Latest News
Los Angeles County is bracing for sales tax revenue losses of 50 to 75 percent, while other counties are furloughing workers and planning to cut back on vital public services. Reserves might cushion the blow.
The pandemic has raised concerns about keeping this year’s voting process healthy and safe. Allowing voters to send in their ballots by mail could be the answer, but it will be costly and some worry about potential fraud.
Daytona Beach, Fla., police are using drones with speaker equipment to remind residents that public gatherings are prohibited during social distancing. Some Mass. police are impressed and may adopt similar methods.
Scammers prey on consumers in a time when many people are desperately seeking health and fiscal assistance. The Federal Trade Commission has received nearly 17,000 coronavirus-related fraud complaints so far.
Pennsylvania will join five other states in coordinating plans to reopen their economies after the coronavirus outbreak has subdued. The aligned efforts are aimed at preventing neighboring states from enacting policies that conflict.
Clay Jenkinson, Governing’s editor-at-large and humanities scholar on Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt, tells us how literature and history can help inform leaders in this time of global national crisis.
Thousands of Floridians are desperately waiting for their unemployment benefits as the state’s system falls further behind. The state hopes to process 80,000 claims this week, though the backlog is more than 560,000.
While overall sales are down, grocery sales might have increased, which would be good for the city’s revenue. While officials expect some declines, overall they are optimistic about the strength of the financial reserves.
Many state, local governments must adjust their budgets as the coronavirus pandemic has choked off much of their revenue streams. Budgets in larger communities will likely rebound faster, but smaller ones will feel the impact for months to come.
Social distancing has inspired people to turn to social media for support and connection, especially when it comes to health updates. But this also allows researchers to track the spread and predict hospitalizations.
Gov. Whitmer has defended her “stay home” order by saying it prioritizes Michigan’s “health and safety.” Others claim that it’s devastating the state’s economy beyond repair, thereby “ruining our livelihoods.”
As Congress considers further financial help for victims of the coronavirus pandemic, the magnitude of the fiscal crisis that governors and their states will have to face is just starting to emerge.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is pursuing a goal of 100 percent renewable energy by including the world’s first utility-scale hydrogen power plant in its energy mix.
Schools need to be better positioned for the next crisis. That means making technology available, preparing students and teachers for online learning, and bringing an equity focus to assessment tools.
Every work system has its point of constraint, and that's the place to focus on to increase the organization's capacity. You're only as good as your weakest link.
Spending vast amounts on a crash program now won't help those who've lost their livelihoods to the coronavirus pandemic. We need to take the time for sensible planning to do it right.
The Ann Arbor, Mich., company, Voxel51, is using data from street cameras to measure social distancing across the world. The company hopes the data gets put to good use, “even if it's only public awareness.”
California acts on its own in many ways but the state is still limited legally, administratively and financially by the federal government. Combatting the coronavirus seems like a tug-of-war between the two.
The current public health crisis has complicated the relationship between an employer’s need to know and an employee’s patient privacy. “I’m sure that in some of these cases, we’ll see litigation out of this crisis.”
Self-quarantined after testing positive for the coronavirus, Miami’s mayor kept a daily video journal on Twitter, setting a standard of transparency while creating a sense of social media intimacy in a time of social distancing.
Gig workers are largely ineligible for company unemployment assistance and health care which means many continue working despite virus-like symptoms. Some sick workers keep going because, “what would these people do if I didn’t do it?”
In California, a Berkeley man “nude bombed” a Zoom session, exposing himself to students, and an Oakland school district inadvertently released access codes, passwords and student info online. “A lot of schools are struggling.”
New Jersey’s system was written in a software language created in the 1950s and it can’t handle the large influx of unemployment claims. The problems heighten calls for a complete system rewrite.
Last month Ohio had a last-minute switch to a vote-by-mail election due to coronavirus fears and officials want to avoid that happening again in the fall. Assuring a smooth November election requires planning now.
We have a loose consensus in America on factors that drive costs and time up and quality down. What we don't have is consensus on how to get those factors under control.
The order to stay at home puts a special burden on the homeless. Residents in one shelter in northern Virginia are doing what they can to keep their distance in a pandemic.
Unemployment threatens to rise to levels not seen since the Great Depression. A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of that era thinks most of the economy will recover much more quickly than it did back then.
State lawmakers continue to address wide-ranging consequences of the pandemic with bills that focus on various remedies to the financial burden on workers and their families placed by government work restrictions.
When the coronavirus pandemic begins to subside, communities should use a nuanced, calibrated approach to allowing businesses to reopen and residents to return to work and school.
Ann Arbor’s virtual city council meeting discussed concerns about spending money on large city projects with an uncertain economic future. “I don’t want to see us putting good money on top of a dumpster fire.”
Sponsored
-
Sponsored
Most Read
