By Marisa Lagos
A federal receiver appointed to control mismanagement of inmate health care dramatically increased spending in California's prisons but has so far failed to significantly improve conditions for sick and injured convicts, a state Assembly committee has concluded.
More than $82 million was spent to plan construction projects that were largely abandoned, and that was only a fraction of the amount charged to California taxpayers, according to a report by the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review.
The findings, which are were announced during a hearing on Wednesday, show large salaries being paid to construction consultants on an abandoned project, who then turned around and charge taxpayers for housing, meals and dry cleaning. Prison health care spending has also grown by more than 65 percent since 2006, when a three-judge panel appointed the receiver after concluding that substandard medical treatment and neglect were killing one inmate per week.
"We are spending more money and have far more staff devoted to inmate health care than other states like Texas or Georgia, but we aren't seeing improvements in outcomes," said the committee chairman, Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento. "Especially in this budget environment, when we are talking about cutting child care and putting limits on the number of visits a Medi-Cal patient can make to the doctor. ... We need to rebalance the equation."
One of the most disturbing discoveries, according to committee members, was the fact that three firms were paid a total of $27 million to do construction planning for medical facilities that were never built.
The bill included the following:
-- The housing for five consultants was expensed to the state, including two rental apartments that cost more than $2,200 a month.
-- Four consultants charged the state for dry cleaning, including one that expensed more than $200 in one week.
-- Multiple consultants charged the state $56 a day for food. State travel policy requires state workers to spend $34 or less per day.
-- One firm with five consultants who each earned up to $326 an hour charged the state $21,535 in expenses in a single month.
-- Another consultant earning $3,000 a day charged taxpayers to park her car at the Denver airport for two weeks while she was in Sacramento.
-- Consultants spent $1,200 on books, including "The Toyota Way" and "Embracing Uncertainty: The Essence of Leadership."
Nancy Kincaid, a spokesman for the current receiver, J. Clark Kelso, said Kelso was appointed in 2008 after the contracts in question were already in place. She said all of the expenses paid out by the previous receiver were within federal reimbursement guidelines.
"Those contracts no longer exist, and after Clark arrived he cut back and eventually eliminated all of them," she said.
Kincaid also noted that Kelso has made great strides toward reining in expenses. The overall death rate at prison health care centers has dropped by at least 10 percent since 2006, according to a presentation Kelso is scheduled to make to the committee today.
Don Specter, of the Prison Law Office, which filed the lawsuit that led to the receivership, said all the improvements in medical care in state prisons are the result of increased staffing. He said it's not accurate to compare California's cost with Texas' because California's prisons are more crowded, and the quality of the staff in Texas - including doctors - is not nearly as high.
"Part of the reason care hasn't improved too much is attributable to overcrowding. It's very, very difficult to provide services in such an immensely overcrowded environment," he said. "The facilities are inadequate, many prisons are crumbling, so the extra staff is somewhat an attempt to compensate for the crowding."
Courtesy of http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/26/BAK41HE5OQ.DTL
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
City-wide Crowd Converges at City Attorney’s Office
Oakland Residents Tell Russo to
End Gang Injunctions Now
What: Demonstration
When: 3:00pm, Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Where: Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA —Hundreds of opponents of John Russo’s controversial gang injunctions in Oakland will converge on City Hall Wednesday where a delegation of residents from North, East, and West Oakland will demand to meet with the City Attorney. North Oakland residents are fighting to end a temporary injunction in their neighborhood, while a proposed injunction for the Fruitvale and San Antonio neighborhoods will be heard in court on February 16th. The City Attorney’s efforts to file another injunction in West Oakland before the end of 2010 were curtailed by widespread opposition to the first two injunctions.
This month the Stop the Injunctions Coalition won a major victory when the City Council’s Public Safety Committee agreed to make the City Attorney’s Office and the Oakland Police Department reveal heretofore hidden information on the costs and effects of the North Oakland injunction at their next meeting February 22. North Oakland resident Zaylia Pluss says, “It took a huge amount of public pressure to get the City Council to pay attention to all the tax money Russo is wasting on these injunctions during this budget crisis. If Oakland wants to be a Model City, we must stop these ineffective gang injunctions and invest in the programs that actually work to reduce violence: after-school programs, accessible youth centers, support for people coming home from prison, well-funded schools, counseling services, and community-based ways of dealing with harm and conflict.”
