Funding
National Flood Insurance Program, taxpayers around $24 billion in debt
There are 534 properties in New England alone that are considered Severe Repetitive Loss properties, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the insurance program. Often, these National Flood Insurance Program-insured properties have had four significant flood claims – two within one decade. Nationwide there are about 12,000. Scituate has 112 of them.…
Read MoreFree game tickets, hot concert seats: The politics of higher education in Missouri
“Missouri’s public universities have spent almost a million dollars since 2011 on contracts with professional lobbyists to represent their interests in Jefferson City — while plying state legislators with tens of thousands of dollars more in free meals, sports outings, concert tickets and other perks,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Read the full story here.
Read MoreDrivers’ $1 donation yields little for organ donors and their families
“The fund has raised about $10 million since 2000, including about $1 million or 10 percent that a state law designated to help organ donors’ families pay funeral and medical expenses. But none of the money has been spent to defray those bills, a Tribune-Review investigation found. Even after the state started a smaller program…
Read MoreEarmarks on rise again in Olympia
“Legislators steered more than $170 million in the state’s capital budget toward special projects that largely sidestep public debate and detailed documentation. The list ranges from a college radio station to a monument commemorating a stranded ship.”
Read MorePoway schools rely on Mello-Roos tax machine — for lunches, signs and old school repair
“There is no legal limit and no standardized formula for calculating Mello-Roos taxes. In some cases, the formulas are so convoluted that homeowners have virtually no way of knowing whether they’re paying the correct amount. What’s more there is no state oversight over the funds: at a minimum, the system is far from transparent to…
Read MoreUCLA officials bend travel rules with first-class flights, luxury hotels
A Center for Investigative Reporting article states that in the past several years, six of 17 academic deans at the Westwood campus routinely have submitted doctors’ notes stating they have a medical need to fly in a class other than economy, costing the university $234,000 more than it would have for coach-class flights, expense records…
Read MoreCritics question billion-dollar tutoring program
“A decade after schools were required to offer tutoring sessions by third-party vendors, an increasing number of school districts and researchers say the multibillion-dollar system is broken,” according to The Sacramento Bee.
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