Commentary

Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: the fight against COVID goes to the dogs

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2 days ago
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Once again, dogs get all the good press.

And once again, I find myself reading aloud a news story to my twin tuxedo cats, Joey and Chandler as they pace around the food bowls in the kitchen.

“Boys, it says here that dogs are being used to detect the coronavirus just by smelling people!”

They immediately flopped to the floor and fell asleep. There was a  definite “wake me up when it’s time for the Fancy Feast” vibe to their reaction.

I’d heard, years ago, dogs could be trained to detect certain cancers, which led to a brief but passionate crusade to get a talented friend to rename his rock band “The Cancer Sniffin’ Dogs.” He didn’t bite. I thought it was genius, but a prophet is seldom loved in her own land. I think Ramona Singer said that.

So it’s not a total shock the dogs being tested at the University of Pennsylvania and the London School of Hygiene (home of the “Fightin’ Bar Soaps!”) are showing some promise at detecting COVID before we know we have it. Dogs have long been trained to sniff out certain cancers, contraband, malaria and even a bacteria destroying Florida’s orange groves.

According to The Washington Post, six Labrador retrievers will be deployed to sniff passengers at airports. The goal will be to sniff up to 250 people per hour, a number Joe Biden called “Tuesday.”

That said, it could be unnerving to be pulled out of the TSA line like you’re a favorite rawhide bone, because the doctor is in and it turns out he’s four-legged.

The star of the show, so far, is Poncho, a cute lab who, armed with the scent of urine and saliva samples from Covid-infected humans, is being trained to alert his handlers like you got a pound of weed in your carry-on. Ah, the good old days.

As someone who is afraid of dogs, this will prove doubly traumatic if Poncho “outs” me in an infected state. Why not a cat? WHY????

And then, as if they could read my mind, Joey and Chandler…rolled over and fell back asleep.

For the love of…

The biggest hurdle so far is the lack of dogs available. Turns out,  TSA is already experiencing a serious shortage of explosives-sniffing dogs.

“We don’t have enough detection dogs and…now, all of a sudden everyone wants a COVID detection dog?” mused one official.

Well, not everyone. It’s not like telling Santa you want a puppy, but I get her point. I’d be happy to ship her my neighbor’s dog who waits until I get dead-even with his fence on my (cough) daily walk and then barks so loudly I jump, flap my arms wildly and scream. Every single time. Yes, where can HE sign up?

Will there ever come a day when a cat performs this sort of heroic work? Ha. Look at that. I think Joey and Chandler are laughing in their sleep.

Celia Rivenbark spent an entire day putting together a hanging shoe organizer that “assembles in 15 minutes.”

Commentary, COVID-19

Utility shutoff moratorium, protections from other fees and debts are essential while crisis continues

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3 days ago
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In Commentary, COVID-19

Image: Adobe Stock

In this time of crisis, all of us need to be looking out for our families and neighbors, protecting and helping our brothers and sisters in every way we can. After all, we are our brothers’ keeper. Our response must be based on compassion, morality, and care for our communities—values rooted in our shared faith traditions. To that end, one essential, immediate step the Governor must take is to extend the moratorium on utility disconnections – currently set to expire on May 30—until this emergency is over.

For the past couple of months, we have shared a common faith that we can work together to support each other as people began getting sick and dying from COVID-19, as businesses closed down, jobs were lost, and families began struggling to weather the economic crisis. And the twin storms of pandemic and unprecedented job loss have hit Black and Latinx communities disproportionately hard.

While 22 percent of North Carolina residents are African American, Black people account for 31 percent of all COVID-19 infections and an alarming 36 percent of all related deaths. Hispanics account for about 10 percent of the state’s population but more than 35 percent of infections. These disproportionate outcomes mirror the unfair poverty levels that people in these demographic groups experience–over twenty percent of all African Americans and about a quarter of all Hispanics live at or below the poverty line compared to only one-tenth of white families. As has been widely reported, long-term structural racial inequality in education, health care, and wealth too often force Black and Latinx residents to take on the low-wage, manual, and often public-facing service jobs that are still deemed “essential” at a time while much of the population is asked to stay at home.

