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We might have a few nice weather days ahead…what’s on your mind?

The Federal government can’t seem to get its act together, with the Republicans offering several debt management plans, and Democrat leader Harry Reid pledging to squash the bills coming from the House. Nice mess.

Meanwhile, back in North Idaho, the City of Hayden just proposed a 3% budget increase, adds no new positions and gives no raises to any of their employees. Rathdrum offers a 1% budget increase with no new positions and no pay raises for anyone. Coeur d’Alene has proposed no budget increase but wants a 3% raise for everyone and almost half of them would get up to 8%. The CdA city council will meet this Tues. to decide.  Your thoughts?

It’s summer, but beneath the quiet warm-ish days there are important local issues being discussed.  The city wants to give not only a 3% raise to all its employees, but wants to add 8% merit pay for almost half of them! (latest unemployment figures for CdA = 11.8%)

Last night there was a meeting about the East Sherman neighborhood problem with the Fresh Start homeless center. The neighbors were told by city councilman Mike Kennedy that they, the citizens, need to monitor the problems, take photos, gather evidence and report to the city. Is that the job of citizens?  You can read the Press article here.  Your thoughts on this or any other topic…

CdA has a current unemployment rate of 11.8%. That’s UP  .5% from the previous month. It’s much higher than the state average of 9.4%, but our city officials are now proposing a 3% budget increase so they can give pay raises to the city employees to fulfill the union’s stipulations.

You can read today’s Press article on the proposed budget increase here.
You can read about the latest unemployment statistics here.

What do you think? When’s the last raise you received?

Many folks questioning their local governance are met with incredulous responses like, “Do you think all these people could be in collusion…that would be impossible!” Well, here it is, people:

A state investigation reveals that 200 Atlanta school district officials and teachers  cheated on test score results for the last decade, even winning awards based on their fraudulent results.

You’ve got to read this one in the Washington Times.