- Townships stockpiling reserves intended for needy, By Joe Biesk and Elisabeth Martin, April 25, 2010, Southtown Star: “At a time when America is grappling with its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, township governments across the Southland have stockpiled hefty cash reserves in accounts intended to help the poor pay for basic necessities, a SouthtownStar analysis shows. Many Southland townships are paying more to administer their poor relief programs – funded almost exclusively from the local property tax – than they are to give the needy a hand. Others are sitting on large sums of money, in some cases topping more than $1 million, that they invest or save for future use instead of increasing benefits or returning it to taxpayers, the analysis found…”
- Townships use different methods to address needs of poor, By Elisabeth Martin and Joe Biesk, April 26, 2010, Southtown Star: “When homeowners in Frankfort Township open their property tax bills each year, there’s a big fat zero where their taxes for the township’s general assistance program normally would be. The township hasn’t collected taxes for the program in 20 years, and officials say they plan to keep it that way. Instead, needy residents who come to Frankfort Township for help get referrals to other programs that offer assistance and visits to the township’s food pantry. As a result, the township hasn’t had a client on its general assistance rolls for years…”
Month: April 2010
State Jobs Programs – Louisiana, Texas
- Job training urged for ex-convicts in New Orleans, By Katie Urbaszewski, April 29, 2010, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “The Home Builders Institute isn’t satisfied with just the 400 New Orleanians — some young adults in low-income families and some residents from Central City housing projects — they’ve trained to find jobs in the construction industry and now wants to create a similar career training program for those recently released from prison. That was the topic of the institute’s meeting with the Rebuilding a Better New Orleans advisory council Wednesday, their fifth meeting to hear community input as the life of the institute’s grant nears its last month and they search for new funding. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the nation, 48 percent above the national average, said Roger Grissom, New Orleans program development manager of the Home Builders Institute. One out of every 55 Louisiana residents is behind bars, according to a study of 2007 U.S. Census data by the Pew Center for the States…”
- Is state jobs program luring employers?, By Laylan Copelin, April 26, 2010, Austin American-Statesman: “Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is crisscrossing the state to promote his plan that pays employers with state tax dollars to hire unemployed Texans. He touts it as a way for the state to save money by getting people off unemployment and jump-starting a Texas economy that many fear could be in a long, slow recovery. ‘We’ve got to grow this locomotive called the Texas economy,’ Dewhurst said in February as he kicked off the $15 million program. He already is talking about extending the nascent program during next year’s legislative session, and the Texas Workforce Commission is trying to persuade federal officials to give it $50 million in stimulus money to triple the program’s size. The program pays employers $2,000 for each unemployed person they hire and retain for at least four months. As of Friday, 682 Texans had been hired by 421 employers statewide. In many instances, however, employers say the state is paying them to do what they would be doing anyway: filling crucial vacancies, expanding only when business conditions warrant or, in the case of high-turnover industries such as call centers, filling their constant roster of openings…”
US Census and Funding for Rural Communities
Census matters, especially for rural counties, By William O’Hare, April 29, 2010, Daily Yonder: “We all have heard that results of the U.S. Census are used to determine how billions of dollars in federal grants and loans are distributed around the country. But how much does it matter? Who receives this funding? How much of this federal funding goes to rural areas? And which rural areas benefit most? We can begin to answer some of these questions thanks to some unique research conducted by the Brookings Institution, a non-profit non-partisan research group in Washington, D.C. Scholars there identified nearly $450 billion in federal grants, loans and direct payments that were distributed , in part, based on data from the U.S. Census. They made a special file available to us that shows how those funds were distributed to each county. Most (93%) of these federal funds came out of four program functions: health care (mostly Medicaid); transportation (such as highway planning and construction); income security (such as Section 8 Housing Vouchers); and education, training, employment, and social services (such as Special Education Grants to States). The information is available online here…”