The Ferguson Group Blog

SNAP Participation Grows as Unemployment Rate Falls

According to a recent report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), about 1 in 4 Americans participated in at least one of USDA’s fifteen domestic food and nutrition assistance programs during 2013. In 2013, federal expenditures on food assistance programs increased by 2% and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was one of the largest programs. Historically, the percentage of population participating in SNAP corresponds with the unemployment rate. However, for the second year in a row, SNAP participation grew as unemployment fell. While some may be alarmed by this trend, the report states that “improvements of economic conditions during the early stages of recovery, when the unemployment rate starts to fall, takes longer to be felt by lower educated, low-wage workers” who are participants of SNAP. During previous recessions, the same trends were seen; indicating that it is possible that as economic recovery continues, SNAP participation will eventually decrease.

To see how other USDA’s Food Assistance Programs faired in 2013, click here.

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, the TFG Blog posts a series of articles published over the previous week that discusses topics of interest to local governments. Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup! 

Nutrition Labels Set for Major Overhaul

On February 27^th, the Administration will unveil proposed updates to food nutrition labels, which have not been updated in more than two decades.  Although the new updates have been in development at the FDA for years, and have the strong backing of the Administration, the changes are expected to spark considerable pushback from the industry. Read More…

Making the Most of the Water You Have

Municipalities across the country can learn from what California communities are doing to combat the water crisis being experienced throughout the west. The severe drought conditions being experienced in California are pushing many communities to develop innovative solutions to preserving their precious water resources.  Read More…

Obama to Outline Plan to Fix Crumbling Roads, Rail, Bridges

Today, the President will travel to St. Paul, Minnesota to announce a $302 billion plan to fix America’s crumbling roads and bridges.  His plan is not expected to be popular with Congress, however, whose members have been in talks over prospects for the new highway bill since last year. Read More…

Tax Overhaul Plan Faces Key Hurdles

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) has developed a tax reform proposal three-years in the works, but his plan is already receiving criticism, even from key members of his own party (including Senate minority Leader Mitch McConnell). Overall tax reform will be difficult to tackle this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expresses, but the leader also commends Representative Camp for “coming forward with a piece of legislation;” a feat few have been able to accomplish. Read More…

Obama Confirms Funding for Manufacturing Innovation Hubs

On Tuesday, President Obama officially announced the selection of two new Manufacturing Innovation Institutes to be based in Chicago and Detroit. There are already two Institutes in Youngstown, OH and Raleigh, NC, with four more Institutes to come. The President also launched a competition to find the location for the next Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which will be a $70 million DOE-led project. Read More…

Technology in Local Communities

Local communities utilize new technologies on a daily basis to improve their service to citizens. The TFG Blog's Technology in Local Communities is a bi-monthly review that highlights examples of these innovative partnerships.

 

Esri Enables Federal Agencies to Open GIS Mapping Data to the Public

Mapping software giant Esri is now allowing users to choose an open data license that will make more public geospatial data to the public for free. If federal, state and local governments agree to release their data, it could mean a huge surge in the amount of ArcGIS data available to researchers and developers. Read More…

Surveillance Regulation Plays Catch-Up To Technology

While there are valid uses of surveillance technology, some say it has advanced faster than government is able to regulate it. As Congress begins discussing the topic, some states are already taking action. Read More…

Winds of Change: Floating Power Turbines Envisioned Off Oregon Coast

A Seattle Energy company received initial approval to build five floating wind turbines 16 miles off the Oregon coast. The massive project, which garnered the attention of the Administration of the Department of Energy, will generate 30-megawatts of electricity.  The $200 million project is expected to be operational by 2017. Read More…

U.S. Agency Ordered to Cancel License Plate Database Plan

Just days after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency released a solicitation to access or buy databases for tracking license plates nationwide, its mother agency, the Department of Homeland Security, directed the cancellation of the request after it garnered significant criticism from privacy advocates. The use of license plate data has been used successfully to solve many different kinds of crimes, but privacy advocates argue that law enforcement could easily misuse the information.  Read More…

How to Jump-Start Analytics in Your City

The New York City Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics has become a groundbreaking program in the municipal analytics word for its development process and its real-world successes.  Program officers describe how they did it, and what other cities can do to follow their success. Read More…

States Brace for Clash between Utilities, Solar Advocates

The growing popularity of solar panels at homes and businesses is becoming a problem for states, which are caught in a battle between solar and utility advocates over rollover credits, or net-metering.  Utilities say that solar customers aren’t paying their fair share, and want surcharges for solar consumers to make up for it.  Advocates, however, remind regulators that solar only produces about 1 percent of total energy production in the U.S. Read More…

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, The Ferguson Group (TFG) blog posts a series of articles published over the previous week that discusses topics of interest to local governments. Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup!

