Port Dickinson Elementary School recognized for student achievement
CHENANGO BRIDGE, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – A local elementary is being recognized for making strides to raise student achievement.
Port Dickinson Elementary was designated a Promising Practices Professional Learning Community at Work by Solution Tree.
The Solution Tree program focuses on teacher professional development around three core areas: focus on learning, build a collaborative culture and create a results orientation.
The Chenango Valley School District says the approach has had a positive impact on student learning.
Port Dickinson Elementary School recognized for student achievement
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Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Pension change boon to Chicago police officers, firefighters, but additional hit to taxpayers
Last-minute changes approved by Illinois lawmakers in the waning days of the session will cost Chicago taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in their first year and billions over time by giving some police officers and firefighters more lucrative pensions. Lead sponsor Sen. Robert Martwick, a Chicago Democrat, told the Tribune the tweaks were a negotiated fix agreed to by Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker that was promised to both bring parity between Chicago and downstate first responders and help bridge a shortfall in benefits for employees hired after 2010. Johnson's finance team estimated the initial cost would be $52 million in 2027. Budget watchdogs warned it will add billions to the city's pension liability, a figure that topped $37 billion by the end of 2023. 'It adds to the city's burdens at the worst possible moment, with no consideration of the city's actual capacity to meet those burdens,' said Joe Ferguson, the president of the Civic Federation. Chicago Chief Financial Officer Jill Jaworski's office is still 'conducting a comprehensive analysis' of the long-term cost of the legislation, her team said in an email, and would have updated figures in the coming weeks. 'Given the speed with which the amendment was introduced, any estimates at this stage would be preliminary and subject to change.' Downstate first responders received boosted benefits as part of the state's landmark consolidation of their pension investments in 2019. Chicago police officers and firefighters argued they deserved the same and were assured that lawmakers would make good later. Dave Sullivan, a lobbyist for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, wrote in the union's monthly newsletter that several years ago Pritzker called 'personally to assure me that he would make Tier 2 parity … a reality,' and he looked forward to the governor's signature. Pritzker's office didn't respond to a question about whether there was such an agreement and said the bill was under review. Martwick said Johnson 'understood a promise was made. I give him credit' for living up to it. 'He continues to show — unlike so many of his predecessors — a willingness to solve the problem and consistency in terms of living up to those steps' to do so. Mayor Lori Lightfoot more vocally opposed pension sweeteners during her term, including a last-ditch attempt to convince Pritzker to veto firefighter pension legislation that was projected to add between $18 million and $30 million to the city's annual bill. Johnson, however, supported a similar bill for police in 2023, adding an estimated $60 million to the city's immediate pension tab and $1 billion to the police fund's total liability. Jaworski did file an opposition slip to Martwick's amendment in the Senate, testifying the change would cost an estimated $52 million in its first year and characterizing the proposal as 'an unfunded mandate,' her office said. The Johnson administration has been aware of the police and fire effort since at least two years ago, when the General Assembly considered similar legislation and delayed it at the request of the city, the bill's sponsors said. Simmering behind the city change is the failure of both city and state officials to come up with a fix for a projected shortfall in Tier II retirement benefits. Despite concerns that benefits for public employees at some point won't be equal to what Social Security would provide — a violation of a federal 'safe harbor' law — the legislature did not pass a comprehensive Tier II overhaul this session. And Chicago officials who face the same problem haven't published the findings of a pension working group convened two years ago. Martwick, a member of the working group, said this