April 9, 2013

News

CA: San Fernando Valley’s Ivy Academia charter school founders convicted of embezzling public funds. A jury convicted the founders of the San Fernando Valley-based Ivy Academia charter school Friday of embezzling public money and filing false tax returns. Tatyana Berkovich and her husband, Yevgeny “Eugene” Selivanov, were charged with using $200,000 in public school funds for personal expenses and for a private school they owned.  Daily News

TX: Fastest Toll Road in Financial Trouble. San Antonio Express News is reporting SH 130, the toll road that stretches from Seguin to Georgetown, is not making the money expected….Now,  Moody Investor Service says it may downgrade the credit rating of the SH 130 Concession Company, the private company that backed the making of this toll road. Reports indicate if the road does not make more money it may not be able to pay its debts, which include a $430,000 federal loan.  FoxSanAntonio.com

NY: Nursing home politics. A day after the legislature again stalled the vote on McCoy’s plan to privatize the Colonie facility, GOP-sponsored robocalls began hitting in the districts of four Democratic legislators on Saturday. Albany Times Union

NC: Gov. McCrory seeks to privatize much of Commerce Department. The Partnership for Prosperity, headed by a board of directors that McCrory would chair, would oversee small business development, entrepreneurship, international investment, imports and exports and travel and tourism. The nonprofit will leverage existing state funds to get the private sector more involved in economic development, McCrory and Decker said. Eventually, they said, less state money will be needed to run programs now handled by the Department of Commerce and regional groups that receive state funding. WRAL.com

NC: 3 questions that Governor McCrory needs to answer about his privatization scheme. According to one recent report, states that have adopted public private partnerships for their economic development efforts have seen the misuse of taxpayer dollars, questionable incentive awards to failing companies, the appearance of pay-to-play incentive granting to those companies providing financial support to the partnership, and frequent lack of transparency and accountability with how the partnership spends taxpayer dollars. And to top it all off, many of these partnerships haven’t proven to be very effective in generating the job creation results promised. The Progressive Pulse

IN: Top Ind. senator wants funding for new toll road. A key Indiana senator wants funding for a proposed toll road around Indianapolis’ congested Interstate 465 bypass – a proposal that was dropped in 2007 amid strong public opposition. WSBT-TV