Oakland residents overwhelmingly reject Russo’s claims that gang injunctions will only impact the people who are enjoined. “We know that enforcement of these injunctions will be in the hands of the notoriously corrupt Oakland Police Department Oakland. We remember the Riders and we remember Oscar Grant. Oakland claims to be a sanctuary city but gang injunctions add to the already violent and devastating anti-immigrant programs like ‘Secure Communities’ that terrorize our communities. We demand an end to gang injunctions and to all collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” says East Oakland resident and organizer Aurora Lopez.
Demonstrators will gather outside of City Hall at 3pm and form a picket which will include speakers and community art.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Defining poverty: Measure by measure
By The Economist
The world’s richest country tries to count its poor
MOST people have an inherent sense of what it means to be poor. But choosing a definition is much trickier. Is poverty an absolute or relative condition? What is a decent standard of living? Such questions have dogged America’s social scientists for decades. This month the Census Bureau published a preliminary estimate of poverty, using a new definition. It was 16 years in the making. But it is not quite finished yet.
Poverty means different things in different countries. In Europe, the poor are those whose income falls below 60% of the median. Britain uses three measures: one relative, one absolute and a broader indicator of material deprivation, such as whether a child can celebrate his birthday. The concept of poverty becomes even more slippery when attempting international comparisons. The United Nations’ “human- development index” assesses countries across a range of indicators, such as schooling and life expectancy.
America’s official poverty measure is far simpler. Developed in the 1960s, the poverty threshold represents the basic cost of food for a household, multiplied by three. A family is judged to be poor if its pre-tax income falls below this threshold. But the official measure provides only a blurry picture. Food spending has become a flimsy reference point—in 2009 groceries accounted for just 7.8% of Americans’ spending. The poverty indicator does not account for programmes that help the poor, such as the earned-income tax credit, nor does it adjust for regional variations in the cost of living. In 1995 the National Academy of Sciences recommended changing the measure, but only now is a new one close to being established.
The “supplemental poverty measure” (SPM) will not replace the official one, which is used to determine eligibility for government programmes. Rather, census officials hope the new indicator will provide a better understanding of America’s poor, by measuring both the needs of families and the effect of government help. The SPM estimates the cost of food, clothing, shelter and utilities, then adds a further 20% for other expenses. This threshold is adjusted for the cost of living in different regions and for whether a family owns or rents its home. To assess a household’s ability to pay for basic expenses, the SPM counts cash income as well as food stamps, tax credits and other government support, minus tax payments, work expenses and out-of-pocket medical costs.
Final figures are due to be published in the autumn, but preliminary results were released this month. In 2009 15.7% of Americans were poor, compared with 14.5% in the official measure (see chart). The share of those in extreme poverty fell, relative to the official measure, thanks to the inclusion of government support. The poverty rate dropped in rural areas and rose in urban and suburban ones. It jumped in the north-east and the West, while staying almost level in the South and falling in the Midwest. The most dramatic rise was for the elderly—from 9.9% in the official measure to 16.1% in the SPM, in part because of their high medical expenses.
Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin, long a critic of the old measure, says that the SPM is a massive improvement. Some conservatives, however, are horrified. Most objectionable, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, is that the new measure pegs household expenses at the 33rd percentile of American spending. This, he argues, makes the SPM a relative measure, rather than an absolute one. “It measures inequality,” Mr Rector insists, adding that it will help advance a misguided anti-poverty agenda.
For all the time spent developing the SPM, it is still a work in progress. Though first official numbers are supposed to be published in the autumn, even this is uncertain. Surveys must be expanded to collect additional data. The project needs about $7.5m, and a newly conservative Congress may be reluctant to provide it.
Courtesy of The Economist - World News
The world’s richest country tries to count its poor
Poverty means different things in different countries. In Europe, the poor are those whose income falls below 60% of the median. Britain uses three measures: one relative, one absolute and a broader indicator of material deprivation, such as whether a child can celebrate his birthday. The concept of poverty becomes even more slippery when attempting international comparisons. The United Nations’ “human- development index” assesses countries across a range of indicators, such as schooling and life expectancy.
America’s official poverty measure is far simpler. Developed in the 1960s, the poverty threshold represents the basic cost of food for a household, multiplied by three. A family is judged to be poor if its pre-tax income falls below this threshold. But the official measure provides only a blurry picture. Food spending has become a flimsy reference point—in 2009 groceries accounted for just 7.8% of Americans’ spending. The poverty indicator does not account for programmes that help the poor, such as the earned-income tax credit, nor does it adjust for regional variations in the cost of living. In 1995 the National Academy of Sciences recommended changing the measure, but only now is a new one close to being established.
