Taxes
Covering topics such as bonds, cryptocurrency, federal aid and pensions.
Now 25,000 members strong, financially secure and long blessed with thoughtful leadership, the Government Finance Officers Association is poised to address the challenges to come for those who manage the public purse.
While home insurance rates and utility prices have increased across the country, Texas has been hit especially hard since its historical winter storm three years ago. Experts expect increases to continue.
More than $5.8 billion of the $7.8 billion in federal funds awarded to Illinois schools since March 2020 has been spent. In Chicago, the school system faces a $391 million shortfall for the 2024-25 school year.
The state has not yet signed up for a federal program that would help feed 2 million children who receive free or reduced-cost school lunches over the summer. State officials expect their own funds to be sufficient.
As inflation and interest rates ease, 2024 will be a perfect time for overdue multiyear strategic planning and keeping up with breakthrough information technologies.
After the U.S. Supreme Court stripped federal oversight of millions of acres of wetlands, the financial maintenance of those lands now falls to the states. It could take years for them to address the loss of federal standards, if they do it at all.
The state’s Individual Disaster Assistance Grant Program has paid $227,675 in response to storm damage. FEMA estimated the state’s spring flood damage at $6.3 million. As of Dec. 4, crop insurers had paid out more than $248 million due to drought.
The Solar for All component of the IRA will use $7 billion of federal funds to pay for 60 solar energy projects in disadvantaged communities nationwide. Nearly all states have applied for the infrastructure grants.
New York City schools have received more than $7 billion in federal aid to help students recover academically after the pandemic. But 36 percent of students were still “chronically” absent last year. Those in poverty were gone 45 percent of the year.
Florida was the only state to decline millions in federal funding that could have been put toward reducing tailpipe emissions and the effects of climate change. The state will build roads and bridges instead.
Wealthier, healthier states receive far more than those with fewer taxable resources and less healthy populations. Congress could do a lot to narrow this fairness gap.
The station has enough power to charge four vehicles simultaneously up to 80 percent within 20 to 40 minutes and was funded through the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. It is just one of 27 planned across the state.
The proposed bill would charge electric vehicle owners $290 a year to supplement decreased revenue lost from the state’s gas tax. It is estimated the fee would generate as much as $20 million annually for the state.
The federal government promised $23 million to assist with recovery efforts after Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on 49 schools and nine colleges and universities across the state. Many are still waiting for those funds.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators this year made budget cuts and deferred spending as a way to address the $31.5 billion spending gap. But, as tax revenues were delayed by winter storms, the gap has grown to $68 billion.
In what seems to be a coordinated effort between the governor, attorney general and secretary of state, six lawsuits challenging voter-approved property tax cuts and increases to teachers’ pensions have been blocked.
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