While our Governor is taking steps toward slowly reopening businesses, we all must recognize that it will be many months before hundreds of thousands of households of all racial and ethnic backgrounds will be financially stable enough to afford basic necessities like rent and utilities. One data point that drives this home is that more than 425,000 households could have already lost one or more vital utility services, such as access to clean water, electricity, or gas due to being unable to pay their bills over the last two months. While this data is not reported by race, it is likely that a disproportionate number of households struggling to pay their utilities bills are also within Black and Latinx households. Even before the pandemic, within households at or below the Federal Poverty Level, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration has shown that in our region, African American households more often experience shut-offs of essential electricity service than their white counterparts. Read more

Commentary, NC Budget and Tax Center

Twelve good ideas for the General Assembly to move forward on now

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3 days ago
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In Commentary, NC Budget and Tax Center

This week was the filing deadline for legislative proposals at the General Assembly. While it isn’t the last opportunity for legislators to introduce policy ideas for consideration, it presents an important milestone in the session and a crucial time to review the priorities of policymakers.

The work of the General Assembly will be critical to address the public health threat of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ripple effects through the economy. There remain many gaps in the response from federal and state policymakers and the result is persistently high needs for families and communities across North Carolina.

The following are a dozen legislative proposals that would support the well-being of our neighbors and secure a stronger recovery for our state.

  1. House Bill 1229 (Howard, Wray, Saine) would provide funding for the unemployment insurance system, which has been overwhelmed by a historic number claims and pays out only half of those claims to individuals. It would also extend a temporary waiver on the time limit on food assistance. House Bill 1075 (Alston, Batch, Holley, Hunt) and Senate Bill 792 (Nickel, Chaudhuri) would also make important fixes to the system to protect workers and the economy when federal programs expire at the end of July.
  2. House Bill 1120 and Senate Bill 778 (Murdock, Smith, Foushee) would expand anti-hunger programming on college campuses  and provide funding to UNC institutions for this purpose. With college students excluded from federal food assistance and often facing higher rates of food insecurity, this program makes sense anytime, but particularly when hardship is likely to persist. Senate Bill 849 (Petersen), another important anti-hunger proposal, would remove the ban on food assistance for certain people with drug felonies and would support their successful re-entry from prisons and jails to society.
  3. House Bill 1040 (Batch, Brewer, Clark, Gailliard) and Senate Bill 834 (Robinson, Foushee, Blue) would close the Medicaid coverage gap. It would ensure that people who have lost health insurance during COVID-19, as well as those who were blocked from accessing Medicaid before the virus hit, can receive affordable care. In addition to creating a healthier, stronger community, researchers estimate the state would increase its business activity by $11.7 billion in just three years between 2020-2022 which could be spent on education, infrastructure and other needs.
  4. A series of bills would make important steps in addressing the state’s affordable housing challenge, including the unique pressures on renters and homeowners whose income has been disrupted by COVID-19. House Bill 1134 (Autry, Holley, Harris, Butler) and House Bill 1135 (Autry, Holley, Harrison, Butler) would provide rental and foreclosure assistance, respectively, while House Bill 1200 (Szoka, Saine, Baker, P. Jones) would do the same. House Bill 1208 (Lambeth) would put more dollars towards the state’s Workforce Housing Loan Program, supporting the development of more affordable units across the state. Read more
Commentary, Education

Memo to charter school advocates: Get your facts straight; stop undermining traditional public education

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3 days ago
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In Commentary, Education

North Carolina charter advocates continually complain of an “unfair” funding system despite regularly outspending comparable traditional public schools. An analysis of expenditure data from the ’18-19 school year indicates that charter schools maintain a small, $83 per-student local funding advantage over similar public schools. Charter advocates seeking greater investment in charter students should stop trying to take money from the less-advantaged traditional sector and instead work together to ensure state leaders deliver adequate funding for all students.

North Carolina’s schools – both traditional schools and charters – receive funding from three sources: state, local, and federal. In all cases, funding for charters is on par with funding for traditional public schools.

In the ’18-19 school year, federal funding (excluding child nutrition funding) comprised just 6% of operating expenditures in traditional schools, compared to 4% in charter schools. But traditional and charter schools compete for federal funds on relatively equal funding. The vast majority of federal funding supports students from families with low incomes (Title I) and students with disabilities (IDEA). Traditional schools’ “advantage” in federal spending simply reflects that traditional public schools enroll a higher share of students from families with low incomes and students with disabilities.

Traditional and charter schools compete on pretty much equal funding when it comes to state funding, as well. Essentially, charters receive the same per-student funding of the district in which the charter school is located, except that a charter’s amounts for English learners and students with disabilities are calculated based on actual enrollment in the charter school. Contrary to the claims of charter advocates, charter schools receive an equal per-student share of transportation funding. To the extent charters are shortchanged, it’s that they aren’t eligible for state funding for replacement school buses (they should be). But charters also benefit from allotments like At-Risk and Disadvantaged Student Supplemental Funding that are calculated based on county-wide estimates of student need despite charters having fewer at-risk or disadvantaged students.

