Extra! Extra!

Police supervisors get OT for directing traffic

John Boyanoski of The Greenville (S.C.) News obtained payroll data from the city's police department showing that " Thirteen Greenville Police captains and lieutenants, who don't normally qualify for overtime pay, have been paid more than $115,000 in overtime to supervise and direct traffic outside the Bi-Lo Center during the past five years." The traffic duties are plum assignments for officers and just part of the $728,000 in OT pay for the entire department.

Seattle airport operates with fewer federal screeners

Cheryl Phillips and Chris Maag of The Seattle Times investigated the security situation at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, finding that the safety of passengers "relies on overworked employees at understaffed checkpoints," according to documents and interviews. The paper spoke with 45 federal screeners and managers about conditions at the airport and described an inexperienced force charged with too many duties. "Federal guidelines call for at least four screeners to operate each lane, and those standards are usually followed. But more than a dozen screeners and supervisors said lanes regularly operate with three, sometimes two, screeners."

Despite Fla. law, unlicensed doctors escape tougher penalties

Casey Woods and Adriana Cordovi of The Miami Herald examined South Florida's unlicensed doctors and dentists, finding that punishments for their crimes "was equivalent to that for poaching an alligator or counterfeiting a lottery ticket. Prosecutors insisted that they did not have the means to send the perpetrators to jail." At least 15 cases of unlicensed practitioners have occurred in Miami-Dade County since 2000, but most of them resulted in probation or fines rather than jail time, despite a law mandating harsher penalties.

N.J. child murders earn average of 11 years in jail

Ana M. Alaya of The (Newark) Star-Ledger reviewed New Jersey state records on the deaths of children since 1998 to show that charges are rarely filed and, even when authorities gain a conviction, the average sentence is 11 years, or one more than the average prison term for armed robbery. Of 123 murders in the past five years, "criminal charges were filed in just slightly more than half of those cases. Only four people were convicted of murder." Convictions on any charge related to the deaths numbered 60. "The four people convicted of murder will spend 30 or more years in prison. But most of the others pleaded guilty to or were convicted of lesser charges of aggravated manslaughter, manslaughter or child endangerment."

Series of problems contributed to Columbia disaster

Kathy Sawyer of The Washington Post used "official records, transcripts and video from NASA and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, including Freedom of Information Act releases and engineering test results and analyses — and interviews" to tell the story of the Columbia's breakup during re-entry. The article also details efforts by NASA personnel to obtain spy satellite photos of the damaged part of Columbia's wing while the shuttle was still in orbit. "Investigators would blame the entire system as well as a large number of individuals for missed communications going up and down the chain of command as well as for allowing their knowledge of classified imaging capabilities to wither."

Austin, Dallas hardest hit by downturn

Esther Wang of the Austin American-Statesman analyzed economic data from the Texas Workforce Commission to conclude that "the recession hit the high-tech, high-wage cities of Austin and Dallas hardest." The two areas lost nearly 150,000 jobs from the end of 2000 through 2002, while other cities like Houston and San Antonio lost smaller amounts or stayed even. Dallas was hardest-hit, while Austin lost many of the high-tech jobs that made it a magnet in the late 1990s. "What Texas continues to experience, several economists and analysts said, mirrors a national trend: a move from a manufacturing-driven economy to one emphasizing services over goods production."

S.C. governor appoints 80 donors to positions

Aaron Gould Sheinin of The State in South Carolina compared campaign finance records with political appointments to find that "Gov. Mark Sanford has appointed twice as many of his political donors to state boards, commissions and agency posts as his predecessor did." Sanford has named more than 80 of his contributors to state positions. Those donors gave more than $360,000 to Sanford's 2002 campaign.

Highway dept., lack of money to blame for Missouri's poor roads

Judy L. Thomas and Gregory S. Reeves of The Kansas City Star document the state of Missouri's roads: bad. "A Kansas City Star analysis found that Missouri highways are the third-worst in the country, crumbling from ninth-best less than a decade ago. Fully one-fourth of Missouri's main roads were rated in poor condition in 2001, compared with only 5 percent in 1995." As part of the series, Thomas drove across Missouri and into neighboring states, measuring the "bumpiness" of Interstate 70 and other major routes. The paper also tackles Missouri's Department of Transportation, which "often pays its contractors for highway construction without knowing whether the work was done right," wastes and loses money and has lost track of the land it owns. State transportation money also has been diverted to other agencies.

