Word: states
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Furloughs were the budget-gap solution of choice for Lingle, a tough-talking Republican. Her administration also hopes to narrow the deficit with a similar furlough program agreed to this week with the state's largest public worker union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association. On the same day as the schools were closed, government offices, including the state's unemployment office, were shuttered. A complicated schedule closes numerous state offices two Fridays a month...
...State Rep. Lyla Berg, a former public school principal in Hawaii, said union, state education officials and the governor do not appear motivated to find another solution to the furloughs. At a recent briefing on the subject with the state lawmakers, it seemed that education and union officials were not interested in "assessing and correcting inefficiencies, waste, duplication and misuse of existing monies," said Berg, a Democrat and vice-chair of the Education Committee. "As a former teacher and middle school principal, I personally find the furlough alternative completely unacceptable," Berg said. "I hold all three parties responsible...
...audit found that the conflict has led to confusion at crime sites, arguments in front of state and local investigators, tit-for-tat recrimination and even a threat from the FBI to arrest an ATF agent. Each agency trains separately and has its own explosives database and lab. Agents race to explosions to claim the lead in investigations, and some managers are unclear about jurisdiction. According to the audit, two ambiguous memos in 2004 and 2008 failed to clarify the relationship. "These disputes can delay investigations, undermine federal and local relationships, and may project to local agency responders a disjointed...
...recent incident was in December 2008, when the agencies feuded over a Woodburn, Ore., bombing in which a device outside a bank killed a local bomb technician and a police chief. In June 2007, agents fought in front of state and local bomb-squad personnel at a blast site in the Mojave Desert. The ATF claimed it was notified too late for agents to work the scene, while the FBI claimed that ATF responded late, then wanted to take over the scene. Other recent incidents took place in Baltimore, Phoenix, New York City and San Diego...
Even though such power plants have very little political backing, they have been popping up from New England to the Pacific Northwest. The new technology does have support - for now. Fuels for Schools is a six-state program funded by federal and state money that helps to retrofit school boilers, switching them from burning oil and gas to wood. Starting in Vermont, it spread westward, giving budget-strapped local districts huge savings and a way to cut into buildups of forest deadfall that might otherwise fuel wildfires. However, it is now almost out of federal money. Even after the program...