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CHUMP CHANGE: State lawmakers continue to under-fund pensions, exacerbating a growing unfunded liability problem.

By Andrew Staub / September 23, 2015

Pennsylvania fails to list $53 billion in debt on its balance sheet, giving it the third-most hidden debt among 10 Northeast states.

Maybe it’s no surprise then that state lawmakers have all but ignored Pennsylvania’s monstrous unfunded pension liability.

Volume XX No.39: September 25, 2015

Football: Results and links for Saturday, September 26

TRAGEDY AT WARREN HILLS • QB Evan Murray dies from football injuries on Friday night • Friends, teammates react on social media KEY COLLECTIONS • Live updates from around New Jersey • Saturday\’s statewide scoreboard • Friday\’s scores and news • Thursday\’s scores and news • Week 3 Mega-Coverage guide SATURDAY\’S FEATURED GAMES Williamstown at Cherry…

By Andrew Collins

In the age of The Shallows and Bowling Alone, which raise concerns over Americans’ tendency toward isolation and distraction, many citizens are pushing back through the Little Free Library movement. The idea is simple: foster community and literacy by sharing books, usually presented in a crate or small structure in one’s front yard where neighbors can access them at their leisure.

It’s hard to image such a movement stirring up controversy, but that hasn’t stopped local governments from using every technicality and clause in their ordinances to crack down on the popular book-sharing system. In a recent piece for The Atlantic covering the travails of Little Free Libraries, Conor Friedersdorf summarizes the problem in a scathing indictment of the governing class.

RESIDENTS ASKED TO VOLUNTARILY CONSERVE WATER

(15/P80) TRENTON -Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin today issued a drought watch for New Jersey\’s Northeast, Central, and Coastal North water supply regions, urging residents in the affected areas to voluntarily conserve water and for the rest of the state to practice wise water use due to continued dry weather and above-average temperatures.

The drought watch is prompted by continued rainfall deficits that have decreased reservoir, ground water and streamflow levels in the three regions. 

The purpose of the watch is to raise public awareness, formally alert all water suppliers in the region of the situation, and to seek voluntary cooperation to preserve existing supplies in the affected regions, with water demand still high.

The three affected drought regions include all or parts of 12 counties, including Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset and Union.

DOVER (Sept. 23, 2015) – DNREC Secretary David Small has signed a Secretary’s Order that formally adopts an open season for Delaware’s recreational black sea bass fishery that ran May 15 through Sept. 21, and from Oct. 22 through Dec. 31. The changes keep Delaware’s tidal finfish regulations consistent with final federal recreational black sea bass season regulations published in June.

 By Eric Boehm 

A regulatory panel in Washington, D.C., could vote this week on a series of new licensing requirements for personal trainers, supposedly in an effort to promote public health and safety through government nannyism.

But a closer look at the panel charged with making the new rules exposes the real reason why regulatory boards flex their muscles with regulatory schemes like this one.

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FLEXING THE REGULATORY MUSCLE: The Washington, D.C., Board of Physical Therapists, which is writing the new rules, just happens to be composed of five members – four of which are required by statute to be licensed physical therapists. And that board has now been given the power to regulate – potentially even to shut down – businesses that are in direct competition with the board’s own members.

As Watchdog reported last week, Council of the District of Columbia recently empowered an obscure regulatory panel, the Board of Physical Therapy, to create a new set of licensing rules for personal trainers working in the nation’s capital. A vote on the new rules is expected to take place at the city council’s meeting Tuesday night.