Big State Salary Bumps in Kentucky; Alabama’s Solar ‘Black Hole’
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Also: A major tax increase in Nebraska and a plan for centralized neighborhood notifications in San Francisco.
FRANKFORT, Kentucky: When it comes to important functions like state government cybersecurity or data management, strained state budgets often make the private sector far more appealing when it comes to salaries. That in turn can force state government to pay top dollar for outside contractors or face a revolving door of in-house employees. In Kentucky, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports that about 550 state transportation engineers got raises of 20 percent on average in an effort to retain in-house talent and reduce the costs of outsourcing. [Lexington Herald-Leader]
NEW YORK CITY, New York: In the past few years, civic tech advocates have been critical players in getting local governments and agencies to unlock their data for the benefit of ordinary citizens and web developers. One agency in the New York City-area that has lagged behind has been the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Capital New York details how coders and a hackathon have helped thaw the ice. [Capital New York]
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama: Although plenty of power utilities in southern states like Georgia Power, Mississippi Power and Gulf Power have been making solar power investments, Alabama Power has been absent from this trend. In a guest article for AL.com, Keith Johnston and Katie Ottenweller of the Southern Environmental Law Center note how most of Alabama “is a black hole for solar” just as neighboring utilities are jumping on board. [Southern Environmental Law Center via AL.com]
PAPILLION, Nebraska: This growing community on Omaha’s southern fringe has been annexing land to its west and that municipal expansion includes farmland that has been in the same family since 1855. That property has been included in greenbelt tax breaks but that will be going away with the annexation, The World-Herald reports. And taxes on the farmland will increase six-fold, from $12,700 annually to what’s been estimated to be $76,000 annually. “Our taxes are going to be out of this world,” says the 75-year-old owner. [The World-Herald]
SAN FRANCISCO, California: A member of the city and county of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is introducing legislation that calls for the creation of a centralized neighborhood notification system, which Supervisor Mark Farrell said in a statement “will be a one-stop shop online for any City resident who wants to be more informed about their neighborhood–from the development project next-door, to whether their regular Muni stop is being moved to a different location.” The first phase would be the creation of a website that has information about city projects and permitting decisions by supervisorial district. The second phase would create a new electronic distribution system to relay pertinent information to residents who sign up for specific notifications. [Mark Farrell / SFBOS]
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