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 6th, 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…
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