Comcast Readies for Washington War

Shortly after announcing its intentions to merger with industry giant Time Warner Cable, Comcast began building a strategy to defend the $45 billion deal in Washington, where criticism is already adrift. Comcast consultants want to sway lawmakers, agencies, and industry groups before hearings on the merger are scheduled in the coming months.  Scrutiny, however, will be inevitable.  Read More…

Minimum Wage Increase Would Have Mixed Effects, C.B.O. Report Says

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its assessment of the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, with mixed results that could provide supporters and critics fuel for their arguments.  The report concludes that the wage increase could reduce total employment by 500,000 by mid-2016, but could also lift 900,000 families out of poverty.  Read More…

Can A Book Club Improve Government?

The budget director for the City of Baltimore, Andrew Kleine, believes it can.  Kleine runs a book club that is open to any of the city’s 14,000 employees. With input from club members, Kleine chooses books that can spur discussion about improving government with innovative ideas, noting that several good ideas for improving Baltimore have come out of the club.  Read More…

Battling Blight: Detroit Maps Entire City to Find Bad Buildings

Since the White House created a Blight Task Force in Detroit last fall to help fight blight in the motor city, Detroit is almost done mapping all their blighted properties in the hopes of systematically redeveloping entire neighborhoods. The mapping project manager says that often several different departments in the city own properties in the same area and don’t know it, causing the city to lose thousands of dollars by demoing each property separately.  With the new system, they will be able to show the departments they have these properties in the same area, and the departments can work together to demo the properties, saving thousands of dollars.  Read More…

White House to Toughen Fuel Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles

Yesterday, the White House announced new, tougher fuel economy standards for heavy-duty vehicles in a continuing effort to reduce heavy-vehicle emissions, an effort that began in 2011.  The 2011 standards were only for truck models 2014 to 2018.  The new standards are targeted for model years after 2018.  Read More…

Federal Government Closes to Prepare for Winter Storm

As one of the largest storms of the season hits Washington D.C., Congress and DC based federal agencies will be closed on Thursday, February 13th along with many other public agencies, schools, and businesses in the greater DC area. The storm is expected to dump four to eight inches of snow on Washington overnight followed by sleet and freezing rain throughout the day. Follow the storm here and if you are in the Washington D.C. area... please be safe, stay warm, and enjoy the snow. 

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, The Ferguson Group (TFG) blog posts a series of articles published over the previous week that discusses topics of interest to local governments. Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup!

 

White House Delays Health Insurance Mandate For Medium-sized Employers Until 2016

 

Under new rules released Monday by the U.S. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, employers with 50 to 99 employees will be given until 2016 before they are responsible for paying a employer shared responsibility penalty if they don’t offer their full-time workers health insurance. The mandate gives mid-sized employers an extra year to comply with the regulations. However, employers with 100 or more employees will still be required to begin implementing these new regulations starting in 2015.Read More…

 

What Government Can Learn From Colleges About Transportation Policy

 

A new report, released by the Frontier Group and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, suggests that transportation policies on college campuses could help cities promote public transportation, and bike and car sharing programs in their communities.  The report authors argue that cities and colleges share some of the same incentives for reducing car-related commuting, such as reducing congestion, promoting efficient land use, attracting youth to the area, and reducing environmental impacts. Read More…   

 

Philly Teaches Officials With New Innovation Academy

 

Philadelphia is taking municipal innovation to the classroom by enrolling 19 of the city’s officials in a new eight-week program that aspires to institutionalize some of the processes and ideas driving government innovation. The Municipal Innovation Academy was designed in partnership with Philadelphia University, which is currently piloting its own undergraduate innovation program. The Municipal Innovation Academy will have lessons ranging from the basics of innovative thinking, to more advanced principles such as design thinking, the use of analytics, systems thinking, and problem solving strategy.Read More…

 

FEMA: Caught Between Climate Change and Congress

 

As we have seen in the past few years, FEMA has had to deal with its fair share of extreme weather disasters, and the agency has had a hard time keeping up. Some experts say that the agency is failing to properly account for climate change when planning its yearly budget and resource allocations, which is one of several critical reasons FEMA is struggling to function. Another impediment to FEMA's functionality is an annual budget that has roughly stayed the same since the 1980's. The budget can only increase at the hand of Congress, and that prospect looks grim.Read More…

 

Latest Senate Attempt to Revive Jobless Benefits Falters

 

On February 6^th, the Senate failed to move forward on a three-month extension of long-term unemployment benefits (S. 1845), falling one vote short of the 60 votes needed to proceed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not said when he will schedule another vote on S. 1845.  Meanwhile, Reid moved S. 1963, a bill restoring earned retirement pay for military retirees. The Senate will likely revisit the legislation upon its return from the week-long President’s Day recess.Read More…

Congress Gets in the Spirit of the Olympics

It is no secret that medalists in past Olympics have had to pay taxes for their winnings. The Americans for Tax Reform group has estimated that a gold medal could result in a $9,000 tax burden.  That is why lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced the Tax Exemptions for American Medalists (TEAM) Act (H.R. 3987), which would exempt Olympic winners from paying taxes on their awards, including medals and cash rewards given to winners by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Not all countries give their Olympians cash awards for earning medals. The U.S. Olympic Committee awards athletes $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze.  Modest earnings compared to top payer Russia, who gives their athletes $135,000 for gold, $81,000 for silver, and $54,000 for bronze. One would think that smaller countries are the ones that don’t receive cash awards, but no, that is not always the case.  Interestingly enough, British athletes don’t receive a cent. Even more interesting, the highest paid gold medal athletes will come from Georgia, receiving $1.2 million for their earned gold medal.  

