Janine Jackson interviewed the Joint Center’s LaToya Parker about the Trump budget’s racial impacts for the June 20, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

MarketWatch (3/7/25)

Janine Jackson: “Most Americans Can’t Afford Life Anymore” is the matter-of-fact headline over a story on Dow Jones MarketWatch. You might think that’s a “stop the presses” story, but apparently, for corporate news, it’s just one item among others these days.

The lived reality is, of course, not just a nightmare, but a crime, perpetrated by the most powerful and wealthy on the rest of us. As we marshal a response, it’s important to see the ways that we are not all suffering in the same ways, that anti-Black racism in this country’s decision-making is not a bug, but a feature, and not reducible to anything else. What’s more, efforts to reduce or dissolve racial inequities, to set them aside just for the moment, really just wind up erasing them.

So how do we shape a resistance to this massive transfer of wealth, while acknowledging that it takes intentionality for all of us to truly benefit?

LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of the recent piece “This Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.” She joins us now by phone from Virginia. Welcome to CounterSpin, LaToya Parker.

LaToya Parker: Thank you so much for having me.

JJ: I just heard Tavis Smiley, with the relevant reference to Martin Luther King, saying: “Budgets are moral documents.” Budgets can harm or heal materially, and they also send a message about priorities: what matters, who matters. When you and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad looked at the Trump budget bill that the House passed, you wrote that, “racially, the impact is stark”—for Black people and for Black workers in particular. I know that it’s more than one thing, but tell us what you are looking to lift up for people that they might not see.

OtherWords (5/28/25)

LP: Sure. Thank you so much for raising that. This bill is more than numbers. It’s a moral document, like you mentioned, that reveals our nation’s priorities. What stands out is a reverse wealth transfer. The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the middle class.

JJ: You just said “historic pathways.” You can’t do economics without history. So wealth, home ownership—just static reporting doesn’t explain, really, that you can’t start people in a hole and then say, “Well, now the Earth is flat. So what’s wrong with you?” What are some of those programs that you’re talking about that would be impacted?

LP: For instance, nearly one-third of Black Americans rely on Medicaid. These cuts will limit access to vital care, including maternal health, elder care and mental health services.

Nearly 25% of Black households depend on SNAP, compared to under 8% of white households. SNAP cuts will hit Black families hardest, worsening food insecurities.

But in terms of federal workforce attacks, Black Americans are overrepresented in the public sector, 18.7% of the federal workforce, and over a third in the South. So massive agency cuts threaten thousands of stable, middle-class jobs, undermining one of the most successful civil rights victories in American history.

LaToya Parker: “The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the middle class.”

So if I was to focus on the reverse wealth transfer, as we clearly lift up in the article, the House-passed reconciliation bill is a massive transfer of wealth from working families to the ultra-wealthy. It eliminates the estate tax, which currently only applies to estates worth more than $13.99 million per person, or nearly $28 million per couple. That’s just 1% of estates. So 99.9% of families, especially Black families, will never benefit from this.

Black families hold less than 5% of the US wealth, despite being over 13% of households. The median white household has 10 times the wealth of the median Black household. Repealing the estate tax subsidizes dynastic wealth for the majority white top 1%, and does nothing for the vast majority of Black families who are far less likely to inherit significant wealth.

JJ: I feel like that wealth disconnection, and I’ve spoken with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad about this in the past, there’s a misunderstanding or just an erasure of history in the conversation about wealth, and Why don’t Black families have wealth? Why can’t they just give their kids enough money to go to school? And it sounds like it’s about Black families not valuing savings or something. But of course, we have a history of white-supremacist discrimination in lending and loaning and home ownership, and in all kinds of things that lead us to this situation that we’re in today. And you can’t move forward without recognizing that.

LP: Absolutely. Absolutely.

JJ: I remember reading a story years ago that said, “Here’s the best workplaces for women.” And it was kind of like, “Well, if you hate discrimination, these companies are good.” Reporting, I think, can make it seem as though folks are just sitting around thinking, “Well, what job should I get? Where should I get a job?” As though we were just equally situated economic actors.

But that doesn’t look anything like life. We are not consumers of employment. Media could do a different job of helping people understand the way things work.

LP: Absolutely. And I think that’s why it’s so important that you’re raising this issue. In fact, we bring it up in our article, in terms of cuts to the federal workforce and benefits. So, for instance, to pay for these tax breaks to the wealthy, the bill slashes benefits for federal employees, and it guts civil service protections, saving just $5 billion a year in the bill that costs trillions, right?

