The City Council voted unanimously to equip about 810 sworn police officers with body cameras next year, making a summertime pilot program permanent. However only 297 of the patrol officers will be required to wear them routinely.
The program also includes more funding for special education, teacher retention, per-student allotments and would revamp virtual education and public school accountability. But it would cost billions to implement.
This spring the city will begin implementing solar panels on city-owned sites, either on rooftops, as parking canopies or as shade structures in parks in community centers. Currently just 10 city buildings have solar panels to generate electricity.
Federal officials say 16 states have shortchanged their Black land grant colleges by billions of dollars. Equitable funding would benefit not only students at these vital institutions but their states’ economies as well.
The City Council is considering implementation of a pilot program that would reinvest metered parking fees back into a neighborhood for transportation-related improvements. The program would be tested in Roslindale Village.
City officials have until Nov. 1, 2024 to submit a plan to the state as to how they will close the $3 billion shortfall and have the system fully funded by 2055, but it remains unclear how officials will do so.
Halloween seems an apt metaphor for what state and local financiers will encounter over the next year and beyond: plenty of tricks but a modest supply of treats.
Three state-level officials demonstrate the characteristics of good governance, without the chaos playing out in the nation’s capital.
If approved, the new program would offer small, no-interest loans to civilian federal employees who work in Maryland but are not otherwise eligible for unemployment insurance payments.
If the City Council approves, Mayor Mike Johnston’s budget will allocate hundreds of millions more dollars than other cities around the state. Advocates are supportive of Johnston’s “housing first” approach.
Effingham County, Ill., has approved new voter registration software, which has the ability to upload election results on election night. Officials also approved the disbursement of $32,780 from the contingency fund for the purchase.
The annual Medicare-plus advertising blitz now under way should remind us that smarter post-employment benefit designs for state and local employees are long overdue.
To be eligible for the $800,000 annual environmental grant program, a project must demonstrate how it can serve a priority community. The funds for the program became available through a reconfiguration of the county’s sales tax.
A survey of voters in five of the Bay Area counties found that just 56 percent say commuter rail is important for the California region and must be maintained even if it costs taxpayers more money.
A hefty nationwide increase in premiums for public employers to provide their workers and retirees with health coverage will outstrip most governments’ revenue growth. It’s time to address and attack root causes.