The United States is not the only country working on changing their tax code to provide an exemption for their athletes. Just last week, lawmakers in the Philippines introduced a bill that would provide a tax exemption for prizes and awards earned by Filipino athletes in any internally-sanctioned sporting event. Their bill, however, provides an exemption for all prizes and awards for winning athletes in the last 10 years. The U.S. TEAM Act would provide the tax exemption to athletes starting this year.

The H.R. 3987 is the second attempt in the past few years to provide a tax exemption to winning athletes. In 2012, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Representative Blake Farenthold (R-TX²⁷) (the 2014 bill sponsor) introduced the TEAM Act without success. Currently, there is no companion bill to the TEAM Act in the Senate. 

Rural States May See More Money for Technology

Rural communities looking for money to expand broadband access and upgrade technology may be in luck. Last month, Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) introduced legislation that would require at least 75% of rural state funds collected through the Universal Service Fund (USF) be allocated back to rural states.

USF was created by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to meet the goal of promoting universal availability of quality communications service at reasonable and affordable rates for all consumers - including those in rural, insular, and high-cost areas. Initially, USF was meant just for telephones, but as technology has advanced over the past two decades, broadband has become a significant part of USF - which also aims to advance telecommunications services in schools, libraries and rural health care facilities.

Provisions of Senator Ayotte's legislation (S.1766) - the USF Equitable Distribution Act - would:

• Ensure that a rural state is guaranteed to receive at least 75 cents for every dollar it contributes to USF;
• Define a rural state as having less than 200 people per square mile; and
• Not increase the size of the fund.

Are you a rural community interested in technology funding? Learn more about the USF here.

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, The Ferguson Group (TFG) blog posts a series of articles published over the previous week that discusses topics of interest to local governments. Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup! 

 

Big Tech Puts ‘Down Payment’ On Connecting Schools

On Tuesday, President Obama announced that over the next few years, big tech companies like Microsoft, Verizon, and Apple will contribute $750 million worth of products and services to fund the implementation of high-speed internet services in 15,000 schools throughout the country.  This is one of two school internet initiatives the Administration is pushing this week.  Today, the Federal Communications Commission announced new changes to the E-Rate program, a multibillion-dollar tech subsidies program. Read More…

 

Fighting Segregation in Housing: There’s A Map For That

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is putting the finishing touches on a new interactive map that lets users search race, class and opportunity in their area. This HUD prototype paints a vivid picture of the racial patterns behind fair housing disputes across the country.  Maps like this have already been used in Baltimore to help relocate public housing residents in West Baltimore to areas with more economic opportunity. Read More…

 

Fighting Fires With The Help of Google Glass

An inventive firefighter from North Carolina has developed several apps and app concepts using Google Glass that could help emergency responders access and gather information during an emergency. Although Google Glass has not been fully adapted for firefighting use, the potential for this technology in firefighting and other emergency situations are seemingly endless, and not far from becoming reality. Read More…

 

Seattle Hopes to Heat Water, Neighborhoods Via Data Center Energy

In 2012, a New York Times investigation found that big data centers – like the ones that power “the cloud” – can waste over 90 percent of their electricity running backup stations and cooling systems for the core machinery. The City of Seattle is looking to use the excess heat created by two of their local data centers to deliver hot water and heating to nearby neighborhoods using a district energy system.  Read More…

 

U.S. To Launch ‘Climate Hubs’ To Help Farmers Face Climate Change

The Obama Administration is launching the creation of seven “climate hubs” across the country that will help farmers and rural communities adapt to the changing weather and conditions as a result of global warming.  These information centers will help farmers, ranchers and rural communities handle the risks associated with climate change, such as floods, droughts, and fires.  Read More…

 

Investing in Rural Economic Development

On January 23, the USDA Rural Utilities Services (RUS) announced the list of Rural Electric Corporations that have been awarded Rural Economic Development Loans and Grants (REDLG).  RUS provides loans and grants to rural businesses and electric coops to help create jobs and spur economic development. Utilities can apply for loans up to $2,000,000 or grants up to $300,000. These investments help businesses expand and rural communities grow their economies. The full list of award recipients can be found here. 

TFG congratulates all of the recipients!