legislation does help partially address their shortfall. Separately, the state budget passed this session includes a $75 million set-aside to help pay for the first year of expected adjustments for state Tier II employees. The Chicago pension legislation makes three key benefit boosts. First, it increases the final salary cap used to determine pension benefits for police and fire retirees from $127,283 to $141,408. It also changes the rate at which that salary cap for police officers and firefighters rises every year. The current rate is either half of the rate of inflation or 3%, whichever is lower. The bill switches that calculation to the full rate of inflation or 3%, whichever is lower. The third tweak changes the time frame to determine that final average salary figure. Right now, police officers' benefits are based on the average of the highest salary from eight of the last 10 years of their career. The bill allows for an alternate calculation based on four of the last five years, a boon for officers who received big raises at the very end of their careers. Officers would be paid the higher of the two. Firefighters already won that 'dual-method' calculation in 2023. Downstate police and fire pensioners won it as part of the consolidation effort. The change will definitely cost more, but how much will not be clear until the city or its pension funds perform an actuarial calculation. Ferguson said based on the federation's 'back of the envelope' math, the fix creates a rising annual cost that will top out at $750 million by the 2050s and add billions to the funds' long-term liabilities. 'It came late, mostly under cover of night, within the context of what was an utter whirlwind at the end of session,' Ferguson told the Tribune, noting the proposals were tucked in amid language to ensure children of deceased service members receive part of their parents' pension benefits. 'It's curious and it's troubling that something of this magnitude was able to fly by without there being more meaningful discussion of its near- and long-term impact,' Ferguson said, especially from Chicago legislators. Martwick filed the language as a gut-and-replace amendment in the last week of the spring legislative session. Lawmakers considered the legislation in a Senate committee a day later, and House lawmakers both discussed the matter in committee and passed the bill on the floor on the final day of the session. Moving massive bills in the final days of spring session is often the norm in Springfield, which also saw lawmakers publicly introduce and pass a $55 billion budget package within days of adjournment this year. 'It's important to underscore that the City was given very limited time to respond and was unable to conduct a fully validated, in-depth analysis before the hearing and the bill's passage — despite the fact that the legislation will have significant and lasting implications for the City,' a spokesperson for Jaworski said. Given the city knew the adjustment was a possibility years ago, Democratic Rep. Stephanie Kifowit said it was 'disingenuous' to suggest the bill came at the last minute. The Oswego lawmaker and bill sponsor pointed to video-gaming terminals as a potential funding source. State lawmakers repeatedly throughout the legislative session called for the city to use terminals to resolve its funding needs, but Chicago currently doesn't allow them. Critics fear terminals would cannibalize revenues at Bally's casino, which are already dedicated to public safety pensions. 'Their lack of movement on providing revenues for pensions is, to me, not compelling enough to disenfranchise the Chicago Police Department and the benefits that they rightly deserve,' Kifowit said of the city. State Sen. Li Arellano Jr., a Republican from Dixon and a former mayor of Dixon, was the lone 'no' vote when the bill went through the Senate Pensions Committee on May 28, a few days before the legislature adjourned. Given the low funding levels of Chicago's pensions, Arellano said he could not in good conscience 'say, yes, let's throw more debt onto Chicago taxpayers.' 'But since it was Chicago taxpayers footing this particular bill, there was a lot less resistance to it in the Senate,' he continued. No lawmaker, including Arellano, voted against the changes when they came up in the full Senate or full House. 'I think (what's challenging) for the Republican caucus is if none of the senators representing the city of Chicago itself had a problem with it, I think a lot in the Republican caucus said, 'Well, if this is what all of the voices representing Chicago want to do, who are we to disagree with them?''
