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Helene continues to impact the Carolinas

Helene washed away one of Avery County’s only dental clinics

When your house is flooded and all your soggy belongings are piled on the street in front of your home, having a cavity or a toothache might seem like a small problem. 

But it could become a bigger problem for residents of Avery County, where one of the primary dental clinics was inundated with floodwaters generated by the remnants of Hurricane Helene in late September.

More than a month after the storm, most stores and restaurants in Newland, the county seat, are still closed. Piles of ruined belongings sit waiting for collection in the yards of battered homes throughout the little town, which lies in a bowl surrounded by mountains and is bisected by the North Toe River. 

— North Carolina Health News

Over 1,000 buildings damaged in Watauga County from Helene

A little more than a month after the remnants of Hurricane Helene slammed into the High Country, local assessments show just how much damage it left in its wake.

According to Watauga County Emergency Services, 1,135 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Of those, 118 were destroyed, 479 had major damage and 538 had minor damage.

Storm-related calls to the Watauga County 911 dispatch center began at 4:50 a.m. on Sept. 27 regarding a vehicle in flood waters. The Watauga Democrat previously reported that emergency personnel from multiple agencies rescued a woman from a car in flood waters in Deep Gap that morning.

— Watauga Democrat

Palmetto State farmers face extensive damage after Helene

RIDGE SPRING, S.C. — Most of the pecan trees on Yon Family Farms have been standing for 40 years, some as many as 100.

Then Helene came.

The combination of rain and wind from the hurricane, which caused devastation as it swept along the Georgia border and through the Upstate, washed out around three-quarters of the approximately 100-acre orchard. Toppled trees and debris also destroyed miles of fences on the family’s beef cattle farm, Lydia Yon said.

— South Carolina Daily Gazette

States reject ranked choice voting

Supporters of changing how states elect their leaders received a series of bitter blows on Election Day as voters in five states rejected ballot measures to do so, while another may be on course to do the same.

Only Washington, D.C., approved a shift to ranked choice voting, an approach that allows voters to list candidates in order of preference instead of selecting just one. The city also voted to abolish its closed primary system, beginning in 2026.

Other states did not follow D.C.’s change. Voters in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon all look to have rejected a shift to ranked-choice voting, with some votes still outstanding. Nevada’s decision was notable, as voters had approved of the plan in 2022 — it needed to win a second time to be added to the state constitution. The ballot measures in Colorado, Idaho and Nevada would also have implemented open primaries. And Arizonans and South Dakotans rejected plans to implement open primaries.

— Route 50

Changing elections is not easy

Supporters of ranked choice voting celebrated 2024 as the year in which more voters than ever before would weigh in on fundamentally changing the way they would elect public officials.

Then cold hard reality crashed into their plans.

Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon rejected measures that would have required ranked choice voting in state and federal elections. The margins of defeat for those initiatives ranged from a narrow 6 percentage points in Nevada and 8 points in Colorado to a much wider 40-point loss in Idaho.

A separate initiative to repeal an existing ranked choice voting system in Alaska, where thousands of votes are left to count, is leading by about 4,000 votes, a margin of 51%-49%.

— Pluribus News

More secure EBT cards to be a challenge for states

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it's making progress in moving federal food assistance to more secure cards — which could help tamp down yearslong problems with scammers stealing millions in benefits — but the agency doesn’t have a timeline for a full transition to new cards nationwide.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is delivered on electronic benefit transfer payment cards. Unlike most common credit and debit cards, EBT cards don’t have chips.

Instead, SNAP is still delivered on cards with magnetic stripes that are more vulnerable to skimming, where criminals install devices on card readers to steal the card data and PIN entries, make fake cards and steal the money.

— Route 50

Maryland faces a nearly $3B budget deficit

Maryland lawmakers were warned Tuesday, Nov. 12. of an impending $2.7 billion deficit they’ll need to resolve for the next budget year — a significant hole that all but guarantees another debate in Annapolis over whether they should make deep budget cuts or raise taxes.

The budget picture is worsening faster than previously expected, according to new estimates presented to lawmakers in a briefing ahead of the annual 90-day session that begins in January.

David Romans, an independent state fiscal analyst, described it as “an enormous gap” due to growing expenses and recent years of quick fixes to cover for slow revenue growth.

— Governing

Headlines curated by the American Society for Public Administration

Today's headlines contain plenty of news coverage of some of our nation's most pressing public administration challenges. ASPA has curated some of the most important stories from recent weeks. If you have not seen these yet, make sure you read them now!

Infrastructure

Public Finance

Public Service

Social Equity

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