The “supplemental poverty measure” (SPM) will not replace the official one, which is used to determine eligibility for government programmes. Rather, census officials hope the new indicator will provide a better understanding of America’s poor, by measuring both the needs of families and the effect of government help. The SPM estimates the cost of food, clothing, shelter and utilities, then adds a further 20% for other expenses. This threshold is adjusted for the cost of living in different regions and for whether a family owns or rents its home. To assess a household’s ability to pay for basic expenses, the SPM counts cash income as well as food stamps, tax credits and other government support, minus tax payments, work expenses and out-of-pocket medical costs.
Final figures are due to be published in the autumn, but preliminary results were released this month. In 2009 15.7% of Americans were poor, compared with 14.5% in the official measure (see chart). The share of those in extreme poverty fell, relative to the official measure, thanks to the inclusion of government support. The poverty rate dropped in rural areas and rose in urban and suburban ones. It jumped in the north-east and the West, while staying almost level in the South and falling in the Midwest. The most dramatic rise was for the elderly—from 9.9% in the official measure to 16.1% in the SPM, in part because of their high medical expenses.
Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin, long a critic of the old measure, says that the SPM is a massive improvement. Some conservatives, however, are horrified. Most objectionable, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, is that the new measure pegs household expenses at the 33rd percentile of American spending. This, he argues, makes the SPM a relative measure, rather than an absolute one. “It measures inequality,” Mr Rector insists, adding that it will help advance a misguided anti-poverty agenda.
For all the time spent developing the SPM, it is still a work in progress. Though first official numbers are supposed to be published in the autumn, even this is uncertain. Surveys must be expanded to collect additional data. The project needs about $7.5m, and a newly conservative Congress may be reluctant to provide it.
Courtesy of The Economist - World News
Friday, January 21, 2011
Weekly unemployment claims see drop
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, adding to evidence that hiring will pick up this year.
The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of people seeking benefits fell by 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 404,000 for the week ended Jan. 15. That's not much higher than the 391,000 level reached last month, the lowest in more than two years.
The decline suggested that an unexpected rise in applications a week earlier was the result of seasonal factors. Retailers lay off temporary holiday workers. Fewer than 425,000 people applying for benefits is considered a signal of modest job growth.
Courtesy of SB Sun
WASHINGTON - Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, adding to evidence that hiring will pick up this year.
The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of people seeking benefits fell by 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 404,000 for the week ended Jan. 15. That's not much higher than the 391,000 level reached last month, the lowest in more than two years.
The decline suggested that an unexpected rise in applications a week earlier was the result of seasonal factors. Retailers lay off temporary holiday workers. Fewer than 425,000 people applying for benefits is considered a signal of modest job growth.
Courtesy of SB Sun
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Showdown
By Mitch Stewart
House Republicans are voting today to repeal health reform -- sending the bill to a showdown in the Senate.
And that's exactly where it must end.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to do everything he can to stop this push, but he's counting on this movement -- people like you and me, who fought alongside the President to pass historic health reform -- to dig in to protect that progress.
It's not just about contacting our senators. It's about organizing our neighbors to do the same. It's about writing letters and staging rallies and showing senators at every turn that Americans overwhelmingly oppose repeal.
This isn't just about defeating repeal in the Senate.
Republicans have already said, if they can't tear down the Affordable Care Act in one fell swoop, they'll try to dismantle it piece by piece. They'll go after provisions in the bill that together provide coverage to 32 million Americans and make health care more affordable for millions more.
If they get their way, the Republican effort will:
-- Keep it legal for insurance companies to discriminate against people with a pre-existing medical condition -- affecting as many as half of all Americans under 65;
-- Re-open the "donut hole" in prescription drug coverage that made prescriptions unaffordable for millions of seniors;
-- Legalize the practice of insurance companies dropping people's coverage when they get sick -- just because they made a mistake on a form;
-- Prevent young adults under 26 from staying on their parents' insurance; and
-- Add $230 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
The implications of the Republicans' anti-reform agenda are real for millions of people. This debate is a choice between providing quality, affordable health care -- and the desires of an abusive insurance industry.
That's the message we'll be driving home from today until we finally stop every last attempt to undo reform.
But we need to make sure we have the tools to do it.
We need you with us in this fight!
Courtesy of Organizing for America
House Republicans are voting today to repeal health reform -- sending the bill to a showdown in the Senate.
And that's exactly where it must end.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to do everything he can to stop this push, but he's counting on this movement -- people like you and me, who fought alongside the President to pass historic health reform -- to dig in to protect that progress.
It's not just about contacting our senators. It's about organizing our neighbors to do the same. It's about writing letters and staging rallies and showing senators at every turn that Americans overwhelmingly oppose repeal.
