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liz-farmer

Liz Farmer

Liz Farmer, who formerly covered fiscal policy as a Governing staff writer, helps lead the Pew Charitable Trusts’ state fiscal health project’s Fiscal 50 online resource, focusing on budgets, fiscal distress, tax policy and pensions. A former research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Future of Labor Research Center, Farmer holds a bachelor’s degree in American history, film and television production from George Washington University and a master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland.

Agencies were quick to process claims during the shutdown, but the way states are going about getting that money back from federal employees could be a lengthy one.
A controversial ballot measure seeks to rein in the city’s $862 million unfunded pension liabilities but could dramatically alter its system for current and future employees and cost the city in public services.
Governments are so easily able to manipulate and hide their looming pension liabilities in the current reporting system that it’s tantamount to a crime, one finance expert said Thursday.
Bondholders stand to be among the biggest losers in the latest wave of municipal bankruptcies if current trends continue, but the trend surprisingly may not sour potential future investors.
For the Washington metropolitan area, more than two weeks of federal government shutdown has meant millions in lost tax revenue that local governments say is eating a hole in their already fragile budgets.
The nearly two-week partial government shutdown is taking its toll on consumer safety, scientific research and is even playing a role in the popular Discovery Channel show, Deadliest Catch.
What may seem like a mathematical quibble has ballooned into an all-out war between two ends of the spectrum with no clear end in sight.
City finances are starting to turn a corner as a new survey has found that general funds should stop their long slide that began half a decade ago.
The news came as the city is dipping into its own reserve funds to continue operating during the shutdown.
Retiree health benefits, commonly treated by governments as malleable when times are tough, may be harder to slash if a recent California court ruling holds.