Women more likely to embezzle in Iowa

Jeff Eckhoff of The Des Moines Register analyzed criminal court cases to find a surprising anomaly: "Iowa women are more than twice as likely as men to be charged with embezzling money from their employers." That bucks the results of a national study which identifies a majority of embezzlers as men. The paper examined closed and pending cases from the past 3½ years, finding that in 70 percent of the cases women were charged. One sociologist chalked it up to Iowans' perceptions of women as trustworthy. "As a result, small businesses, governments and charities — some of the most frequent targets of embezzlement in Iowa — tend to hire female bookkeepers and leave them alone."

Air Force Academy players come through prep school

Dan Wolken of The (Colorado Springs) Gazette has the story of the Air Force Academy's prep school, a pipeline of athletes for the Academy's football team. "About 42 percent of the prep school’s students during the past 20 years were recruited athletes, a majority of them football players." More than 60 percent of those football players received appointments to the Academy. More than half of the current team's starting players are from the prep school, which does not market its players to other colleges. "Taxpayers pay almost the entire bill for students at the prep school and the academy, meaning tuition, room and board. One year at the prep school costs taxpayers $30,000 per student."

N.H. manufacturing industry in decline

Brad Leighton, Eileen Kennedy, Karen Spiller and David Brooks of The (Nashua, N.H,) Telegraph has a three-part series on New Hampshire's manufacturing industry, weaving statistics compiled by an economist with the stories of local businesses and workers affected by the movement of jobs out of the state. New Hampshire has lost 21 percent of its manufacturing jobs during the past three years — a steeper decline than any other state. Other stories describe the search for new work and recommendations for improving the state's economic base.

Records show link between officials, agency

Robert Gammon of The Oakland Tribune used public records to show that a California agency tasked with advising the Oakland school district on its finances instead played a key role in placing itself in charge of the struggling school system. "The records show top officials from the Bakersfield-based County Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) called Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, the office of state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, and then-Compton schools chief Randy Ward at least 40 times each in the months before the takeover. By contrast, FCMAT officials made no calls to the Oakland school leaders they were appointed to advise on how to solve the district's financial problems."

People leaving Cleveland don't go far

Robert L. Smith and Dave Davis of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer used Census data to show that Cuyahoga County residents picked up and moved at a "precedent-setting pace in recent years, but often they didn't move far." More than half of the 68,000 people who left Cuyahoga County between 1995 and 2000 settled in six neighboring counties. "The trend contributes to the decline of Cleveland and the growth of the suburbs, to bigger yards and longer commutes, to more sprawl and less racial integration."

N.J. natives earn less than newcomers

Robert Gebeloff and Mary Jo Patterson of the Newark Star-Ledger used Census data to compare New Jersey natives to residents who moved from outside the state. Jersey natives tended to marry each other and earn less than newcomers to the state. "If you were born in New Jersey, you have a good shot at earning an advanced degree. But once you get it, chances are good that you'll move out of state."

Immigration of Hispanics changes things in the South

A six-day, 35-story series in the Chattanooga Times Free Press looks at several aspects of the influx of Hispanics in the Chattanooga area. The series examines economics, education, politics, social services and the future of the community. The first day was an overview. The second day looks at the impact of Hispanics on business and the third day focuses on how schools are teaching non-English speaking kids.

Courthouse donors critical to Party

Clifford J. Levy of The New York Times has an analysis of the finances of the Queens Democratic Party, showing the influence of the local legal establishment: "roughly $200,000, or nearly 40 percent, of the $525,000 raised by the Queens Democratic Party last year came from courthouse donors." Law clerks alone accounted for 10 percent of the party's funds, mostly collected at parties where legal types mingle.

Data shows police department's priorities

Scott North and Katherine Schifnfer of The (Everett, Wash.) Herald used two-and-a-half years' worth of 911 response data to show that residents of unincorporated Snohomish County, Wash., can wait for hours for police responding to an emergency call. "Fighting crime in Snohomish County's unincorporated areas is all about priorities, and the most serious, life-threatening police incidents are getting the greatest attention." The data also show that when lives are at stake the police respond quickly, despite claims that "Snohomish County's unincorporated areas are unusually dangerous because of poor police service."

