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Bills that address contact tracing take aim at the costs related to testing and tracking COVID-19 infections as states reopen. Others tackle privacy concerns and ensuring tracer workers reflect community diversity.
With an expanded role, they could serve as an efficient conduit between local governments of all sizes and federal financial resources for revenue shortfalls and infrastructure.
Spokane, Wash., received $23.4 million from the federal government to maintain the city’s bus system. But officials don’t think that will be enough to offset the challenges that the public transit system has been facing.
Officials in Macomb and Oakland counties, Mich., have announced that portions of their CARES Act money will be allotted for local governments and small business support. With approval, the money could be granted by June.
Twenty percent of California’s Bay Area residents don't have a home Internet connection, a problem made worse during shelter-in-place orders. A recent bill passed by the House would provide billions to fix the problem.
An unemployment benefits website run by the Arkansas state government suffered a large data breach that left the personal information of thousands of applicants exposed, state officials confirmed.
As schools rapidly transition to online learning during the COVID-19 crisis, there's growing evidence that poor planning coupled with insufficient tech resources have diminished K-12 education for some students.
Rebekah Jones was the architect and manager of the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, which had received praise from the White House for its accessibility. Many now worry that data transparency will be lost with her departure.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded the funds to aid in coronavirus testing and contact tracing efforts. The state needs at least 670 professional tracers, but only has 100 so far.
The state’s computer crashed Monday when workers flooded the system with requests for relief. Immigrants could apply for a one-time payment of $500 per individual or $1,000 per household.
The economies of the U.S., Canada and Mexico are interconnected. Their subnational governments and their businesses need synchronized federal guidance about how and when to restart.
The pandemic is challenging colleges' enrollments and finances as never before. Some may not survive, and those that do will have to consider major changes in their structures and the way they teach.
It's not just angry protesters. Governors are finding their stay-at-home orders challenged in court and their authority increasingly under fire in legislatures and from local officials.
A rally at the steps of the state capitol in Bismarck presents an important moment to revisit the unique federalist form of our republic that Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers created more than 200 years ago.
St. Louis, Mo., is beginning to lift its stay-at-home orders, but doesn’t have funding to hire many contact tracers. Some believe county officials should help to ensure the virus doesn’t spread throughout the region.
Without Internet access, Viriginians can’t work from home, participate in online learning or even order necessities from online retailers. “Government officials have to wake up and realize the Internet is not a luxury.”
In a 217-189 vote, the House of Representatives approved a package that allows Congress to work remotely amid the coronavirus. However, some members are still concerned that remote governing will erode the institution.
As governments struggle to adapt to the election challenges surrounding COVID-19, a number of states have launched Internet voting pilots. But many experts argue that these programs could easily be co-opted by malicious actors.
Women are underrepresented in technology fields, but especially so in cybersecurity. It's not just a matter of fairness. Women are better than men at key aspects of keeping the internet safe.
The pandemic has generated another round of work by states to craft some kind of tracking app that doesn’t violate privacy rules. Meanwhile, policymakers have turned their attention to cybercrimes and surveillance.
Social distancing has discouraged riders from using public transit, so officials are hoping to encourage alternative transportation methods. But even still, riders need to be reassured that public transit is virus free.
Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget would save the state $2.8 billion in the next fiscal year but it would mean that all state workers, including the governor and his staff, would receive a 10 percent pay cut.
The Federal Communications Commission awarded several Alabama health groups grant money to expand their telemedicine services. “It’s horrendous that this has occurred, but it has put telehealth in the forefront.”
Washington state halted unemployment payments for two days as they tried to block $1.6 million of fraudulent claims. While the state has not been ravaged by unemployment, about 1 million unemployed workers still seek aid.
Communities that have lost population temporarily are at risk of an undercount, costing them state and federal aid for a decade. But with a little help from Congress, there are solutions.
The author’s masterpiece, The Plague, will make you think, ask all sorts of Socratic questions of yourself and form resolutions about how you intend to measure your life after getting through this global catastrophe.
Unprecedented. The word has taken on the quality of ubiquity in the COVID-19 era. It signals in part that some things are changing everything — the Internet that allows work to be virtual and done anywhere; a suite of permanent coronavirus precautions that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago; and the prospect of what Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer calls the “Greater Depression” because of its anticipated depth, breadth and length. Against all that, you just want to go back to work at the office. You miss seeing your colleagues and the chance conversations that help solve problems, and even the goodies left in the breakroom. After eight weeks of being “safe at home,” getting back to the workplace sounds good — but don’t bet on it.
California must grapple with a budget deficit that could amount to more than $54 billion by next July. In the short term, there are several budget areas the state can pull from. But the long-term solution is uncertain.
A Tennessee Congressman hopes to stop the Tennessee Valley Authority from outsourcing 108 of its IT jobs to foreign companies. “It is incomprehensible that TVA would outsource jobs held by hard-working Americans.”
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled against Gov. Tony Evers’ “safer at home” order, so local governments are announcing their own “stay home” directives to keep Wisconsinites home and economies closed.
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