This isn't just about defeating repeal in the Senate.
Republicans have already said, if they can't tear down the Affordable Care Act in one fell swoop, they'll try to dismantle it piece by piece. They'll go after provisions in the bill that together provide coverage to 32 million Americans and make health care more affordable for millions more.
If they get their way, the Republican effort will:
-- Keep it legal for insurance companies to discriminate against people with a pre-existing medical condition -- affecting as many as half of all Americans under 65;
-- Re-open the "donut hole" in prescription drug coverage that made prescriptions unaffordable for millions of seniors;
-- Legalize the practice of insurance companies dropping people's coverage when they get sick -- just because they made a mistake on a form;
-- Prevent young adults under 26 from staying on their parents' insurance; and
-- Add $230 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
The implications of the Republicans' anti-reform agenda are real for millions of people. This debate is a choice between providing quality, affordable health care -- and the desires of an abusive insurance industry.
That's the message we'll be driving home from today until we finally stop every last attempt to undo reform.
But we need to make sure we have the tools to do it.
We need you with us in this fight!
Courtesy of Organizing for America
Monday, January 17, 2011
Dr. King and the Living Wage Movement Today
By Rev. Al Sharpton and Stuart Appelbaum
During his lifetime, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that the civil rights movement and the labor movement had to remain firmly united. He understood that there can be no real equality without economic security and that government must play a role in protecting our most vulnerable.
Dr. King had gone to Memphis, the city of his assassination, to preach that no job holder should live in poverty. Before the bullet struck him, he had joined striking sanitation workers to march for living wage jobs and a union contract.
It is hard to imagine that he would not be angered to see how little real progress we have made since then. Today almost 1 in 3 working families nationally are low-income, according to an analysis of the latest available Census data by the Working Poor Families Project. Many of these working families reside in communities of color.
The core issue now affecting many workers, and the unemployed who hope to find work, is the issue that animated King in his final hours: too many jobs barely allow people to survive. They go to work each day and still live in poverty. More than forty years later, the need for living wage jobs is as urgent as ever.
The urgency is very clear in a place like New York City, where a record number of working residents, nearly 1.8 million, now rely on food stamps just to get by. Many of them hold jobs in rapidly expanding sectors like retail where companies and developers often receive large taxpayer-provided subsidies and create low-wage jobs in return. But an economy with a growing number of impoverished workers is unsustainable and destructive: more workers will turn to government for help, strain already overburdened public services, contribute less to the tax base, and increase the shared costs of poverty.
A better way forward is to ensure that private beneficiaries of public investments act in the best interest of communities and neighborhoods where they are located. From Baltimore to Los Angeles and beyond, cities have begun to require companies and developers receiving taxpayer subsidies to create jobs that enable people to be self-sufficient and avoid destitution. New York City and the rest of the country should follow suit.
Establishing a living wage standard for economic development and growth strikes the right balance for our communities and neighborhoods. When companies and developers benefit from government support, they should provide something in return - jobs that allow people to live in dignity.
"It was no victory for black men to be allowed to sit in a formerly white-only theater or to rent hotel accommodations which had been segregated, when they had no jobs," the historian Manning Marable has written. "It was cruel to permit black children to sit in all-white schools, when their mothers had no money to provide for their lunches." All the marching and organizing during Dr. King's lifetime was meant to build economic empowerment and security for millions of workers in this country.
Using the language of his time, King once put it like this: "Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires, and few Negro employers... Our needs are identical with labor's needs--decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing... conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community."
Dr. King's legacy of standing up for the working poor animates the growing living wage movement in this country. It is the nexus where the labor movement and the civil rights movement must come together.
Reverend Al Sharpton is President of the National Action Network.
Stuart Appelbaum is President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), UFCW.
Courtesy of The Huffington Post
 |
| bhfbillings.org |
Dr. King had gone to Memphis, the city of his assassination, to preach that no job holder should live in poverty. Before the bullet struck him, he had joined striking sanitation workers to march for living wage jobs and a union contract.
It is hard to imagine that he would not be angered to see how little real progress we have made since then. Today almost 1 in 3 working families nationally are low-income, according to an analysis of the latest available Census data by the Working Poor Families Project. Many of these working families reside in communities of color.
The core issue now affecting many workers, and the unemployed who hope to find work, is the issue that animated King in his final hours: too many jobs barely allow people to survive. They go to work each day and still live in poverty. More than forty years later, the need for living wage jobs is as urgent as ever.