Company focused OxyContin sales efforts on Appalachia

Charles Camp of the Lexington Herald-Leader used documents from a "little-noticed Ohio lawsuit and a closed investigation by the Florida attorney general" to piece together how drug company Purdue Pharma pitched painkiller OxyContin to doctors around the country. "Between 1996 and 2001, as OxyContin became the nation's top-selling narcotic, Purdue invested more than $500 million deploying a small army of sales representatives around the country, according to previously confidential corporate records." Using details of doctors' prescribing practices, the company helped its sales reps focus on Appalachia, where painkiller use was common. "In 1998, for example, parts of southwestern Virginia, Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia received more of OxyContin's competing painkillers per capita than anywhere else in the nation."

City leader's travel, dining expenses add up

Jean Hays and Van Williams of The Wichita Eagle, in cooperation with KWCH-Wichita, documented the expenses of City Manager Chris Cherches, who has spent thousands of dollars traveling and dining at taxpayers' expense." Cherches' spending — $28,000 over an 18-month period — is nearly three times the amount spent by a neighboring city manager, but he told the paper it was justified because he was lobbying for federal grants and other city projects. City council members have expressed concern since the first story was published.

Governor's fundraiser uses friendship

Jeff Pillets and Clint Riley of The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record investigate one of New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey's top fundraisers in the state's South Asian community, an ex-cabby named Rajesh "Roger" Chugh, finding that Chugh "leveraged his friendship with Jim McGreevey to intimidate the immigrant community and become the virtual lord of Little India." The paper found that Chugh offered appointments to state posts, attempted to get campaign donations from businesses cited for code violations while McGreevey was mayor of Woodbridge and had a checkered past in the travel industry, where his agency had written $50,000 in bad checks. New Jersey's attorney general has raised the possibility of an investigation into the paper's findings.

Fire drills go by the wayside in central Florida schools

Mary Shanklin of the Orlando Sentinel reviewed school records to find that "during the past school year, more than a third of 162 Orange County public schools failed to perform the minimum fire drills required by the district." Eighteen schools missed more than one scheduled drill, while three others "skipped mandatory drills during the school year but held them during the summer months when most students were gone." The district has been criticized recently for flaws in its fire-safety program.

Residents leaving San Diego County

Lori Weisberg and David Washburn of the San Diego Union-Tribune used federal Census and tax data to find that during the 1990s San Diego County attracted fewer residents from other areas of the country than the number of residents who left. "Today, the county's growth is fueled largely by people having babies and emigrants from other countries." The analysis points to an economy divided into two camps: low-paid immigrants and upper middle-class residents who can afford the area's high housing costs. Note: Much of the material was based on IRS migration data, available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. The data allows a journalist to track movement in and out of counties — both people and money.

Consultants cost San Jose $11.6 million in midst of budget crisis

Kate Folmar of the San Jose Mercury News reports that San Jose's downtown redevelopment agency has "spent $11.6 million in public money on six consultants for work on projects around the city center and beyond." The money is a small part of a billion-dollar effort, but as California's budget crunch impacts municipal budgets, critics are wondering whether consultants should continue to get millions.

Judge reduces DUI convictions at high rate

Amy Jeter and David Gulliver of The Virginian-Pilot studied the record of Portsmouth Circuit Judge Johnny E. Morrison, who reduced DUI convictions "to reckless driving in almost two out of every three DUI appeals he heard from 1999 through 2002." That rate was far higher than any of Morrison's three colleagues on the bench, and Morrison drew about 40 percent of DUI appeals during those three years. "The judge knocked down DUI convictions even when evidence revealed that drivers had been drunk or had been involved in crashes that endangered others."

Sleepiness plays a role in deadly stretch of N.C. interstate

Vicky Hyman of the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., has a five-part series on the death toll from accidents on Interstate 95, the major north-south corridor on the East Coast. "Crashes in which people die happen on I-95 at twice the rate of any other interstate in North Carolina. On average, 34 people are killed each year, with fatal crashes peaking in August, the end of the summer travel season." The paper compiled a database of fatalities in North Carolina by county, and its analysis of the data shows that sleepiness plays a much larger role in I-95 accidents than on other North Carolina roads.

