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LAPD spends millions over overtime budget
Jason Kandel of the Los Angeles Daily News obtained overtime expenditures from the Los Angeles Police Department and used Excel to analyze the data. He found that the LAPD has already overspent their overtime budget by $8 million with two months still remaining in the fiscal year. “The Los Angeles Police Department spent $62.8 million…
Read MoreHome assessment accuracy up
Gregory S. Reeves of The Kansas City Star used Jackson County real estate data to show that “an old problem – over-valuing homes under $50,000 – may have gotten worse with the new property tax appraisals … and homes that sold for $600,000 and up remain under-appraised by 25 percent.” Most houses, the paper found,…
Read MorePolice fail to report missing children
Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service analyzed data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to find that “dozens of police departments across the nation failed to report at least 4,498 runaway, lost and abducted children in apparent violation of the National Child Search Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1990. Seventeen…
Read MorePolice failing to prevent false identifications
Bill Moushey and Nathan Crabbe of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in conjunction with the Innocence Institute at Point Park University, investigated potential wrongful convictions in Pennsylvania, finding that “police failed to follow the steps that can help prevent false identifications.” Many police agencies in the state either were not aware of federal guidelines for eyewitness identifications…
Read MoreImmigrant women adapting, are as likely to work as U.S. women
Peggy O’Crowley and Carrie Stetler of The (Newark) Star-Ledger, with assistance from Robert Gebeloff, used Census data to show that “immigrant women, who comprise one of four mothers in New Jersey, are less likely to work outside the home — at least when they first arrive. After 10 years, though, they are as apt to…
Read MoreDomestic violence suspects avoid jailtime through pretrial program
Rick Brundrett of The (Columbia, S.C.) State studied records from pretrial intervention programs to find that South Carolina “prosecutors accepted more than 1,800 suspects accused of criminal domestic violence into a program that allows their charges to be dropped over the past five years.” Violent offenders aren’t supposed to be eligible for the program, but…
Read MorePension abuses hurt employees
Michael L. Diamond, with contributions from Paul D’Ambrosio and Nicholas Clunn, Eileen Smith and Peter Spencer of Gannett New Jersey newspapers reviewed the state’s pension program, finding that “while the private sector has sharply cut pension and health insurance benefits, the state has gone the opposite way. New Jersey’s system features generous payouts to retirees…
Read MorePoor care at nursing homes leads to light punishments
Jeffrey Meitrodt, Jan Moller and Steve Ritea of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune used state data to show that “most of Louisiana’s 300 or so nursing homes have been cited since 1999 for mistakes that harmed or endangered residents. But in the sometimes illogical world of nursing home regulation, facilities in Louisiana often pay little or…
Read MoreTop schools not necessarily producing best scores
Mary B. Pasciak and Andrew Bailey of The Buffalo News analyzed fourth-grade standardized test scores from the area to find that “top performing schools – those that get the most from their students regardless of family income – often are the ones teaching students who have the least … These top schools didn’t necessarily have…
Read MoreProfits high, payroll low for Pittsburgh Pirates
Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spent two months delving into the finances of the Pittsburgh Pirates, owned by a private company, to project “that the Pirates will make a $12.8 million profit in 2005.” The average Major League Baseball franchise generated about $4.4 million in profits last year, and the Pirates’ payroll has been…
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