It’s local funding that has consistently been the subject of charter advocates’ dishonest whining. Specifically, they have falsely claimed that, when it comes to local funding, “for every one dollar sent to traditional public schools, public charters receive less than 75 cents.” The claim appears absurd on its face, as per-student spending in charter schools exceeded spending in traditional public schools by $246 per student in ’18-19 (see Tables 25 and 40.2 of DPI’s Statistical Profile). To be fair, that comparison overstates charters’ local spending advantage. Charter students disproportionately hail from urban districts with higher levels of local spending. But the charter advantage remains even after adjusting for students’ residence. Per-pupil local spending in traditional districts where the average charter student lives was $2,485 in 18-19, while their charter schools spent $2,567 per student, a difference of $83 per student.

The difference is quite small in the grand scheme of things. But hopefully the analysis of actual data will finally convince charter leaders from pretending they receive “a fraction of the funding that traditional public schools receive.” If charter leaders think their funding is too low (in most charter schools it probably is!), then they should be advocating for greater funding for all public schools. More specifically, the state’s plan for bringing an end to the long-running Leandro court case by providing a constitutional education to all students would increase state funding in charter schools by about 40 percent, or $2,500 per student.

For charter schools, there is little to be gained from continually trying to slice away funding from their traditional school counterparts. Charter leaders sincerely interested in securing additional funding for their students should stop the dishonest whining, and instead unite with the public school advocates seeking to deliver adequately funded schools for all of North Carolina’s public school students.

Kris Nordstrom is a Senior Policy Analyst with the North Carolina Justice Center’s Education & Law Project.

Commentary, COVID-19, NC Budget and Tax Center

Big falloff in revenues dictates an obvious course for state leaders

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5 days ago
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In Commentary, COVID-19, NC Budget and Tax Center

As economic projections worsen across the country, the outlook on state budget shortfalls is equally bleak. While there is still much we don’t know, North Carolina’s fiscal picture is now a little clearer with the release of the state’s first revenue forecast since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week’s consensus revenue forecast expects revenue collections to be down $4.2 billion –  $1.6 billion (6.6%) this fiscal year and $2.6 billion (9.9%) next year. That means fewer public resources at a time of growing demand for services and supports. Without additional revenue, $1.6 billion less in North Carolina’s General Fund is equivalent to the total state funding currently allotted to the Community College System plus NC State University, combined. Next year, a $2.6 billion hit would be equivalent to the entire state allocation for Justice and Public Safety.

State economists have repeatedly emphasized the unprecedented and uncertain nature of the current crisis. There will not be a final account of state revenue until after the new tax filing deadline, which was pushed back from April 15 to July 15. But economic indicators, such as skyrocketing unemployment and plummeting GDP, suggest that this recession could be deeper and longer than any in modern history.

Unfortunately, as the chart indicates, North Carolina’s current fiscal position has been hampered by past policy choices that provided tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

The state is estimated to currently collect $3.6 billion less per year than it would had lawmakers not enacted the tax cuts that commenced in 2013. Starting this downturn from a diminished level of revenue collection means our public institutions were already under-resourced and unable to fully meet people’s basic needs, long before our current public health and economic crisis began.

The latest revenue forecast paints a troubling picture of state finances and points to the urgent need for additional and flexible federal aid to state and local governments. According to U.S. Treasury guidance, federal funding cannot be used to cover revenue shortfalls, and it must be received by recipients by the end of 2020 and spent on COVID-related expenses incurred before the new year.

A recent proposal passed by the U.S. House would provide critical aid to state and local governments, with estimates suggesting it would deliver about $6.8 billion in state aid to North Carolina and more than $11 billion to the state’s local governments.

Without additional federal funds or state revenue, budget cuts could cause thousands of people to lose access to public resources and services at a time during which they need them most. North Carolina’s leaders should act quickly by asking the federal government for more flexible state aid and requiring companies that have profited from the pandemic – like big banks and online retail giants – to pay their fair share in state taxes.

Building a more vibrant and inclusive economy will depend on thoughtful fiscal policies that put people before profits.

Leila Pedersen is a policy analyst at the N.C. Budget & Tax Center.

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