K.C. losing out on income from business licenses

Michael Mansur and Lynn Horsley of the Kansas City Star used city licensing records to find many Kansas City businesses operating without a license. "City officials acknowledge that the amount of lost revenue could be sizable. We're easily missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in business license revenue,' said Troy Schulte, the city's acting budget director." In 1989, the paper did a similar survey of business licenses and found similar problems. "After that 1989 investigation, city officials promised to beef up enforcement. But in recent years the city has eliminated field agents who check compliance. And it has left in place outdated and difficult-to-decipher regulations -- making license administration more costly and enforcement more cumbersome."

Democrats get rides in National Guard fighter jets

Bill Theobald of The Indianapolis Star reports that the Indiana National Guard has approved flights in an F-16 fighter jet for 11 civilians during the past 21 months, including major Democratic contributors and activists. The Guard's leader, Maj. Gen. George A. Buskirk Jr., is himself a significant contributor to Indiana Democrats. "Since 1997, nine of the 11 riders approved by Buskirk have given Democrats $237,557. He also approved a ride to one Republican contributor, who gave $3,639. The two Democratic donors under the man Buskirk replaced, Maj. Gen. Robert J. Mitchell, gave $24,497."

Cincinnati health care spending falls behind

Tim Bonfield of The Cincinnati Enquirer reviewed reports on hospital infrastructure spending projects since 1995 to conclude that Cincinnati's hospitals were falling behind other Ohio facilities in terms of spending on new equipment. The region's hospitals "ranked fifth in the state when spending was measured per person, spending $290 per resident on improvements compared to $434 per capita in Dayton and $394 in Toledo." The area's facilities were among Ohio's newest during the early 1990s, but the average age of hospitals "crept up to 10.39 years while the state average dropped to 9.94 years" by 2000.

Little progress toward fixing long-standing problems in boxing

George Diaz and Rick Maesa of the Orlando Sentinel have a five-part series on the state of the boxing industry, focusing on the times when the sport turns deadly. The paper found "a sport with a long history of disorganization, poor regulation and power brokers whose first concern is not always the well-being of the boxer. The problems exist on every level -- professional, amateur and Toughman -- and affect every weight class, sanctioning body and part of the country." Florida has had more boxing-related deaths than any other state during the past 25 years, and other fighters suffer brain injuries. One piece tells the story of Wilfred Benitez, a former prizefighter who now relies on a government subsidy to pay for his medical bills.

Reviews show failures in N.C. system to protect children

Eric Frazier of The Charlotte Observer spent four months investigating North Carolina's social welfare system, finding that "at least 119 children social workers tried to protect have died in suspected abuse and neglect cases in North Carolina during the past five years." The paper used state case reviews of 92 deaths, many of which criticized the work of caseworkers for not keeping children safe. The five-part series also examines South Carolina's system, which does not provide public access to case reviews.

More execs get access to corporate jets

Gary Strauss of USA Today reports that security concerns and new compensation packages propelled dozens of new deals last year allowing the corporate jet to become a bauble for CEOs, swelling the ranks of executives given virtually unlimited personal access." The paper analyzed information from public filings to find 140 CEOs who racked up company-paid flights worth at least $50,000 in 2002, a significant increase from 2001. "Because the perks are taxable fringe benefits, many companies covered CEOs' flight-related taxes, too."

LAPD's Rampart investigation was inadequate

Matt Lait and Scott Glover of the Los Angeles Times report that the Los Angeles Police Department has not thoroughly investigated the allegations raised four years ago about corruption and brutality in the Rampart Division. "Feuding among top officials, cursory investigations by some detectives and a pervasive police "code of silence" all helped to undermine the Rampart probe, a Times investigation found." Documents, correspondence and interviews show, among other things, that police and prosecutors failed to cooperate and that the district attorney "disbanded his Rampart task force with a report that minimized the extent of the scandal and failed to address many of Perez's allegations."

Prosecutors allege former trader stole $43 million from Merrill Lynch

Bloomberg reports that Merrill Lynch's former chief energy trader is being investigated for allegedly "embezzling $43 million from the world's largest securities firm in 2000 by disguising the theft as an energy trade, according to a letter written by a U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and interviews with Canadian law-enforcement officials." The securities firm has not disclosed the loss in public filings and one expert says, if true, this would be the "largest employee theft from a financial institution in modern times."

