Minn. projects $1.1 billion budget deficit

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and lawmakers will have to eliminate a projected $1.1 billion state budget deficit when their session convenes in January, a smaller shortfall than in recent years but one that gives Dayton a new starting point for his long push to raise income taxes on the state's wealthiest people.

Dayton declined to get into specifics on a budget proposal he must give to the newly DFL-controlled Legislature by Jan. 22, and which he'll build from the economic forecast released Wednesday. But between the new deficit and a loose list of Democratic goals that include property tax relief and more money for schools, Dayton indicated that no one should be surprised if he renews a push that was central to his 2010 campaign for governor and his first year in office.

"I think you can expect that's very likely," Dayton said at a Capitol news conference.

The governor and state budget officials warned that their new budget forecast came with a large asterisk: the state's economic fortunes could quickly plummet again unless Congress and President Barack Obama can resolve federal debt negotiations and avoid going over the so-called "fiscal cliff."

"We are making slow progress gaining jobs and economic momentum," said Jim Schowalter, director of Minnesota Management and Budget. "But the trouble is it's wrapped in a cloud of uncertainty due to the federal fiscal cliff."

The fiscal cliff refers to a set of major federal spending cuts and income tax hikes set to take effect on Jan. 1 to reduce federal debt. Both Obama and congressional leaders have said they want to avoid that scenario, but differ on how to do so. Like Dayton, Obama wants income tax rates to go up on the wealthy.

"I think they can afford both of those increases," Dayton said, referring to state and federal income tax rates.

State Economist Tom Stinson sketched a dire picture of consequences for Minnesota's economy without a federal debt deal: 115,000 jobs lost in 2013-14, a drop in personal income of 4 percent by 2015 and a drop in state tax revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars.

"The fiscal cliff is ultimate gloom," Stinson said.

Uncertainty over the federal situation cast a shadow over the forecast, which Dayton will use as a baseline for assembling his next budget proposal. Minnesota's governor and lawmakers write and enact a new budget for the state every two years, and deficits arise when the amount of tax and other expected revenue isn't enough to keep up with projected spending obligations on health and welfare programs, schools, courts and law enforcement, and other state services.

Deficits have been common in Minnesota for much of the last decade. After the U.S. economy plummeted in 2008, deficits here ballooned: Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty and lawmakers faced a $5.27 billion deficit in December 2008, and two years later incoming Gov. Dayton and a new Republican majority came into office looking at a $6.2 billion deficit.

Part of the way Pawlenty, then Dayton and lawmakers eliminated those deficits was to delay state aid payments to public school districts. State budget officials said a remaining 2013 budget surplus would allow them to repay $1.3 billion of that shift, leaving an additional $1.1 billion to be paid before the debt is completely eliminated.

Incoming House Speaker Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, said a chief goal of Democrats taking over both legislative chambers in January would be to restore stability to the state budget and end the chronic deficits of recent years.

"Our state budget has been on a roller-coaster of deficits for the last decade," he said.

Dayton's revenue commissioner, Myron Frans, has been assembling a tax reform package meant to make revenue sources more stable. It will likely be included in Dayton's January budget proposal.

Thissen and new Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk were reluctant to discuss details of where new tax revenue might come from. Republicans at the state Capitol said Wednesday tax increases were a bad idea.

"When a Democrat says tax reform, they mean tax increases," said the new House Republican leader, Rep. Kurt Daudt of Crown.

Republicans, vanquished from legislative leadership in the November elections, said it was their two years of stewardship at the Capitol that helped clear the way for a lower deficit than recent years. Daudt and the new Senate Republican leader, Sen. David Hann of Eden Prairie, suggested that Democrats should consider tax cuts in an attempt to further stimulate the state's economy.

Still, a number of major Democratic allies including the state chapter of the AFL-CIO and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5 immediately called for new revenue to help pay for schools, transportation infrastructure, jobs and assistance programs.

"Middle class Minnesotans have been paying more than their fair share for the last decade," state AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said in a news release.

The director of AFSCME, Eliot Seide, suggested the state should raise $6 billion in new revenue.

Dayton said his office would prepare its budget proposal under the assumption that Obama and Congress end up avoiding the fiscal cliff.