So just thinking about that, Black employees make up, like I said before, 18.7% of the federal workforce, thanks to decades of civil rights progress and anti-discrimination law. Federal jobs have long provided higher wages, stronger benefits and greater job security for Black workers than much of the private sector.

And the DMV alone, the DC/Maryland/Virginia region, more than 450,000 federal workers are employed, with Black workers making up over a quarter in DC/Maryland/Virginia. In the South, well over a third of the federal workers in states like Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana are Black. In Georgia, it’s nearly 44%. So federal employment has been a cornerstone for Black middle-class advancement, helping families build generational wealth, send children to college and retire with dignity.

JJ: And so when we hear calls about, “Let’s thin out the federal government, because these are all bureaucrats who are making more money than they should,” it lands different when you understand that so many Black people found advancement, found opportunity through the federal government when they were being denied it at every other point. And it only came from explicit policies, anti-discriminatory policies, that opened up federal employment, that’s been so meaningful.

LP: Exactly. Exactly. Federal retirement benefits like the pensions and annuities are a rare source of guaranteed income. Nearly half of Black families have zero retirement savings, making these benefits critical to avoiding poverty in retirement. So these policies amount to a reverse wealth transfer, enriching wealthy heirs while undermining the public servants and systems that have historically offered a path forward for Black workers. Instead of gutting the benefits and eliminating the estate tax, we should invest in systems that have provided pathways to the middle class for Black workers, and expand these opportunities beyond government employment. Ultimately, this isn’t just about policy, it’s about what kind of nation we want to be, right? So that’s what it’s all about.

JJ: And I’ll just add to that with a final note. Of course, I’m a media critic, but I think lots of folks could understand why I reacted to this line from this MarketWatch piece that said, “Years of elevated prices have strained all but the wealthiest consumers, and low- and middle-income Americans say something needs to change.” Well, for me, I’m hearing that, and I’m like, “So it’s only low- and middle-income people, it’s only the people at the sharp end, who want anything to change.”

And, first of all, we’re supposed to see that as a fair fight, the vast majority of people against the wealthiest. But also, it makes it seem like such a zero-sum game, as though there isn’t any shared idea among a lot of people who want racial and economic equity in this country. It sells it to people as like, “Oh, well, we could make life livable for poor people or for Black people, but you, reader, are going to have to give something up.” It’s such a small, mean version of what I believe a lot of folks have in their hearts, in terms of a vision going forward in this country. And that’s just my gripe.

LP: I agree. These aren’t luxury programs. They’re lifelines across the board for all Americans. The working poor—if you like to call it that, some like to call it that—cutting them is just cruel, right? It’s economically destructive, it’s irresponsible. Fiscally, states would lose $1.1 trillion over 10 years, risking over a million jobs in healthcare and food industries alone. So I agree 100%.

JJ: All right, we’ll end on that note for now. We’ve been speaking with LaToya Parker, senior researcher at the Joint Center. They’re online at JointCenter.org, and you can find her piece, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, on the impact of the federal budget on Black workers at OtherWords.org. Thank you so much, LaToya Parker, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

LP: Thank you again for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

CEPR (3/3/25)

This week on CounterSpin: We’ve always heard that racists hate quotas, yet Stephen Miller’s “3000 a day however which way” mandate is terrorizing immigrant communities—brown immigrant communities—around the country. The response from people of conscience can look many ways: linking arms around people in danger, absolutely; vigorously disputing misinformation about immigrants, whether hateful or patronizing, also. But another piece is gaining a deeper, broader understanding of migration. News media could help answer one implied question—“Why is anyone trying to come to the US anyway?”—by grappling with the role of conditions the US has largely created in the places people are driven from. We’ll talk about that largely missing piece from elite media’s immigration coverage with Michael Galant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Inequality.org (5/29/25)

Also on the show: Anyone who pays attention and cares can see that the Trump budget bill is a brazen transfer of resources from those that are trying to meet basic needs to those that can’t remember how many houses they own. But corporate reporting rarely breaks out economic policy in terms of how it affects different people—especially how it affects communities for whom they show no consistent concern. Economic policy is itself racialized, gendered, regionalized, targeted. Humanistic journalism would help us see that.

LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of the recent piece “This Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.”

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

While attention is focused on economists finding a $500 million-a-year hole in National’s tax plans, a similar-sized hole in climate costings is hiding in plain sight — and it applies to Labour, too.

National appears to have the bigger gap, however.

