- After a contentious political year, Republicans may moderate their approach, By John Gramlich, January 9, 2012, Stateline.org: “From the moment he took office last year, Florida Governor Rick Scott made clear that a new and unabashedly conservative administration had taken power in Tallahassee – just as it had in state capitals around the country following an historic election haul for Republicans in 2010. Scott, a Tea Party-backed Republican, stood before a cheering crowd and introduced a state budget that contained more than $4 billion in tax cuts for corporations and property owners, even as it slashed funding for K-12 education…”
- Washington and the states: a year of uncertainty and foreboding, By Pamela M. Prah, January 10, 2012, Stateline.org: “A long siege of deadlock and dysfunction in Washington has left states frustratingly unclear what to expect from the federal government in the coming year. About the only thing they know for sure is that it is not going to be a year of generosity. In fact, it’s likely to be quite the opposite. As a result of last summer’s deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, and the consequent failure of the congressional ‘super committee’ to decide on budget cuts, states are bracing for automatic across-the-board cuts in education, social welfare and other programs for the upcoming 2013 fiscal year. Those cuts would come atop federal cuts in 2011 and 2012, not to mention the continuing wind-down of federal stimulus aid…”
- Medicaid: a year of excruciating decisions, By Christine Vestal, January 11, 2012, Stateline.org: “In health care history, 2012 will be remembered for the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the Obama administration’s health overhaul. But in the states, 2012 will likely be remembered less as an historic turning point than as a gradual continuation of their longstanding struggles to get Medicaid costs under control. That’s not to say the states aren’t watching the Supreme Court closely. The case set to be heard in March and decided in June was brought by 26 states who argued the federal law’s ‘individual mandate,’ as well as a massive expansion of Medicaid in 2014, were unconstitutional. While the outcome could have long-term consequences for states, it likely won’t change their most pressing short-term budget considerations…”
- Unions adapt to new rules, even as they fight to reverse them, By Ben Wieder, January 12, 2012, Stateline.org: “It took nearly a year for Dale Kleinert to negotiate his first teachers’ contract. When Kleinert started his job as schools superintendent in Moscow, Idaho, the talks were already underway. Then, discussions reached an impasse. There were disagreements over pay and health care costs, and the pace slowed further when first an outside mediator and later a fact-finder didn’t render a decision. It wasn’t until May of 2011 that Kleinert and his union counterparts finally reached an agreement. Just before then, while Kleinert and the teachers were still stuck, Republican lawmakers in Boise were finishing work on plans to take away much of the leverage that Idaho teachers had long enjoyed in these kinds of negotiations. So for Kleinert’s next round of talks with Moscow’s teachers, which began pretty much right after the previous ones wrapped up, the rules were very different…”
- At last, a state budget year when the sky is not falling, By Daniel C. Vock, January 13, 2012, Stateline.org: “During the depths of the Great Recession, states had to do many unsavory things to balance their budgets. But few things left a more bitter taste than Arizona’s decision to sell off the office space of its state Capitol complex. It helped lawmakers close a gap in one year’s budget, even though it meant taxpayers would essentially have to pay rent on the property for the next two decades. Now, Arizona’s budget outlook is showing some improvement: For the first time since 2006, the state finished its last fiscal year with a surplus, which came as a surprise to state financial forecasters…”
Day: January 13, 2012
Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Program
School free-lunch program dogged by abuses at CPS, By Monica Eng and Joel Hood, January 13, 2012, Chicago Tribune: “When a teachers assistant at Chicago’s North-Grand High School handed in her child’s lunch form last school year, it showed that her household made too much money for the child to receive free lunches. So the school’s assistant clerk told the woman to fill out a new one, explaining, ‘She shouldn’t have to pay for lunch,’ and besides, ‘Nobody checks the applications anyway,’ according to an inspector general’s report released last week. Apparently, word had gotten around. At the West Side school, more than a dozen CPS and city employees had submitted false applications for free or reduced-price lunches, according to James Sullivan, Chicago Public Schools’ inspector general. The alleged offenders included teachers, teachers assistants, district employees, a security officer and two people in law enforcement, some of them earning six-figure salaries. The findings led Sullivan to conclude in his report that the National School Lunch Program, meant to provide basic nutrition to needy students, was ‘ripe for fraud and abuse’ because of layers of bureaucracy, incentives for high enrollment, and minimal checks and balances…”
Polio Eradication – India
India celebrates one year without polio cases, huge milestone in fight against disease, Associated Press, January 12, 2012, Washington Post: “India will celebrate a full year since its last reported case of polio on Friday, a major victory in a global eradication effort that seemed stalled just a few years ago. If no previously undisclosed cases of the crippling disease are discovered, India will no longer be considered polio endemic, leaving only Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria on that list. ‘This is a game changer in a huge way,’ said Bruce Aylward, head of the World Health Organization’s global polio campaign. The achievement gives a major morale boost to health advocates and donors who had begun to lose hope of ever defeating the stubborn disease that the world had promised to eradicate by 2000. It also helps India, which bills itself as one of the world’s emerging powers, shed the embarrassing link to a disease associated with poverty and chaos, one that had been conquered long ago by most of the globe…”