"I think the odds are in favor of it getting resolved," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/minn-projects-1-1-billion-154738918.html

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Plaintiffs rest their case in school finance lawsuit ? Off the Kuff

Phase one is over.

Hundreds of districts suing the state over its school finance system wrapped up their case Wednesday with testimony that largely blamed the Legislature for creating the current funding crisis that stripped away an unprecedented $5.4 billion from public schools.

After more than six weeks of testimony, the four plaintiff groups of school districts put on their final witness, who summarized the main arguments against the funding system and asserted school districts will never be able to properly educate all their students without major changes.

On the list of the biggest challenges for schools are a rapidly increasing number of lower-income students, a new testing program that is already seeing widespread failures, the inability of districts to raise enough local tax revenue, and a cycle of funding cuts that is thinning teacher ranks and increasing class sizes.

John Folks, former Superintendent of San Antonio?s Northside ISD and 2011 Superintendent of the Year, was the closing witness for the school districts.

Folks discussed the impact of education budget cuts on Northside ISD, where officials cut spending by $61 million before the Legislature took away another $85 million for the past two academic years.

The district has cut computer specialists, library assistants, gifted and talent teachers, counselors, coaches, special education teachers and classroom teachers. In all, 80 elementary teachers, 80 middle school teachers and 64 high school teachers were eliminated, Folks told Judge John Dietz.

?We went from 6,218 teachers in 2010-11 to 5,972 in 2011-12 at a time when our enrollment increased by 2,500 kids,? he said, adding that Northside had to increase elementary class sizes for the first time.

Folks also described the structural deficit the Legislature created while passing the 2006 school-finance bill. Legislators miscalculated when they reduced school property taxes and replaced the revenue with a new business tax, which fell ?far short? of what?s needed to replace the property tax cut, he said. The problems were compounded when lawmakers used one-time federal stimulus money in 2009 to fill the revenue hole.

?It (stimulus funds) was one-time money. We urged them not to use that money to fill the hole because it was going away. They were told not to put that money into recurring expenditures, but that is exactly what the Legislature did,? he said.

Like most Texas school districts, Northside?s student population is undergoing a major transformation. In the past 12 years, the district?s percentage of low-income students has jumped to 54 percent from 41 percent.

?As you get more of those students in your district, you have to have the resources needed to help those students be successful. I hold them to the same standard as I do other students who are not low-income or limited-English proficient,? Folks said.

He said districts have limited options to deal with their recent funding reductions.

?There is no meaningful discretion anymore,? Folks said, explaining Northside ISD has not held a tax-rate election to raise its current maintenance and operation rate of $1.04 because it has been forced to have a bond election every three years to handle tremendous enrollment growth requiring new schools.

And now Phase Two begins.

Shelley Dahlberg, lead counsel for the state, said during opening statements in late October that the school districts must prove that they are spending their money efficiently on providing students foundational knowledge rather than on extras such as iPads, teacher aides and sports.

?They make big, big budget decisions within their discretion,? Dahlberg said.

The Legislature has delegated a substantial amount of local control to the school districts when it passes on public money to them, Dahlberg maintained, so it would not be fair to fault the state for the districts? failure to use that money wisely.

Speaking directly to state District Judge John Dietz, Dahlberg added: ?I would ask you to look at district choices.?

[...]

Of the districts? arguments, the most sweeping ? and difficult to prove ? is that the state has failed to provide adequate funding to ensure that students can meet the increasingly rigorous academic standards mandated by the Legislature.

In the 2005 school finance ruling, the state Supreme Court seemed to put the Legislature on notice that it could be headed for trouble absent reforms. The court cited substantial evidence that ?the public education system has reached the point where continued improvement will not be possible absent significant change, whether that change take the form of increased funding, improved efficiencies, or better methods of education.?

But the high court did not uphold the district court?s finding that that system violated the Texas Constitution.

?An impending constitutional violation is not an existing one, and it remains to be seen whether the system?s predicted drift toward constitutional inadequacy will be avoided by legislative reaction to widespread calls for changes,? the Supreme Court wrote.

The state has homed in on that court language to suggest that the districts are jumping the gun in bringing the case so early in the roll-out of the new, more rigorous testing and accountability system.