The urgency is very clear in a place like New York City, where a record number of working residents, nearly 1.8 million, now rely on food stamps just to get by. Many of them hold jobs in rapidly expanding sectors like retail where companies and developers often receive large taxpayer-provided subsidies and create low-wage jobs in return. But an economy with a growing number of impoverished workers is unsustainable and destructive: more workers will turn to government for help, strain already overburdened public services, contribute less to the tax base, and increase the shared costs of poverty.
A better way forward is to ensure that private beneficiaries of public investments act in the best interest of communities and neighborhoods where they are located. From Baltimore to Los Angeles and beyond, cities have begun to require companies and developers receiving taxpayer subsidies to create jobs that enable people to be self-sufficient and avoid destitution. New York City and the rest of the country should follow suit.
Establishing a living wage standard for economic development and growth strikes the right balance for our communities and neighborhoods. When companies and developers benefit from government support, they should provide something in return - jobs that allow people to live in dignity.
"It was no victory for black men to be allowed to sit in a formerly white-only theater or to rent hotel accommodations which had been segregated, when they had no jobs," the historian Manning Marable has written. "It was cruel to permit black children to sit in all-white schools, when their mothers had no money to provide for their lunches." All the marching and organizing during Dr. King's lifetime was meant to build economic empowerment and security for millions of workers in this country.
Using the language of his time, King once put it like this: "Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires, and few Negro employers... Our needs are identical with labor's needs--decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing... conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community."
Dr. King's legacy of standing up for the working poor animates the growing living wage movement in this country. It is the nexus where the labor movement and the civil rights movement must come together.
Reverend Al Sharpton is President of the National Action Network.
Stuart Appelbaum is President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), UFCW.
Courtesy of The Huffington Post
Friday, January 14, 2011
Set the Alarm Clock: Don’t Sleep Through the Green Revolution
By Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins
"There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution."
The revolution Dr. King spoke of in his speech at the National Cathedral in 1968 was one of the most transformative of the 20th Century – the painful transition from a racially divided America to an America stitched together, however roughly. But the sentiment holds true for every revolution.
Today, there’s another revolution underway – a revolution that is restructuring America’s energy future. It’s changing the way we work and live. In this time of rapid change, all those caught sleeping, or even hitting the snooze button, will be left behind.
As we get ready to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday, life and legacy, it is not enough for us to reflect on the past. We must look forward and take action, we must be deliberate in shaping this revolution – because Dr. King’s work remains unfinished.
Today, there is still a great need to lift communities out of poverty and into productivity. The unemployment rate is still significantly higher in the Hispanic and African American communities. And low-income and minority communities are disproportionately more likely to breathe in polluted air, drink dirty water and suffer from asthma. As long as these disparities exist, our nation cannot fulfill its full promise as a land of opportunity and equality. And as long as these problems exist for any American, the revolution is not complete.
It is time for the nation to wake up and fight for a green economy that addresses the health and opportunity of all communities. It will take a collective effort to make this happen. Dr. King’s story teaches us that one man alone cannot achieve this kind of meaningful change. It takes a movement. He empowered others.
Following in Dr. King’s great tradition of selfless service, the rest of America should set their alarm clocks – and rouse those who are still sleeping.
Courtesy of Green for All
 |
| matsalleh.net |
The revolution Dr. King spoke of in his speech at the National Cathedral in 1968 was one of the most transformative of the 20th Century – the painful transition from a racially divided America to an America stitched together, however roughly. But the sentiment holds true for every revolution.
Today, there’s another revolution underway – a revolution that is restructuring America’s energy future. It’s changing the way we work and live. In this time of rapid change, all those caught sleeping, or even hitting the snooze button, will be left behind.
As we get ready to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday, life and legacy, it is not enough for us to reflect on the past. We must look forward and take action, we must be deliberate in shaping this revolution – because Dr. King’s work remains unfinished.
Today, there is still a great need to lift communities out of poverty and into productivity. The unemployment rate is still significantly higher in the Hispanic and African American communities. And low-income and minority communities are disproportionately more likely to breathe in polluted air, drink dirty water and suffer from asthma. As long as these disparities exist, our nation cannot fulfill its full promise as a land of opportunity and equality. And as long as these problems exist for any American, the revolution is not complete.
It is time for the nation to wake up and fight for a green economy that addresses the health and opportunity of all communities. It will take a collective effort to make this happen. Dr. King’s story teaches us that one man alone cannot achieve this kind of meaningful change. It takes a movement. He empowered others.
Following in Dr. King’s great tradition of selfless service, the rest of America should set their alarm clocks – and rouse those who are still sleeping.
Courtesy of Green for All
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