"The number of vacant homes and rentals has exploded 52 percent in Pima County in the past 10 years, thwarting a housing market recovery and driving even some middle- and upper-income neighborhoods into decline.
An Arizona Daily Star analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows the spike in unoccupied homes and apartments has pushed Pima County's vacancy rate from 9.4 percent of housing units in 2000 to almost 12 percent in 2010. That means about one in eight homes or apartments in Tucson is vacant."
“While private employers are consolidating sick and vacation time and limiting the amount of leave workers can collect, governments continue to be more generous with such benefits, said Jeffrey Keefe, a Rutgers University professor.”
The Virginian-Post reports that "since January 2010, South Hampton Roads cities collectively paid more than $7.7 million in such payments to departing employees, mostly for unused vacation and sick time. Local government employees generally enjoy more generous vacation and sick time accrual policies than private-sector workers, and they can get hefty payouts when they leave their jobs.”
A report by The Plain Dealer reveals that Cleveland State University charges its students “about $600 a year for intercollegiate sports, even if you do not attend a single game.” However, the school is not the only university in Ohio to rely heavily upon student fees to support their sports program.
"As students and parents face college bills increasing faster than inflation, and as the state’s share of the higher education costs have been shrinking, does this investment in sports make sense?”
An investigation done by the Houston Chronicle found that private EMS operators are “making millions of dollars off the poor, the sick and the mentally vulnerable, whether they need a costly EMS lift or not.”
Surprisingly, “many of the patients are neither physically debilitated nor confined to a sick bed. They are not headed to, or coming from the hospital, and there is no medical emergency. However, by the federal government’s own rules, many of these EMS transports should not qualify for federal dollars.”
In his bid for the president, Governor Rick Perry has attacked the Troubled Asset Relief Program numerous times; calling it an “unprecedented assault on free markets.” However, The Dallas Morning News reports that the very bank Perry designated for his campaign finances received more than $87 million in TARP money. That same bank, PlainsCapital, is ran by some of the largest and wealthiest Perry supporters in Texas.
The president of PlainsCapital Corp., the parent company, is James R. Huffines, a confidant of the governor.
Huffines, his three brothers and their father have contributed $467,000 to Perry campaigns, state records show. Huffines accounted for $32,000 of the total. He has also contributed $8,700 for campaign events.
There’s no doubt that every city should have a children’s hospital, but what about three? Gilbert Gaul with Kaiser Health News, in collaboration with McClatchy, takes a hard look at why Orlando and other cities are building multiple children’s hospital, and who’s behind the push.
The leading independent children’s hospitals are nonprofits, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the bottom lines of many of them – and at the million dollar salaries paid to CEOs. They’re pouring billions of dollars into new buildings, adding beds and equipment and staff at the same time Washington, the states and employers grapple with budget-busting increases in health care spending. Hospitals strongly defend the need for new and bigger facilities, and often claim they’re good for the economy because of all the jobs created. But nothing is free in health care: tax exemptions accorded nonprofits help to fund the construction, and all the costs of care ultimately are borne by taxpayers, employers and workers.
It may be surprising to learn that after legislators in South Carolina passed a law that would allow them to collect their pension, while still working for the state full time, their annual incomes have nearly tripled.
Thomas Frank, of USA TODAY, investigates the disturbing, yet legal, actions our legislators are taking. “More than 4,100 legislators in 33 states are positioned to benefit from special retirement laws that they and their predecessors have enacted to boost their pensions by up to $100,000 a year, a USA TODAY investigation found. Even as legislators cut basic state services and slash benefits for police, teachers and other workers, they have preserved pension laws that grant themselves perks unavailable to voters they serve or workers they direct.”
Frank also includes an interactive map to help understand just how “state lawmakers pump up their pension in ways you can’t”.
President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package granted “millions of federal dollars” to public school districts in Florida. As part of the President’s vision “to accelerate improvement in schools,” the money was meant to provide a means to improve low performing schools and prevent teacher layoffs. However, this investigation by Mc Nelly Torres of the Florida Center for Investigative Reportingreveals that the money was not being spent in the way that it was intended.
” … with the aid of federal waivers, school districts were allowed to divert money from education reform to patch holes in general operating budgets. In fact, a review of financial records by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting shows that the state’s school districts spent more than $890 million in federal money this way.”
Now, Torres reports, Florida schools are “laying off teachers” and “closing programs” as a result of financial troubles from the misuse of stimulus money.
In a two-part series, the Duluth News Tribune found that despite receiving $42 million in state and federal funding over 10 years, a proposed “clean coal” plant has yet to move a shovelful of dirt. And despite receiving all of its backing from the public trough, the company’s spending records, including its officers’ paychecks, were put under wraps by the state legislature. The paper also found that the project is in need of more public funds to survive, and yet has not lined up a single customer for its power.
Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, called out Excelsior Energy for claiming they would bring much-needed jobs to the area; “At the end of the day, this is a project that has not hired one full-time worker on the Iron Range. Only lawyers, lobbyists and professional meeting attenders have gotten jobs.”
To read part two, go here:http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/207407/publisher_ID/36/
