How was your NICAR26?
Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal used Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to show that Genessee County employees who qualify for additional pay based on length of service “cost county taxpayers $1.89 million” in the past fiscal year. “That’s extra pay on top of negotiated across-the-board raises or individual ’step’ raises that also come with…
Read MoreLeslie Eaton and Ron Nixon of The New York Times used federal data to show the pace of homeowner loans in the Gulf Coast is lagging. “The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s main disaster recovery program for both businesses and homeowners, has processed only a third of the 276,000 home loan applications…
Read MoreRichard Lardner and Doug Stanley of The Tampa Tribune report at least 50 veterans who committed homicides in civilian life are interred at Florida National Cemetery, “the final resting place for tens of thousands of military veterans,” according to the paper’s analysis of cemetery and prison records. The paper reports Congress is expected to pass…
Read MoreJosh Barbanel of The New York Times used local tax and real estate data to show that “average taxes on Manhattan co-ops and condos are lower than they would be if they were taxed the way some of the most heavily taxed houses are. But it is prewar co-ops that have the greatest tax advantage.”…
Read MoreThe mayor of Jackson, Miss., has refused to release the city’s crime statistics to the City Council. “Under the prior administration of Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., the crime statistics were released to media and published every Monday in The Clarion-Ledger‘s metro-state section.”
Read MoreAndrew Wolfson of The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal reports that “Kentucky shrouds its juvenile courts behind some of the strictest secrecy laws in the nation, requiring the public to accept on faith that it is being protected from dangerous children — and that innocent children are being protected from dangerous adults.”
Read MoreDavid Josar of The Detroit News used records obtained under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to find that “Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie has spent more than $100,000 in taxpayer funds on a team of private lawyers and advisers to defend her in a lawsuit that accuses her of mismanagement and fraud in the handling…
Read MoreEric Hand, Todd Frankel and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch examined the state of dams in Missouri and Illinois, following the failure of a dam in southeastern Missouri. They found that hundereds of dams in Missouri and Illinois lack plans for handling emergencies, are regulated by cash-strapped state offices that make intermittent inspections…
Read MoreBob Cuddy, Sarah Linn and Leslie Griffy of The Tribune reviewed San Luis Obispo County’s disaster documents to show that the county was vulnerable in case of a major disaster. "While the county, home to Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, gets high marks for its planning, Hurricane Katrina showed that plans are one thing, implementing…
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