- Jan 4, 2016
It is a welcome change to give kudos to a group of elected government officials when they get it right, policy wise anyway. Such is the case with the Lane County Commission who has begun a program of buying out high cost senior county employees into retirement and reaping big cost savings down the road. This story also articulates how the program will stay on target with its savings goals and puts in place employee fiendly options like Health Savings Accounts while lowering overall costs to the taxpayers of employing county workers. Obviously, the Commissioners needed to negotiate these changes with the unions which they have done successfully.
Clearly they see the handwriting on the wall with the expected PERS cost explosion begining in 2017 and they are proactively taking prudent steps to get ahead of the curve. I hope this serves as a model for other county commissions to get their econmic houses in orders before it is too late.
Is the fix in? I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I read this story that the Federal Government may not demand back from Oregon the entire 305 Million dollars state bureaucrats wasted on the failed Cover Oregon website which never signed up a single customer. I was stunned that it may be such a small amount of money, ($800,000 plus) that the Feds might ask Oregon to pay back to the taxpayers.
The story doesn't say that the Feds will demand it back which along with the small amount identified as not appropriate spending makes me wonder if the ghost of disgraced former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber has been working quietly with the Feds (our Congressional delegation?) to make this all just go away and be forgotten. Are the Feds afraid to embarrass themselves further because they gave Kitzhaber 1.9 Billion dollars for another failing health care idea (CCO's) by demanding the full amount back for the failed website? Something is really fishy here and I think an investigation by Congress into why the CMS is not asking for all 305 million back is certainly warranted.
- Dec 16, 2015
The Federal Government Accountability Office released a report yesterday stating flatly the EPA violated Federal law regarding propoganda and lobbying over the EPA's "Waters of the United States" rulemaking process by using social media platforms that linked to environmental advocacy groups. Since Oregon's DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) implements EPA policy in Oregon is it a reasonable question to ask if the DEQ also violated Federal or state laws for the same reasons? We will find out and let you know.
