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NEWS: March 6, 2012 Emergency Management | The Nation FEMA: Disaster-Relief Fund in Good Shape The rash of devastating tornadoes across the Midwest and South will not deplete the federal disaster-relief that was replenished by Congress last year, Federal Emergency Management Administration officials said. The fund now has about $3.7 billion, after nearly being emptied last year with some $13 billion in spending. >> Reuters In Reversal, Ohio Governor Seeks Federal Disaster Help Ohio Gov. John Kasich asked for federal help for tornado-stricken communities, two days after he said he would not seek immediate federal aid because he was confident Ohio could handle the crisis. >> Cincinnati Enquirer Public Workforce | The Nation Postal Service May Cut 2,000 Managers As many as 2,000 U.S. Postal Service employees could face a reduction-in-force under the mail carrier's plans to close more than 220 mail-processing plants, a spokesman said. Most of those affected would be white-collar executives, supervisors and administrators who are not represented by unions. >> Federal Times Navy, Marines to Mandate Breathalyzer Tests The Navy intends to begin this year requiring every sailor reporting for duty on board a ship each day to undergo a Breathalyzer test, part of a wider effort to curb alcohol abuse in the service. The Marine Corps will begin introducing the tests to selected units beginning in April. >> Federal News Radio
Award Lauds City's Sanitation Innovator As the man in charge of the city's sanitation, Carlton Williams has a thankless job. But Williams, the innovator behind the city's Recyclebank rewards program and BigBelly trash cans, got a surprise Monday when Mayor Michael Nutter presented him with the city's first-ever Richardson Dilworth Award, named for a pioneering good-government mayor. >> Philadelphia Inquirer Human Services | Idaho Panel: Reform State's Child-Safety Systems The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare must emphasize child safety, improve communication between state workers and contract social workers, and improve its reporting procedures, according to a panel that examined how the department handled the case of an 8-year-old boy who was murdered in 2009. >> Idaho Statesman Wyoming Lawmakers Reject Welfare Drug Testing The Wyoming Senate killed a bill that would have required drug testing for participants in a state welfare program after a number of senators questioned its constitutionality and whether the problem was great enough to warrant such testing. >> AP/Caspar Star-Tribune Public Safety | Chicago White House Yanks G-8 Summit from City In a surprise turnaround, the White House announced that Chicago won't be hosting the controversial G-8 meeting and that the May summit will be held at Camp David instead. City officials insisted that Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not ask the White House to take summit off Chicago's hands due to anticipated protests and security costs. >> Chicago Sun-Times Nassau County to Realign Precinct Houses, Shed 100 Cops Nassau County, N.Y., leaders, saying the move should save $20 million annually, voted to turn half of the county's precinct houses into community policing centers, reducing the police payroll by 100. >> AP/New York Times California City Disbands Its Fire Department Santa Ana, Calif., officials gathered for a ceremony to mark the city council's decision to disband its fire department and have the Orange County Fire Authority handle fires and medical calls. >> Los Angeles Times
More Federal Websites Moving to Open-Source Content System At least 150 federal websites now are operating on the Drupal open-source content-management system, and more are preparing to migrate. Federal agencies began adopting Drupal three years ago as a more flexible, open and engaging platform. >> Government Computer News Officials: IT Consolidation Has Saved Oklahoma $40 Million Two years into a plan approved by Oklahoma lawmakers to consolidating the technology departments in 129 agencies, officials say the state already has realized $40 million in savings and cut about 128 information-technology positions through attrition. >> The Oklahoman Education | The Nation Black Students Face Harsher Discipline, Data Shows Black students, especially boys, face much harsher discipline in public schools than other students, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education. Black students made up 18 percent of those enrolled in the 72,000 schools sampled but they accounted for 39 percent of all expulsions, according to the 2009-10 statistics. >> New York Times >> Follow GovManagement on Twitter >> Share this edition:
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QUOTABLE “I really have heartburn over this.” Ada County, Idaho, Sheriff Gary Raney, who nearly a decade ago began posting a daily arrest list and booking photos on the Internet, aiming to provide both a public service and a deterrent to drunk driving and other offenses, but who now is considering taking the site down due to the activities of businesses such as Mugshots.com and ArrestCentral.com that "scrape" the information off of the sheriff's site, post the photos on their sites and then link to other Web businesses that charge for having the information removed >> Idaho Statesman | More quotes DATAPOINT More than $2,000 Amount paid by the Baltimore fire department in fiscal year 2011 for Gatorade to keep the city's firefighters hydrated, according to one of more than 700 city contracts, going back to July 2010, recently made public on Open Baltimore, the city's online information portal >> Baltimore Sun | More data
Church and State | Jim Burkee The Marketplace of Religious Ideas Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum revived the debate about separating church and state when he said a 1960 campaign-trail speech by John F. Kennedy, in which the future president expressed his belief in separation of church and state, "makes me throw up." Santorum's misreading of Kennedy's statement exposes a deeper misunderstanding by social conservatives of the exceptionalism of American church-state relations. The same creative destruction that shapes corporate America also guides American Christianity: Those most responsive to the changing needs of Americans survive and grow, while those that fail to adapt quickly fade. Christianity does well when the state stays out of its business and allows this marketplace of ideas to thrive. >> Los Angeles Times | More commentaries UPCOMING Center for American Progress Discussion: "Collective Impact: Moving the Needle on Our Nation's Challenges" Today, noon-1:30 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Urban Institute Discussion: "Unemployment Insurance for Tomorrow's Economy" Today, noon-1:30 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Brookings Institution Discussion: "Campaign 2012: Strategies for Economic Growth" March 7, 10-11:30 a.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Center for American Progress and Half in Ten Discussion: "Combating Veteran Unemployment, Poverty and Homelessness with Smart Budget Choices" March 7, 10-11 a.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Government Technology magazine Teleconference: "Automate the Capture of Handwritten Forms with Intelligent Extraction Technologies" March 7, 1 p.m. ET Brookings Institution Discussion: "Export Nation 2012: How U.S. Metros Are Driving National Growth" March 8, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. ET GovLoop and Bloomberg Government Webinar: "How to Streamline and Improve the Federal Government Acquisition Process" March 8, 2 p.m. ET >> Full events listings |
