If you see the Highway Patrol and other law enforcement around some of the state’s major coastal road arteries tomorrow, don’t be alarmed. The Department of Public Safety, in conjunction with a number of other state agencies will conduct a hurricane evacuation exercise Thursday. The exercise is designed to test lane reversal plans for Interstate 26, US 278, US 21, US 501 and SC 544. [Read more...]
Furman summer program tabbed one of nation’s best
June 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Created with a gift from an anonymous donor twelve years ago, Furman University’s “Bridges to a Brighter Future” program to help low income, academically promising teenagers receive learning and life-changing experiences in a college setting is now gaining national recognition. The National Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University has named the program as one of the nation’s best summer programs. In the 12 year existence of the program 100 percent of the students have graduated from high school or earned their G.E.D. 93 percent have enrolled in college. Program director Tobi Swartz says each summer about 75 teenagers participate in the four week program where they get to live on campus, take stimulating classes, and have a little fun as well. Swartz says the program serves students from the 14 public high schools in Greenville County.
“We work with their guidance counselors in the high schools and teachers and principals to identify students whose potential outdistances their circumstances. Once those students are identified and nominated, they go through an intensive selection process that includes an application and an interview. We individually select students based on their application and interview.”
Students accepted into the program come from families that earn less than $35,000 a year. 78 percent of the parents have a high school education or less. This year’s summer program begins Saturday, June 13. [Read more...]
Eckstrom concerned, income tax revenue down by half
June 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment
State Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom says a drop in state revenue in recent months has alarmed him. Eckstrom says income tax receipts showed a 48 percent drop($175 million) below those of last year.
He says the the long-term implications are frightening. “It’s just an old question mark over state government right now, the fact that our individual income tax receipts from last month were about half of what they were the same month of the prior year. It’s frightening . And they were really down the previous month as well.”
Eckstrom says individual income tax receipts over the past fiscal year are 16 percent below the prior year, amounting to $476 million less.
The state’s Board of Economic Advisers will meet Thursday to decide on revenue projections for the month. That information is used by the Budget and Control Board and government budget writers. Eckstrom says that the Board members will have to face the music. But he says since there are only a few months left in the fiscal year, that no recommendations for cuts in revenue projections could come early enough for state lawmakers to respond with more spending cuts.
The Republican Comtroller General says it’s a scenario that calls out for the state to keep greater financial reserves in place. He says trying to fix the situation right now is problematic. “It’s like dealing with a fire when it’s burning hot. You do fire drills before the fire breaks out. We’ve talked for years about dealing with situations like this but unfortunately we can’t get past the talk stage. State government just has to development spending caps and put them in place.”
Eckstrom also repeats what he has said before, and echoes the words of Governor Mark Sanford, encouraging lawmakers to reduce state debt. “We simply have to pay off some of our high debt. That debt is strangling us. And that debt is most dangerous at times like this when the money dries up. And we have to service debt. We ought to be avoiding borrowing and should try to pay our debt down to more reasonable levels.”
Eckstrom says he sees the current financial dilemma potentially leading to deficit spending, and the state isn’t allowed to deficit spend, according to its constitution. He says he believes that state lawmakers will look to the Budget and Control Board to make across-the-board cuts. Eckstrom, who is one of five members on the board, says that’s unfortunate. “All the Budget and Control Board can do is to make across-the-board cuts to all agencies. And I think that’s the wrong approach. I think elected officials ought to come back into session and go back through the budget, and determine which are the high-priority programs, and protect those as much as you can, and which are the low-priority programs, and cut those out completely.”
Eckstrom asserts that those who said that South Carolina government has a great credit rating were just putting a political spin on the issue. He points out that the state lost its AAA credit rating from Standard and Poores. The state still has aAAA rating from the other two rating agencies.
United Way targets murder rate
June 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Trident United Way, a non-profit organization that covers Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties, and the American Human Development Project has announced a new “Common Good Forecasting” Web-based tool that spokesperson Barry Waldman says could cut murder rates nearly in half.
“This forecasting tool actually lets you look at what would happen if you improved education in our state or in any of our three counties. For example, we know if we were able to help everybody improve their education level by one unit. If we did that we would improve average life expectancy by about two years a person,” says Waldman.
Waldman explains that improving levels by one unit means taking education to the next level. For example, for someone who didn’t graduate high school, they would graduate. Waldman says it starts with the building blocks of life.
“Sufficient education, to have a stable job, to have enough money to support a family, and good health. And, we know that the better educated people are, the better they take care of themselves, the less likely they are to be obese and have diabetes and strokes and heart disease, the less likely they are to get involved in violence, to have children out of wedlock, to be divorced, the longer they live, in fact,” says Waldman.
So, once they see the correlation between education, home life and murder rates through this forecasting tool, Waldman says they will start finding ways to help the community.
“United Way is taking the information we have gotten from this forecasting model and using it to shape how we invest in strategies, and programs, and initiatives that improve people’s lives measurably in our area. And, you know as you improve education levels, the murder rate declines,” says Waldman.
Waldman says they are first targeting children six-years-old and under because they believe those to be the most crucial years of learning.
Charleston gets preview of new pirate-fighting ship
June 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Tourists, locals, and ex-Navy marines took a first glance at the brand new U.S.S. Freedom that sailed into the Charleston Harbor this week. As the speed-boat, combat ship gets ready to serve as a platform for launching and recovering manned and unmanned vehicles, right now it is being tested through open waters, ending in San Diego, California.
“This ship is well designed to do some very specific things that would help us with anti-piracy. 3,000 ton warship which can go 45 knotts, a little bit more than that, which is a little over 50 miles per hour, and that’s pretty amazing for a ship this size. It is very similar to a ski-boat on steroids you could say,” says Executive Officer Randy Garner.
The 377-foot Freedom is the first of its class and is designed to engage pirates and other combatants in shallow coastal waters. The combat ship will have a crew of only 40 sailors, as most of the work will be conducted through the ship’s technology and as for weapons, “The ship has two kinds of weaponry, and that’s the kind the ship is built with,” says Garner.
“But, some of the weapons that are on the ship right now are a 57mm gun, that’s about a little over two-inch gun, shoots a two-inch round, goes about five miles, and closer. Ideally suited for shooting at small boats. It also has a rolling-airframe missile launcher, which is really for our own self-defense against air contacts or missiles that might be within a few miles of us,” says Garner.
The ship has a modular design that allows it to be reconfigured for anti-submarine, anti-mine, and anti-surface warfare missions as needed.
The vessel will leave Charleston on Thursday.
