Philadelphia's Workforce Development Challenge: Serving Employers, Helping Jobseekers and Fixing the System

Over the last four years, half a billion dollars in public funds were spent in Philadelphia in the name of workforce development -- helping residents get jobs or skills and employers find workers to sustain or expand their businesses.These services, which include training for workers and recruiting for employers, were funded largely by federal and state dollars at an annual cost that ranged from $118 million to$134 million. All of these services were free of charge to workers; most were free to employers. Had these efforts been part of city government last year, and they were not, they would have constituted its fifth biggest department, surpassed only by police, fire, prisons, and human services. Roughly 1 in 10 workingage Philadelphians have sought help at a workforce development center on an annual basis. Behind this system have been two nonprofit organizations, the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation, which allocates most of the money, and the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board Inc., which sets general strategy. Both are led by city appointees and are accountable to state funding agencies. For years, the performance of the two organizations received little attention from local elected officials, and their complicated division of roles sometimes led to confusion and impasses. In recent years, unpublicized state audits have found isolated problems with their financial controls.That structure is now being changed, and a new strategy is being implemented. The development corporation and most functions of the investment board are to be combined under a single agency, Philadelphia Works Inc., which will formally take over by June 2012. This report examines the workforce development system's performance, operations and challenges over the past several years -- hard economic times in which increasing numbers of Philadelphians were looking for work. It is based on extensive interviews, a review of internal audits and reports, and a statistical comparison of the system's performance with that of similar, federally mandated programs in other region

Former Presidents: Pensions, Office Allowances, and Other Federal Benefits

[Excerpt] The Former Presidents Act (FPA; 3 U.S.C. § 102 note) charges the General Services Administration (GSA) with providing former Presidents a pension, support staff, office support, travel funds, and mailing privileges. The FPA was enacted to “maintain the dignity” of the Office of the President by giving a former President — and his or her spouse — certain benefits so that he would not have to enter unsuitable occupations after leaving office. Former Presidents currently receive a pension that is equal to pay for the head of an executive department (Executive Level I), which was $191,300 as of January 1, 2008. The FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act allocated$2,478,000 for pensions and GSA assistance to former Presidents. The President’s FY2009 budget requested $2,934,000 for expenditures for former Presidents. Pending House and Senate appropriations legislation recommends the requested amount. Prior to 1958, former Presidents leaving office received no pension or federal assistance. After leaving office, some former Presidents — including Ulysses S. Grant and Harry S Truman — struggled financially. In 1912, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie unveiled a plan to pay$25,000 pensions to all future former Presidents and their widows. The pensions were to be funded by the Carnegie Foundation of New York. Some Members of Congress and the public suggested it was inappropriate for a private company to pay pensions to former Presidents. Legislation was introduced that year to grant public pensions to former Presidents, but none of the bills were reported from committee. William Howard Taft, the only former President who was then eligible for Carnegie’s offer, refused the pension. Since 1962, the U.S. Secret Service has provided protection to former Presidents because of their status as “visible national symbol[s].” Protection has subsequently been expanded to cover a former President’s wife until death or remarriage. Minor children of former Presidents who are under 16 years of age also receive protection. In 1994, the law was amended to limit U.S. Secret Service coverage to 10 years for any President, and his spouse, who left office after January 1, 1997. President George W. Bush will be the first former President affected by this statutory change. In the 110th Congress, Representative John Conyers introduced a bill (H.R. 5938) that would extend U.S. Secret Service Protection to a Vice President, his or her spouse, and family for up to six months after leaving office. Currently, Secret Service protection for a Vice President and his or her family is provided on an ad hoc basis. This report describes the benefits Presidents receive upon leaving office, details the history of the FPA, and analyzes some legislative options for the 110th Congress related to former Presidents

Hicksville Union Free School District and Hicksville School Nurses Association

In the Matter of the Fact-Finding between THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE HICKSVILLE UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT and THE HICKSVILLE SCHOOL NURSES ASSOCIATION. PERB Case No: M 2005-264 Eugene S. Ginsberg, Fact Finde

Integrin activation.

Integrin-mediated cell adhesion is important for development, immune responses, hemostasis and wound healing. Integrins also function as signal transducing receptors that can control intracellular pathways that regulate cell survival, proliferation, and cell fate. Conversely, cells can modulate the affinity of integrins for their ligands a process operationally defined as integrin activation. Analysis of activation of integrins has now provided a detailed molecular understanding of this unique form of "inside-out" signal transduction and revealed new paradigms of how transmembrane domains (TMD) can transmit long range allosteric changes in transmembrane proteins. Here, we will review how talin and mediates integrin activation and how the integrin TMD can transmit these inside out signals

Enhancement of platelet response to immune complexes and IgG aggregates by lipid A-rich bacterial lipopolysaccharides.

The effect of the common lipid moiety of bacterial LPS on secretion from washed human platelets has been studied. The lipid A-rich LPS of S. minnesota R595 and a lipid A preparation both potentiated platelet serotonin secretion in response to IgG aggregates or immune complexes up to 50-fold but had little effect in the absence of IgG. Lipid A has been shown to bind immune aggregates, raising the possibility that its mechanism of action involved effective enlargement or insolubilization of the aggregates. IgG aggregates of dimer to tetramer size were shown to be platelet simuli, equivalent on a weight basis to larger soluble aggregates. The effect of both sizes of aggregates on platelets were equally enhanced by the LPS, indicating that increased size of aggregates alone could not account for the effect of LPS. Similarly, because lipid A-rich LPS enhanced platelet response to already insoluble immune complexes, its mechanism of action cannot simply be insolubilization of immune aggregates. These LPS did not enhance platelet stimulation by antiplatelet antibody, monosodium urate crystals, or thrombin and only slightly enhanced stimulation by insoluble human skin collagen. This indicates some stimulus specificity in the ability of LPS to increase platelet secretion. The enhancement of cell response to immune complexes by the common lipid region of LPS may represent a mechanism for the diverse effects of LPS in vivo and in vitro

The NAS Perchlorate Review: Questions Remain about the Perchlorate RfD

Human exposure to perchlorate is commonplace because it is a contaminant of drinking water, certain foods, and breast milk. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a perchlorate risk assessment in 2002 that yielded a reference dose (RfD) based on both the animal and human toxicology data. This assessment has been superceded by a recent National Academy of Science (NAS) review that derived a perchlorate RfD that is 20-fold greater (less stringent) than that derived by the U.S. EPA in 2002. The NAS-derived RfD was put on the U.S. EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database very quickly and with no further public review. In this commentary we raise concerns about the NAS approach to RfD development in three areas of toxicity assessment: the dose that the NAS described as a no observable adverse-effect level is actually associated with perchlorate-induced effects; consideration of uncertainties was insufficient; and the NAS considered the inhibition of iodine uptake to be a nonadverse effect. We conclude that risk assessors should carefully evaluate whether the IRIS RfD is the most appropriate value for assessing perchlorate risk