So the state?s argument is basically ?it?s too early to say that there are any problems, and if there are we can fix them later?. That may be true, but it won?t be of much use to the students who will be ill served until ?later? arrives, whenever that is. Still, the state doesn?t have to have a compelling case, because the burden of proof is on the plaintiffs. That?s always a high bar to clear. We?ll see how much of a dent the state can make in the districts? arguments.

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Source: http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=49458

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Tim Cook changes tune, television now 'an area of intense interest'

It's a hobby. That's basically what we've been told about the Apple TV since day one. Cupertino saw the device as an accessory to its ecosystem, not necessarily a marquee product. Tim Cook is singing a slightly different tune these days, though. After reaffirming the Apple TV's hobby status back in January, he recently told NBC's Brian Williams that the screen in your living room is now "an area of intense interest." The CEO isn't necessarily talking about the Apple TV as we know it today, he could be referring to the long rumor Apple-branded television set, but we wouldn't hold our breath on that one. Of course, in following the tradition set forth by his predecessor Cook left plenty of mystery for the media to poke at. The TV is stuck 30 years in the past, but if you ask what Apple plans to do about it you'll just the line about "intense interest" and a quick, "I can't say more than that." He's slippery son of a gun.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Apple

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Source: NBC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/06/tim-cook-changes-tune-television-now-an-area-of-intense-intere/

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Protestant militants target Northern Ireland party

DUBLIN (AP) ? Northern Ireland leaders and police commanders appealed for calm Thursday after Protestant militants attacked offices and a home connected to the most compromise-minded political party over its support for reducing the display of British flags on government buildings.

The overnight violence in two Belfast suburbs comes on the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's planned visit Friday to the capital of the British territory. It underscored how divided Northern Ireland remains despite the broad success of a peace process that has stopped paramilitary violence but done little to bring down barriers between rival British Protestant and Irish Catholic communities.

Protestant hard-liners have responded violently to a vote Monday in Belfast City Council to reduce sharply the flying of the British flag atop the city hall. Alliance, the only party trying actively to represent the middle ground between the two camps, holds the balance of power on the council and voted with the Catholic side to take down the flag except for 18 official days annually.

Several hundred protesters broke through the city hall's gates Monday night and injured 15 policemen defending the building. Associated Press photographer Peter Morrison suffered serious head and hand wounds during the melee, during which he says police beat him with clubs.

On Wednesday night more than 1,500 Protestants rallied in the northern suburb of Carrickfergus demanding that the British flag continue to fly year-round atop Belfast's municipal headquarters. The protest soon descended into attacks on riot police. Four officers were injured and responded with volleys of British-style plastic bullets, flat-nosed cylinders designed to knock down rioters with punishing blows. They also arrested four suspected rioters.

Some in the crowd set fire to the nearby Carrickfergus office of Alliance, destroying it. And to the east of Belfast, more vandals poured petrol on the locked front of another Alliance office in Bangor, but police said a passing police patrol spotted the attack and forced them to flee before they could light a fire.

Also in Bangor, a couple who are both Alliance council members had their front window smashed early Thursday, and said they were now afraid to stay in their home with their 17-month-old daughter.

"Our daughter could have potentially lost her life. Is a flag worth this, seriously?" Michael Bower told the BBC sitting on his living room sofa, with his wife Christine beside him and their child on his lap.

Christine Bower said she was now afraid to sleep in their home, and appealed directly to the attackers: "You may not agree with us, but please don't attack us."

Leaders of Northern Ireland's joint Catholic-Protestant government, the central achievement of a two-decade peace process, appealed for the protests against Alliance to stop. Alliance is the smallest of five parties in the governing coalition.

Justice Minister David Ford, who is also the Alliance leader, appealed for Northern Ireland's legislature to be reconvened Thursday to debate how to defend democracy from extremism. Ironically the building where Northern Ireland's lawmakers meet, the Stormont Parliamentary Building, already has greatly reduced its flying of the British flag without any violence.

The Northern Ireland police commander, Chief Constable Matt Baggott, said the province risked a surge in street violence if extremists within the Protestant community continued to mount illegal rallies in town centers.

Baggott said the militants were using their extreme sense of British nationalism as an excuse to compromise democracy, to use mob rule and violence as a way of asserting people's will and compromising the rule of law. He called it "an outrage to have democratic parties intimidated and burned out simply because they took a democratic decision."

