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At a time money for local elections is scarce, this city found savings
This story is republished from Votebeat original article. The city of Ann Arbor recorded one of the state’s highest rates of early in-person voting in the February primary, and a Votebeat analysis shows it also succeeded in another important measure: It kept the cost per vote low. Ann Arbor...
One state is pioneering paying for roof upgrades as storms boost insurance costs
This story is republished from Stateline original article. When Hurricane Sally struck coastal Alabama in 2020, many residents saw the roofs torn from their homes or damaged by the high winds. But not Matt Fetner. “Every house around had blue tarps on it, except for mine,” said the resident of...
What is ‘reasonable cybersecurity’?
State and local government policies often require organizations to implement “reasonable cybersecurity,” without specifying exactly what it entails. That ambiguity can leave systems underprotected and fuel lawsuits over data breach liability. A new guide from the Center for Internet Security provides a framework organizations can use to meet...
The time is now: Harnessing rigorous evaluation in a post-ARPA America
State and local governments are at the forefront of addressing historic levels of income inequality, rising housing instability and the impacts of climate change. They can supercharge their ability to create change by leading a movement of evidence building that will inform equitable programming and support economic mobility for generations.
‘We’re flying blind’: CDC has 1M bird flu tests ready, but experts see repeat of COVID missteps
This story is republished from KFF Health News original article. It’s been nearly three months since the U.S. government announced an outbreak of the bird flu virus on dairy farms. The World Health Organization considers the virus a public health concern because of its potential to cause a pandemic, yet the U.S. has tested only about 45 people across the country.
In tax code ruling, U.S. Supreme Court declined to open ‘Pandora's box’
You're reading Route Fifty's State and Local Roundup. To get the week’s news to use from around the country, you can subscribe here to get this update in your inbox every Saturday. In the meantime, be sure to read to the end as we've rounded up headlines from the week.
Building emergency housing to meet the unique needs of older adults
Increasingly, the face of homelessness in America is growing older. Last year, more than 138,000 individuals experiencing homelessness were 55 or older, with nearly half of them spending at least one night unsheltered. Those affected are members of the baby boom generation, which has been disproportionately impacted by homelessness. As...
A tale of two states: Arizona and Florida diverge on how to expand kids’ health insurance
This story is republished from KFF Health News original article. Arizona and Florida—whose rates of uninsured children are among the highest in the nation—set goals last year to widen the safety net that provides health insurance to people 18 and younger. But their plans to expand coverage illustrate...
Don’t rush into AI experiments too quickly, experts say
Since the release of ChatGPT nearly two years ago, artificial intelligence has meandered its way into many people’s everyday lives. But when government workers, in particular, started using the chatbot and other generative AI tools to save time at work, states and cities sprang into action, throwing up guidance and guardrails around its use.
How matchmaking can address two housing needs
When children grow up and move out, their bedrooms often get a second life as a workout room, a craft space or an office. But empty nesters are also growing older, and soon enough those extra rooms—along with the rest of the house—can become, at best, underused, and at worst, a burden to maintain for those who want to age at home.
Identifying and mitigating third-party IT risks
Having just started a new job as chief technology officer at a well-run large county, it did not take the new CTO long to realize that one cloud service provider was not performing as expected. Once it became clear the business relationship was deteriorating, it was time for the county to find a new vendor. Identifying a new and more suitable cloud vendor was the easy part, but getting the former vendor to migrate all the county’s data became a monumental hurdle. The vendor said there was no problem returning the data but warned it would be unrecognizable and would cost over $2 million to convert it into a usable format. How could this be?
Undercover ‘secret shopper’ program shows city agencies breaking language access laws
“This story was originally published by THE CITY. Read the original here. Every summer, the New York City mayor’s office hires a small team of multilingual interns to go undercover into city service centers and pretend they do not speak English. The interns, “secret shoppers” who are assigned a...
Massachusetts is expanding its pathbreaking vehicle fleet electrification program
This story was first published by the Energy News Network. Read the original here. Massachusetts is in the process of tripling the size of its first-in-the-nation vehicle fleet electrification program following a recent influx of federal money. “We are really looking at the barriers, the challenges, the things that we...
How hot weather can tamper with your words
This story was originally published by Grist. Read the original story here. Heat waves don’t just make you sweat—they can also mess with your brain. It’s been established that hot weather can result in lower scores on math tests and higher rates of aggression, ranging from mean-spirited behavior to violent crime. A small but growing body of research suggests it can also influence how people talk.
US laws created during slavery are still on the books. We should acknowledge that, a legal scholar argues
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. As the story of Juneteenth is told by modern-day historians, enslaved Black people were freed by laws, not combat. Union Gen. Gordon Granger said as much when he read General Order No. 3 in...
As mobile IDs proliferate, concerns about cybersecurity and data privacy mount
New York is rolling out mobile driver’s licenses, giving residents in the Empire State the option to ditch plastic for digital IDs—at least some of the time. With the launch, New York joins a dozen other states in offering mobile IDs. The New York Mobile ID app was announced at a press conference last week at LaGuardia Airport, where it can be used—in addition to 27 other airports—for identity verification. According to the Transportation Security Administration, New York is now the ninth state to offer digital IDs that are interoperable with the TSA’s credential authentication technology.
Platform lets cities, residents shop granny flat options
Amid a tight housing market fueled by a housing shortage, millions of Americans are struggling to find an affordable place to live. As an increasing number of communities turn to accessory dwelling unit development to increase the amount of affordable housing, a new tool looks to help streamline the process for local governments, residents and housing developers.
Teachers demand climate solutions in their next contract
This story was originally published by Grist. Read the original here. Solar panels. Heat Pumps. Electric buses. Those are just three of the things the Chicago Teachers Union, or CTU, is hoping to acquire in their latest negotiations for a new contract, one that would address the rising toll of climate change in the more than 500 schools in which their members teach.
¿Cómo Se Dice? California loops In AI to translate health care information
This story was first posted to KFF Health News. Read the original here. Tener gripe, tener gripa, engriparse, agriparse, estar agripado, estar griposo, agarrar la gripe, coger la influenza. In Spanish, there are at least a dozen ways to say someone has the flu — depending on the country.
An overlooked tool for chipping away at the opioid crisis
Tackling a challenge as large and amorphous as opioid abuse requires reliable, standardized data. Beyond basic measures for tracking opioid use disorders like the number of individuals already diagnosed with an OUD, states may be overlooking other baseline metrics such as the number of available providers and treatment programs or the percentage of patients who initiate treatment, one expert says.
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Route Fifty covers state and local government news across the country.
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