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
Democratic strategist David Plouffe to become Coinbase's newest adviser
SAN FRANCISCO — David Plouffe, the veteran Democratic strategist who in recent years has worked extensively in tech, is joining the global advisory council of Coinbase. Plouffe, who recently helped guide Kamala Harris' presidential campaign and was a top aide to Barack Obama, is the latest political heavy-hitter to join the advisory body, telling POLITICO he'll bring his skills as a storyteller to an industry whose regulatory struggles have turned into a fight for credibility and stability. Among Plouffe's charges will be outreach to tech-savvy voters who flocked to Democrats during the Obama era, but have shifted to the right in recent years. It's another move meant to reinforce the bipartisan credentials of the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange as it pushes for broader buy-in after Republicans and President Donald Trump opened their arms to the industry and many of its policy goals. 'A lot of the debate is 'are you pro-crypto or anti-crypto, pro-ride sharing or not, pro-home-sharing or not,'' Plouffe said in an interview, referencing the emerging industries that have grown around companies like Uber and Airbnb. 'And I think this next stage is really deepening the benefits, whether that's the unbanked, whether that's security, whether that's opening up new forms of commerce.' Plouffe arrives a few months after the advisory council added former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — a Democrat turned independent — and Chris LaCivita, who served as Trump's co-campaign manager in 2024. Others on the board include the Democratic pollster John Anzalone; former Democratic Reps. Tim Ryan of Ohio and Stephanie Murphy of Florida; former Republican Sen. Pat Toomey; as well as longtime Republican strategist and lobbyist David Urban, among others. Plouffe and LaCivita are appearing on a panel this morning with Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase's chief policy officer at the exchange's third annual State of Crypto Summit in Manhattan. Plouffe has worked in a number of prominent tech roles before, including at Uber, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and rival crypto exchange Binance in a similar advisory post. He was a top adviser to Obama's first campaign and then served in the White House. He joined Harris' unsuccessful bid last fall, blending with a team of Harris loyalists and leftover aides and advisers to former President Joe Biden. Plouffe joins the exchange's council during a crucial week for the crypto industry in Washington, where both the Senate and the House advanced key pieces of legislation. The Senate could vote as soon as Monday on a bill that would create a new regulatory structure for stablecoins, which are tied to real-world assets, and is seen as an important step toward legitimizing crypto. Two committees in the House approved another bill that would lay down the first U.S. regulatory framework for crypto assets — but not without exposing deep Democratic divisions over how to police a sector that Trump has so blatantly embraced and profited off of through his family ventures. Plouffe conceded that 'there were elements of the Biden administration clearly not very friendly to the industry' and he has since seen remarkable progress in Democrats' attitude toward crypto. The digital asset industry found itself in the crosshairs of Biden's regulators after a series of high-profile scandals. Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler wielded the agency's enforcement powers to file lawsuits and actions against companies like Coinbase, which it dropped after Trump came into power. 'In some of the votes in the Senate, in the House, and some of the comments made from people who might end up being presidential candidates in '28, I think there's an understanding,' Plouffe told POLITICO. They may have learned from last campaign cycle, when Coinbase's influence operation quietly thrust the once-niche digital asset world into the heart of the 2024 elections. It outspent every other business in the sector on lobbying, poured millions into the industry's leading super PAC and helped launch a grassroots arm. Crypto has made a concerted push to keep a bipartisan reputation, though. The super PAC, Fairshake, also heavily backed the races of friendly Democrats like Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. Industry lobbyists have worried that the Trump family's fast-growing interests in crypto could distract from getting the legislation it wants from Capitol Hill and undermine the president's own desire to make the U.S. 'the crypto capital of the world.' 'We don't try to solve for one particular political circumstance or another,' Shirzad told POLITICO. 'That's been our model for the last two and a half years that we did our political efforts. And so far it's, I think, paid off for us.'
