National City, California, was only getting a paltry 6 percent collection rate on the tardy sewer bills it had turned over to a private collection agency. Then San Diego County's Office of Revenue and Recovery made the city an offer it couldn't refuse: The county promised to collect on at least 40 percent of the overdue bills.

Indiana legislators don't have to play by the same rules of disclosure as everyone else. On the last day of Indiana's legislative session, lawmakers approved a bill that exempts them from the state's public- records law.

It's payback time for toll cheats in Illinois. The state can lift--and did so this spring--the license plates of drivers who refuse to pay their tolls.

Airplanes aren't the only things soaring at Miami International Airport. The cost of the airport's extensive renovation and expansion is on its way up, too--probably by about half a billion dollars.

Even Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz couldn't have scripted this scenario