Sonoma Co supervisor meetings to stream live

Positive news coming out of NACo President Valerie Brown's home county as reported by KGO-TV San Francisco:

Starting Tuesday, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors' meetings will be live on the Internet. Internet users also will be able to access the meeting's agenda, staff reports and resolutions. The live streaming will include captioning for the hearing impaired. The board's meetings also will be archived starting with Tuesday's meeting and will be available for replay. Tuesday's meeting includes discussion on the county's budget and the condition of its roads.

"This will enhance the public's access to their county government," Board Chair and 1st District Supervisor Valerie Brown said. "This is a smart use of technology that moves the county closer to being paperless, and also complements our sustainability efforts," Brown said.

State of the Union?

There's a huge event in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday. Oh, yes, President Obama is giving the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the evening. But I was talking about the Partnership for Medicaid's "State of Medicaid" Congressional briefing at 9 a.m. in the new Capitol Visitor's Center. NACo is a member of the Partnership for Medicaid, a national coalition of of major stakeholder organizations in the Medicaid program. Each year, the coalition updates Hill staff about the importance of maintaining and strengthening the Medicaid safety net. The Partnership representatives will discuss its 14 principles and stress these in particular: Congress should 1) preserve the federal guarantee of Medicaid coverage, services and consumer protections; 2) expand Medicaid eligibility; 3) improve provider and health plan reimbursement rates and 4) address fraud and abuse.

States in Crisis

Happy New Year! Or is it. Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal writes today in his column, "The Year Ahead - U.S. Focus 2010," about "States in Crisis." He says correctly that one of the great under-appreciated stories of 2009 was the deep fiscal woes of individual states.

"History shows that states - and cities - actually suffer their deepest drops in revenues after a recession ends, as the downturn's effects ripple through their tax streams. This year that problem will overlap precisely with a decline in stimulus dollars flowing out of Washington toward the states.

"The net result will be a double-whammy that will force states to cut spending and hiring and perhaps imperil recovery."

While there is no mention of counties, of course, the same logic applies. And most counties will further suffer revenue declines from reduced state aid. Counties are in for great challenges in 2010 and 2011 to maintain the level of services residents have come to expect.