Less qualified teachers assigned to poorer schools

Joshua Benton of the Dallas Morning News used state education data to find that "schools serving large numbers of poor and minority students have fewer experienced teachers and fewer who are certified in the subjects they teach," a common national problem. Texas uses teacher experience and certification records to compile a Teacher Preparation Index rating from 1 to 10 for schools. "Schools whose student bodies are more than 90 percent white have an average TPI of 6.3. For schools that are almost entirely Hispanic, that average was 4.6. For blacks, the number was 3.4 percent." The paper made a searchable database of teacher certification available on its Web site (free registration required for both).

Registered voters not casting ballots in Florida

Beth Reinhard, Tim Henderson and Erika Bolstad of The Miami Herald surveyed the voter rolls in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, finding "nearly half a million people who have never cast a ballot," some 25 percent of the electorate in two of Florida's largest counties. Miami has had its own recent experience with voter fraud -- including dead people and felons voting -- and now sends regular notices warning people who change addresses that they could be dropped from the rolls. Broward hasn't made a similar effort in four years. "Removals are the lowest priority,'' said Bruce Eldridge, Broward assistant elections supervisor for systems. "Changes of address and new registrations are more important because these are active voters." A sidebar tracked some of the nonvoters, including those who moved to Spain, went to jail or simply haven't voted recently.

Iran's nuclear program advancing toward bomb-building

Iran is likely to become the world's next nuclear power and "in the late stages of developing the capacity to build a nuclear bomb," according to a three-month investigation by the Los Angeles Times. Douglas Frantz writes that "the country has been engaged in a pattern of clandestine activity that has concealed weapons work from international inspectors. Technology and scientists from Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan have propelled Iran's nuclear program much closer to producing a bomb than Iraq ever was." Among the findings: "So many North Koreans are working on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast is set aside for their exclusive use."

Failures in emergency services cost many lives

In a three-part series, USA Today finds that about 1,000 people a year across the country die because of "fragmented, inconsistent and slow" emergency medical services. Through a survey, database analysis and extensive interviews and site visits, reporter Robert Davis looked at 50 major cities and determined city officials can make changes that effectively increase survival rates. The series includes a detailed explanation of how the paper measured EMS performance and survival rates.

Medical research performed without consent

Bill Sizemore of The Virginian-Pilot writes about a medical school's experiment in which researchers exposed more than 200 children to a genetically modified plant virus in an effort to track how kids spread germs in day-care centers. The team of scientists from the Center for Pediatric Research, a joint venture of Eastern Virginia Medical School and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, failed to get written consent from parents before the study began. "EVMS officials say the solution was safe, parents were notified and no children were harmed." One medical ethicist says ``This experiment went off the ethical rails.'' A parent's complaint led to the termination of the experiment, an internal review and changes to the school's oversight system.

Data shows people really do leave early on Fridays

Matthew Waite of the St. Petersburg Times used traffic data collected by Florida officials to confirm a no-doubt popular theory: rush-hour traffic starts earlier on Friday afternoons in the Tampa Bay area. "A Times analysis of hourly traffic volume on four major commuting routes in the bay area for the past five years found that increasingly, more people have been hitting the road early on Friday than on the most worklike day, Wednesday." The state has 281 stations that count traffic at locations around Florida, mostly for traffic engineers' planning purposes.

Cabbies with criminal records are cruising the streets

Diane Rodgers of The St. Augustine Record revisited a July 2002 project revealing that more than half of St. Augustine's licensed cab drivers had criminal records or a history of traffic offenses, but the city did not enforce a law requiring criminal background checks. A year later, nothing has changed except this: "More drivers with criminal records have acquired hack licenses. In July 2003, of the 124 drivers, 79 or 64 percent had histories of criminal and/or traffic offenses." Neighboring Jacksonville prohibits people with certain felony records from becoming taxi drivers, but not St. Augustine. "Collectively, the 124 St. Augustine drivers have been charged with 216 misdemeanors, 135 felonies and 91 traffic violations. The records of 23 drivers would fall under the prohibited Jacksonville criminal histories."

Problems turn up in no-bid contract

Dan Keating of The Washington Post uncovered a D.C. public schools contractor who "was paid more than $240,000 in 18 months for work at four District schools for which the same employee handled purchasing. The money was charged on school credit cards intended for incidental purchases." The story uses invoices and billing records to show that some charges appeared to be inflated; other invoices were simply missing. The contractor -- who worked for a business that landed the contract through a no-bid award -- and five school employees were suspended from their jobs in response to the paper's inquiries.