About 3,700 people have been killed in the Northern Ireland conflict since the late 1960s. But peacemaking efforts since the early 1990s have greatly reduced the death and destruction, with the major outlawed groups ? the Provisional Irish Republican Army on the Catholic side, and the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association on the Protestant side ? all agreeing to disarm and renounce violence since 2005.

But several small IRA factions continue to mount occasional gun and bomb attacks, most recently shooting to death a prison guard last month as he drove to work.

And Northern Ireland itself remains segregated by mutual consent in many ways, with Catholics and Protestants attending separate school systems, rooting for different sports, and above all living in different communities. Much of Belfast remains physically divided by high security walls called "peace lines," with the Protestant side coloring its curb stones the red, white and blue of the Union Jack, while the Catholic side dons the green, white and orange of the Irish Republic.

Against this pervasive sectarian backdrop, Alliance attempts to be studiously neutral and manages to offend both sides for different reasons. Even the party's web site avoids the British "co.uk" or Irish "ie" in favor of the neutral "org."

___

Alliance Party, http://allianceparty.org/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/protestant-militants-target-northern-ireland-party-140119252.html

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SFPD's 'Crime Data Warehouse' Represents Department's New Technical Era (VIDEO)

This article comes to us courtesy of Bloomberg TV.

By Jon Erlichman

Given how close San Francisco is to Silicon Valley, you'd think the city's cops would have lots of tech toys. But until recently, the police department's technology was stuck in a time warp.

Enter Chief of Police, Greg Suhr. A 30-year veteran of the SFPD, Suhr was well aware of what the department didn't have (including email for many officers, before Suhr made that happen).

Working with his Chief Technology Officer, former Cisco employee Susan Giffin, they created a search engine called the "Crime Data Warehouse." Among other things, it saves officers the time it takes to track down past police reports, locked away in dusty filing cabinets.

Giffin says the department's lack of tech infrastructure was actually beneficial when it came time to build. "It's a lot easier to implement new, cool technology when you're coming from nothing," she explained.

Suhr, meanwhile is a big fan of using social media (Facebook, Twitter) to help fight crime. "We talk about community policing all the time. This is community policing to the nth degree because of technology."

WATCH:

John Erlichman is the Senior West Coast Correspondent for Bloomberg TV.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/sfpds-crime-data-warehouse_n_2248986.html

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Justin Bieber "Girlfriend" Fragrance Commercial: Let the Squealing Begin!

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HNI Relationship Manager Job at Stanbic IBTC Bank Nigeria ...

Job Title: Relationship Manager HNI

Job ID: 10155
Locations: Nigeria
Company: Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc (a subsidiary of Standard Bank Group)
Sector: Banking and Finance

Position Description
The HNI relationship manager is accountable for a portfolio of High Networth Clients, integrating and coordinating all Stanbic IBTC and Standard Bank Group products, services and resources in order to maximize the value of the business relationship and ensure profitability for the Bank and the Client.

Required Skills and Qualifications:
? Accountable for developing and implementing an integrated customer marketing plan, which addresses wealth creation, wealth preservation, wealth enhancement and lifestyle enhancement; this is achieved through an in-depth analysis of the client?s balance sheet so as to identify opportunities and match these opportunities to products/ solutions provided by the Group.
? Monitor the delivery of the different groups (Wealth, Lending, Transactional) as well as other specialist product and service providers against the customer Plan
? Grow portfolio profitability through the utilisation of available multi-channel delivery strategies, such as actively managing customer migration onto electronic banking channels.
? Manage customer migration between segments, sub-segments and the HNI business.
? Proactively and timeously identifies potential problem accounts and formulates appropriate risk mitigating strategies.
? Understands clients risk profile and maximizes the ?risk vs. reward? balance for individual clients by optimising product mix.
? Comply with KYC rules, regulations, and legislation governing the financial services industry

Required Competencies:

Important relationships

External
? External partners ? real estate agents, travel agents, etc

Key performance measures:
? Achievement of relationship manager sales budget
? Growth/Volume ? Customer acquisition and retention
? Client Profitability and Risk Management
? Cross-sell existing Bank and group financial products and services to obtain greater share of wallet
? Execution of Customer Plan

Published at 05-12-2012
Viewed: 24 times

Source: http://www.jobnavy.com/job/9997/hni-relationship-manager-job-at-stanbic-ibtc-bank-nigeria/

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