Current Positions: Executive Director and Principal Researcher, Central Research Group, Inc.
-- Research, consulting, and advocacy on relationships between transportation, taxation, and land use policies under contract to state and municipal governments and foundations.
Administrative and Business Experience (most recent first):
President and Executive Director, Central Research Group, Inc. CRG is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and educational cooperative of scholars established in Ithaca in 1976, focused on public budgeting and finance. Any work through CRG is funded by grants and contracts.
Board Director, Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, the pre-eminent American organization dedicated to the dissemination of the ideas of Henry George, through grant support, publication, and general advocacy. www.schalkenbach.org
Board Director, Center for the Study of Economics, a national research and information organization for study of Georgist economic approaches, 1995 to present (Secretary from 1998 to 2007). www.urbantools.org.
Contract Consultant and Researcher with Common Ground, a national advocacy organization for Georgist Economics, 2003 to 2006, particularly in the State of Vermont.
Staff Political Scientist, Legislative Tax Study Commission, 1983-92. Had special responsibility for design and evaluation of user fees, particularly for transportation and environment. Served as the political scientist in an interdisciplinary team of five professionals. Participated in all phases of Commission Reports.
Assistant Research Director, Legislative Commission on Critical Transportation Choices, State of New York, 1982-83.
Budget Analyst, Department of Transportation, State of New York, 1982.
Administrative Director and Fellow, Central Research Group, Inc., 1978-1981.
Vice President and Marketing Director of Interwolf, Inc., 1976-1981. Interwolf was the exclusive American representative for a line of European planetarium and astronomy equipment.
Earlier Academic Interest and Expertise:
Organization Theory, Comparative Public Administration, Political and Economic Development, and Asian Studies. Dissertation was "Obligation and Decision in Thai Administration: From Patrimonial to Rational-Legal Bureaucracy," (relationship between moral reasoning and social structures).
Teaching:
Teaching Fellow: Northern Illinois University; SUNY-Albany
Instructor: Russell Sage College, Siena College
Assistant Professor: SUNY-Binghamton, U. of Baltimore
-- Adjunct Professor (Part Time): Marist College MPA Program, 1994.
Consulting:
Miscellaneous freelance consulting for both private and public institutions, 1976 to present. Online studies: “Feasibility of Site Value Taxation in the State of Minnesota: Olmsted County (Rochester MN) as a Hypothetical Test Case,” Performed under contract with the Minnesota Planning Department, June, 1999, incorporated into later agency report entitled “Smart Signals,” available at www.mnplan.state.mn.us/; “Tax Structure Analysis Report,” for Philadelphia City Controller, November, 2001 www.philadelphiacontroller.org/tax.htm
Education:
A.B., Government, U. Massachusetts, 1962, Honors.
M.A., Political Science & Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 1967.
Inter-University Consortium for Political Research, University of Michigan, Statistical Methods in Social Sciences, Summer, 1967.
Ph.D., Political Science, School of Public Affairs, SUNY-Albany, 1974. Major concentration: Public Administration; Minor Concentrations: Comparative Politics, American Politics, Political Philosophy.
Professional Writing and Publications (selective and limited to the past twenty-five years; earlier writing was in another field of interest, no longer relevant):
On issues of Public Finance, in print:
Not included in above are policy papers prepared for Legislative Commissions. All such policy papers are for the internal use of the New York State Legislature.
— "Infrastructure: Etymology and Import," Jl. of Public Issues in Engineering, Jan., 1984.
— "Heavy Vehicle Highway User Charges," Presented at General Conference Session, Federation of Tax Administrators 1989 Motor Fuel Tax Conference, Indianapolis, October, 1989.
— "Designing Surface Transportation Finance," a paper presented to the Royal Thai Government Ministry of Finance, Bangkok, Thailand, November, 1991.
— "Dedicated Highway and Consolidated Transportation Funds," presented at the Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., January, 1992.
— "Can the Bicycle Save America," New York Bicycling Coalition News, Oct., 1992. www.yourbodypower.org/get-rolling/getrolling.htm
— "A Proposal to Limit the Mortgage Interest Deduction and Thereby Raise More State Revenue," State Tax Notes, Vol. 4, No. 1 (January 4, 1993), pp. 46-50.
— "User Fees: The Nontax Revenue Alternative," State Tax Notes, Vol. 4, No. 14 (April 5, 1993), pp. 787-794.
— "A General Theory of Earmarking," State Tax Notes, Vol.4, No. 24 (June 14, 1993), pp. 1420-1437.
— "A Transportation Development District Fee Using a Land-Value Component," Annual Conference, Council of Georgist Organizations, Los Angeles, July, 1993.
— A Framework for Designing a Transportation Development District," Northeast Regional Conference of the American Society for Public Administration, Albany, October, 1993.
— "Does Federal Imposition of Taxes and Fees Preempt State and Local Imposition?" State Tax Notes, Vol. 6, No. 14 (April 4, 1994), p. 897.
