Children die as bureaucracy stalls in LA County

"For at least 18 years, Los Angeles County has repeatedly received urgent and sometimes gruesome reminders that its agencies don't share vital information about potentially abused or neglected children, according to a Times investigation. There have been numerous calls for reform—but little action. In the passing years, an unknown number of children have been harmed or killed." Earlier, the Times reported that 14 out of 32 deaths by abuse and neglect in 2008 were linked to homes "well-known" to welfare officials.

A five-part series in The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) put the spotlight on costly state policy decisions. Stories addressed wide-ranging topics: the high cost of enforcing the state's mandatory sentencing law for low-level felons; lack of generic drug requirements for Medicaid patients; pet projects and untracked spending; corporate tax loopholes; and the hidden cost of benefits policies for state employees.

The University of Illinois is re-evaluating its admissions policies after the Chicago Tribune uncovered a "shadow admissions process" for politically connected applicants. "At a time when it's more competitive than ever to get into the University of Illinois, some students with subpar academic records are being admitted after interference from state lawmakers and university trustees," according to stories by Jodi S. Cohen, Stacy St. Clair and Tara Malone, who obtained "clout list" records through state FOI requests.

A six-month Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch investigation found that a 35-year-old federal law created to protect academic records is being used at some schools to shield athletics-related documents including NCAA violations. Reporters Todd Jones and Jill Riepenhoff sent public-record requests to all 119 colleges in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A) to gauge their openness and use of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The investigation shows that FERPA has been used to shield not only the activities of athletes but also coaches, boosters and other nonstudents. James L. Buckley, the former U.S. senator who wrote the law, told the newspaper that colleges have bastardized the intent of FERPA. He wants Congress to rein it in. The series also includes an searchable database of schools’ graduation rates, academic performance scores, athletic spending, NCAA violations, and how they scored in terms of openness when asked for public records.

An investigation into the handicapped accessibility of Chicago Transit Authority stations by a team of reporters from Columbia College Chicago found that "41 percent of the stations designated fully accessible were not." Using FOIA, the students reviewed over 2,000 ADA-related complaints filed against the CTA from Jan. 1, 2004 through Feb. 28, 2009. Some of their findings included patterns of broken elevators and bus lifts, as well as CTA employees swearing at passengers and denying access to several customers with service dogs.

A $3 billion municipal bond loan program run by an ex-politician in Tennessee was overcharging Nashville and two other cities by hiding fees within reported interest rates, The Tennessean's Brad Schrade reported. The multi-story investigation used federal bank filings, audits and other public records to expose problems with the non-profit loan program, including lack of disclosure, secrecy of the president/CEO's pay and conflicts of interest involving consulting deals with the program's chief financial partner, Bank of America, and other businesses.

A three-part series in the Naples (Fla.) Daily News looks at the town government of Ave Maria, a community that surrounds a Catholic-oriented university started by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan. Monaghan and a local landowner got a state law passed creating a government that they can control forever at the expense of the town's residents. A University of Florida law professor quoted in the story questions whether this arrangement violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Florida Times-Union reporters Topher Sanders and Mary Kelli Palka used open records laws to obtain data on Advanced Placement classes that the Jacksonville, Fla. school district didn't want public. Sanders and Palka used the data to compare students' performance in AP classes, and on the national AP exam and the state's standardized test, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). The investigation found that 29 percent of all AP seats in Jacksonville schools last year were occupied by students who couldn't read on grade level, and revealed huge disparities between grades in classes and scores on the national AP exam.

"Hackensack University Medical Center has pulled advertisements from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, and has banned the newspaper from hospital property following publication of a story about its governing board," reports Mary Jo Layton of NorthJersey.com.  The article addressed questionable practices of the hospital's board members and trustees.

The Fayetteville Observer investigated a police department's mishandling of a child abuse case. The department's actions ultimately led to its loss of felony arrest powers, scrutiny from the Cumberland County district attorney and a grand jury probe of corruption. The death of 3-year-old Anijah Burr had never been reported and was kept hidden behind a wall of secrecy, but the newspaper pieced together the story by talking with current and former Spring Lake police officers and reviewing hundreds of pages of unpublished police notes, reports and medical records.