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Winfield considers ending police force - (www.chicagotribune.com) West suburban Winfield is considering
dismantling its police force to save money it could use to repair its crumbling
roads. Consultants Laurence Mulcrone and Daniel McDevitt prepared a study for
the village of 9,000 on the advantages and downfalls of scrapping its 19-member
police force and contracting with DuPage County to use sheriff's police for law
enforcement. Adopting the plan won't happen easily or quickly. Residents have
publicly balked at the idea, first pitched this year by officials looking to
repair the village's notoriously failing roads.
UC
payroll up 6 percent See who made $1 million or more - (www.sacbee.com) The University of California spent more on
payroll in 2011 than in the prior year, though officials say the money for
higher salaries is coming more from hospital fees than from rising tuition. UC's
total payroll grew by 6 percent last year, from about $10 billion in 2010 to
$10.6 billion in 2011, according to salary data the university released today. "This
increase is likely attributable to a combination of factors, including
restoration of furlough reductions, increased research activity and market
pressures for more competitive compensation, particularly in the areas of health
care, instruction and research," says the university's employee pay report. About 36 percent of
the funding for compensation in 2011 came from fees at UC hospitals, the report
says, while less than 26 percent came from general funds and tuition, down a
percentage point from 2010. UC had 22 employees statewide who made at least $1
million in 2011 - mostly doctors and coaches. Scroll over the blue bars below
to learn more about them:
Obamacare
may expose immigrant status of millions - (www.gmanetwork.com) As she was ushered into
surgery eight years ago, Paula was confident that doctors at Washington's
Howard University Hospital would find the cancer that had been growing in her
right breast for months. She was less certain about where she would wake up the
next day. "I felt scared because of the stories in other states ... It was
always in the back of my mind that a doctor, or an immigration officer dressed
as a doctor, could take me," said Paula, 60, of the fear that she would be
exposed as an undocumented immigrant and deported. Still cancer-free, Paula,
who asked to have her last name withheld, waits in the tiny chapel of La
Clinica Del Pueblo, a community health clinic in Washington, DC, where she
receives routine care. She and other illegal immigrants worry that their
ability to access healthcare at facilities like La Clinica will become even
more risky once President Barack Obama's healthcare law takes effect.
For
Unpaid College Loans, Feds Dock Social Security - (www.smartmoney.com) It's no secret that falling
behind on student loan payments can squash a borrower's hopes of building
savings, buying a home or even finding work. Now, thousands of retirees are
learning that defaulting on student-debt can threaten something that used to be
untouchable: their Social Security benefits. According to government data,
compiled by the Treasury Department at the request of SmartMoney.com, the
federal government is withholding money from a rapidly growing number of Social
Security recipients who have fallen behind on federal student loans. From
January through August 6, the government reduced the size of roughly 115,000
retirees' Social Security checks on those grounds. That's nearly double the
pace of the department's enforcement in 2011; it's up from around 60,000 cases
in all of 2007 and just 6 cases in 2000.
Foreclosure
counseling is a bureaucratic waste that should be eliminated - (www.ochousingnews.com) The House passed a 2013 HUD
appropriations bill in June allocating $45 million to housing counseling, $10
million less than HUD requested. The bill is now stalled in the Senate, and the
White House has said President Barack Obama plans to veto the bill if passed in
its current form. … “The housing counseling community needs to work to restore
federal funding,” said David Berenbaum, chief program officer for the National
Community Reinvestment Coalition. “Housing counseling organizations have had to
downsize across the country at a time when the demands on service are at an
all-time high.” They should be downsized out of existence. These services are
part of the amend-extend-pretend charade. Banks need to foreclose on these
people and be done with it. Most of these people have been struggling for five
years. At this point, a foreclosure is a mercy killing.
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