— "How the Railroads Got Us on the Wrong Economic Track," The Torch, Winter, 98. Nominated for the Torch International Clubs Paxton Award for the outstanding presentation of the year. Online www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt_railroad_1.html
— "Motor Vehicle Transportation and Proper Pricing: User Fees, Environmental Fees, and Value Capture," presented at TOES97: The Other Economic Summit, Denver, June 20-22, 1997; Ecological Economics Bulletin, Vol. 3, #1 (First Quarter, 1998). pp. 10-14. www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt_on_transportation.html
— “Toward a Default Assessed Land Value for American Tax Jurisdictions,” Global Institute for Taxation, World Trade Center, October 1-2, 1999.
— “The Merits of Site Value Taxation Global Institute for Taxation, New York, Oct. 1-2, 1999. http://new.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/tobin/research/institutes/gift/tax.sju
— “Shifting Taxes to Land in Des Moines, Iowa: A Simulation of its Impact,” Presented at the Conference of Georgist Organizations, Des Moines, IA, September, 2000.
— "Value Capture as a Policy Tool in Transportation Economics: An Exploration in Public Finance in the Tradition of Henry George," The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol 60, No. 1 (January, 2001), pp 195-228; reprinted in Laurence S. Moss (ed.), City and Country. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. www.urbantools.net/pdf/ValueCaptureAsAPublicFinanceTool-BillBatt.pdf
— Columnist, under contract with the Henry George Foundation of America, most recently to write weekly essays in the Amsterdam (New York) Recorder on the merits of site-value taxation, from November 12, 1995 through March 31, 1996.
— “Fallacies of the Slippery Slope Argument,” The Torch, Vol. 75. No. 1, Fall, 2001; online at www.torch.org/fall2001.pdf
“Stemming Sprawl: The Fiscal Approach,” in Matthew J. Lindstrom and Hugh Bartling (Eds.), Surveying Sprawl: Culture, Ecology, and Politics. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt-stemming_sprawl.html
-- “Modeling Land Rent and Transportation Costs in the United States,” in Janet Milne, et. al., (eds.), Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation: International and Comparative Perspectives, Vol. 1. London: Richmond, 2003. http://www.progress.org/cg/batt5602.htm
Facilitated the translation into the Thai language and subsequent publication of Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, along with a partner book entitled The Unjust Poverty, 2002.
“Property Cycles, Land Speculation, and Price Changes,” presented at the Monthly Forum, February 25, 2002, Thai Appraisal Foundation, Bangkok, at www.thaiappraisal.org/English/Monthly/Default1.asp
-- “The Fallacy of the ‘Three-Legged Stool’ Metaphor” State Tax Notes, Volume 35, No. 6, pp. 377-381 (February 7, 2005). www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt_on-tax-policy.html
-- “Painless Taxation”, submitted to the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, April, 2005, www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt-h-william_painless-taxation.html
-- “Who Says Cities are Poor?” Center for the Study of Economics, April, 2005,
www.urbantools.org/policy-papers/blight-and-development/
-- “Moral Reasoning and Social Structure: A Cross Cultural View,” Presented to the Albany Torch Club, February 2nd, 2004, selected for publication in The Torch, Vol.78, No.3, at www.torch.org/spring2005.
-- "Land Value Maps are not New, But their Utility Needs to be Re-Discovered." International Journal of Transdisciplinary Research, Vol 4. No 1 (2009), pp.108-158. www.IJTR.org.
Recent Book Reviews:
David Bollier, Silent Theft: (Routledge, 2003). www.progress.org/revboll.htm
Molly O’Meara, Reinventing Cities, Worldwatch, 1999. www.progress.org/revmolly.htm
Andro Linklater, Measuring America, Walker, 2002. www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt_review_of_linklater_on_measuring_america.html
David Barlett & James Steele, The Great American Tax Dodge, Little-Brown, 2000, &
David Kay Johnson, Pefectly Legal, Penguin, 2003, www.progress.org/2004/batt02.htm
Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over, New Society, 2003. www.progress.org/cg/batts03.htm
Lindrith Davies, The Alodia Story. HG Institute. www.progress.org/2004/alodiarev.htm
Hernando DeSoto, The Mystery of Capital. Basic, 2000. www.progress.org/2004/desorev.htm
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. www.progress.org/2005/hitrev.htm
Peter Barnes, Capitalism 3.0, http://www.progress.org/2007/barncap.htm
James Kunstler, The Long Emergency http://www.progress.org/cg/kunstler_0606.htm
Jay Gallagher, The Politics of Decline, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0878755527/qid=1135279402/
Robert J. Miller, Native America, www.amazon.com/Native-America-Discovered-Conquered-Jefferson/dp/0275990117/
Note: Many other online articles have been copied to other online sites, especially www.urbantools.org, www.wealthandwant.com/auth/index.htm, www.progress.org, www.cooperativeindividualism.org/authors_02.html
Articles online are usually accessible by searching H. William Batt, William Batt, or Bill Batt, and many searchable through the special Georgist search website, www.askhenry.com.