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Full List of Lawmakers Who Traded Stocks After Trump's Tariffs Announcement
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. In the days that followed President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" announcements, the climax of his second-term trade policy, lawmakers reported hundreds of stock trades. Newsweek has compiled a ranking of trades made by members of Congress between April 3, the day after President Trump unveiled reciprocal tariffs on dozens of trading partners, and when these were paused on April 9. Why It Matters The imposition and subsequent reversal of the president's sweeping tariff policies resulted in significant stock market volatility, with indexes crashing following the announcement and those who purchased in the interim benefitting from a boost when these were placed on hold. The high number of trades made by lawmakers during this period has again raised questions about the ethics of congressional stock trading. Rob Bresnahan speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, Aug. 17, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. President Donald Trump speaks during a 'Make America Wealthy Again' trade... Rob Bresnahan speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, Aug. 17, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. President Donald Trump speaks during a 'Make America Wealthy Again' trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, DC. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 21, 2020. More Carolyn Kaster / Chip Somodevilla / Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo / Getty Images / AP Photo Members of Congress are permitted to buy and sell stocks, provided they disclose these within 30 days of the transaction, per the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. However, many lawmakers, including some of those in the list below, have advocated that lawmakers be banned from stock trading altogether, given the insider knowledge they may have of market-moving events, as well as the concerns this could raise among citizens' regarding possible conflicts of interest. Surveys have also shown that overwhelming bipartisan majorities are in favor of banning stock trading by members of Congress. Which Lawmakers Made Trades After Liberation Day? Below is a list of trades made by U.S. lawmakers between April 3 and April 9, based on publicly available disclosures tracked by The list includes both sales and purchases during this time and is ranked according to the total number. Representative Rob Bresnahan, Republican, Pennsylvania Total trades: 182 Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat, New Jersey Total trades: 87 Representative Jefferson Shreve, Republican, Indiana Total trades: 57 Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican, Georgia Total trades: 42 Representative Julie Johnson, Democrat, Texas Total trades: 31 Representative Jared Moskowitz, Democrat, Florida Total trades: 25 Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican, Oklahoma Total trades: 20 Representative Michael McCaul, Republican, Texas Total trades: 18 Senator John Boozman, Republican, Arkansas Total trades: 14 Representative Dwight Evans, Democrat, Pennsylvania Total trades: 13 Representative April Delaney, Democrat, Maryland Total trades: 10 Representative Bruce Westerman, Republican, Arkansas Total trades: 7 Senator Dave McCormick, Republican, Pennsylvania Total trades: 6 Representative Tony Wied, Republican, Wisconsin Total trades: 5 Senator Ashley Moody, Republican, Florida Total trades: 4 Representative Gilbert Cisneros, Democrat, California Total trades: 3 Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat, Rhode Island Total trades: 2 Representative Mike Collins, Republican, Georgia Total trades: 2 Representative Kevin Hern, Republican, Oklahoma Total trades: 2 Representative Rick Larsen, Democrat, Washington Total trades: 2 Representative Vicente Gonzalez, Democrat, Texas Total trades: 2 Representative Gilbert Cisneros, Democrat, California Total trades: 1 Representative Victoria Spartz, Republican, Indiana Total trades: 1 Representative Max Miller, Republican, Ohio Total trades: 1 Representative Donald Sternoff Beyer, Democrat, Virginia Total trades: 1 Despite being the two most prolific traders on this list, Pennsylvania Republican Bresnahan and New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer have both in the past advocated for regulations on congressional stock trading. In 2024, Bresnahan penned an article in the Pottsville Republican Herald in which he said he would "happily co-sponsor" bipartisan legislation aimed at banning congressional stock trading. In May, following a report on his stock trades in the New York Times, Bresnahan introduced a bill entitled the Transparency in Representation through Uniform Stock Trading Ban Act, which would go into effect in 2027 and require lawmakers to place certain assets into a blind trust, an arrangement in which assets are transferred to and managed by a third party without the individual's knowledge or control. Bresnahan said he would work to move his own personal assets into a blind trust in a May 6 press release. Gottheimer told CNBC in 2022 that he didn't believe members of Congress should not be "be directly involved in trading," and instead said hand control of their investments over to a blind trust, later cosponsoring legislation to this end. Gottheimer said that his own investments were managed by an outside party, adding: "I think that's the way it should be: Hands off, third-party, no decision-making from a member of Congress." Newsweek has reached out to the offices of Representatives Bresnahan and Gottheimer via phone for comment. What People Are Saying Republican Representative Mike Lawler, in response to a chart showing the gains made by a stock purchased by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, wrote: "Just another reason why stock trading by members of Congress or their spouses should be banned. The appearance of impropriety, or worse, is too great." Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, in a statement following the introduction of the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, said: "Members of Congress should not be playing the stock market while we make Federal policy and have extraordinary access to confidential information. Stock trading by members of Congress massively erodes public confidence in Congress and creates a serious appearance of impropriety, which is why we should ban stock trading by members of Congress altogether." What Happens Next? President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs are still subject to the 90-day pause announced on April 9, which will expire in early July. The administration has said that this window will allow for comprehensive negotiations with America's main trading partners.