The gulf was highlighted in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) — Treasury’s official word on the state of the government’s books — which explicitly excluded the cost of meeting New Zealand’s international climate target under the Paris Agreement.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 climate crisis reports

Asked how they would pay this week, politicians gave unclear answers. But the obligation was still very real.

Both Labour and National have said they are committed to meeting the country’s international climate target, known as an NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions).

Under the Paris Agreement, which covers almost every nation on the planet, New Zealand has promised to cut emissions by 41 percent off 2005 levels by 2030. Exporters and carbon market experts say failing to meet that pledge could jeopardise international trade — nevermind the fact that following the Paris Agreement is humanity’s best hope for avoiding more expensive and deadly heating.

New Zealand plans to meet its target in two ways. First, it will do as much as it can inside the country by meeting a set of “emissions budgets”.

No way to meet target
But when the Climate Change Commission ran the numbers, it concluded there was no way to meet the whole target with action at home. Because New Zealand started slow at tackling emissions, cutting transport, industry, farming and electricity emissions that quickly would cause too much economic pain, it concluded.

So there is also a second part to the target: buying carbon credits from overseas. Typically, economists assume this is cheaper than making cuts in emissions at home, though it depends on the project.

While no purchases will be made until after the election, the kinds of things that could qualify include retiring coal boilers in developing countries, or planting forests.

This is where the gap in the books comes in. Treasury had previously put the cost of buying these credits from overseas — and an estimated 100 million tonnes of them will be needed, at last count — at between $3.3 billion and more than $23 billion between now and 2030.

Even at the lower end of projections, it could work out at around $500 million a year.

Whichever way the government decides to do it, PREFU said the costs would be “significant” and will start biting “within the current fiscal forecast period”.

As things stand, according to Climate Change Minister James Shaw, one or possibly two rounds of purchases could be made in the next four years, with a third and final “washup” at the end of the decade.

Election may change timing
The election could change the timing, but whoever is in government will be expected to start showing progress towards meeting their Paris target well before the end of the decade, said carbon market expert Christina Hood from Compass Climate.

“There’s this common misconception that whoever the finance minister is in 2032 is going to have to get their chequebook out and square up by however much we missed by. It doesn’t work that way at all.

“Every emission (saving) we count has to actually occur during those years (before 2030), so we need to get on with funding that.”

Yet despite starting to fall due within the next four years, the costs did not appear as a liability on the government’s books. Nor do the major parties seem to be clear on how much to budget for them.

Bold claims, few details
This week, neither National nor Labour answered clearly how much they had planned to set aside for these costs nor how they intended to pay them. They instead focused their answers on wanting to cut planet-heating emissions more deeply inside New Zealand’s borders.

At times, politicians seemed to confuse domestic emissions budgets with the $3 billion-plus added cost of buying offsets to meet the Paris target, or they made heroic statements about how much they could do onshore, without supplying the figures behind them.

A quick reminder: the 100-odd million tonnes in overseas offsets that it was estimated we would need were on top of meeting New Zealand’s domestic emissions budgets, not instead of it. Only a truly incredible effort could meet the entire amount inside the country, requiring deep and fast climate action on a scale neither party has hinted at.

Currently, New Zealand is not even on track to meet its domestic emissions budgets, as Climate Change Commission chief executive Jo Hendy told a business and climate conference in Auckland this week.

“Latest projections show we are not on track in every single sector, so we are going to have to do more,” she said. “We are particularly reliant on pushing the dial in transport and in process heat.”

Yet when RNZ asked about the $3 billion-plus cost on the campaign trail, politicians appeared to be planning to overperform on those budgets, sometimes by impressive amounts. Their answers suggested they may not need to worry too much about that $3 billion-plus.

Here’s what Labour leader Chris Hipkins said, when asked if he had costed for meeting Paris: “We still have a way to go before we have to make a final decision on how best to meet our commitments there. We’re on track to meet our first emissions budget.

Working harder
“We’ve still got the second and third emissions reduction budgets to go. If we don’t meet our targets there is a period of time when we can figure out how best to remedy that, and that includes working harder in the second period to compensate for that.

“But we’re confident that with the stuff we’ve got in place at the moment, we’re on track to meet our first target.”

Hipkins did not address paying for offshore credits, which were required even if the country met all three domestic budgets. As prime minister, he rolled back a biofuel policy and, like National, has focused his transport promises mainly on building new roads rather than a strong shift to lower-emissions modes.

He has also promised help for home insulation and solar, but it was not clear if his new promises compensated for the cuts.

Asked the same question, National leader Christopher Luxon took aim at the government for undermining the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), saying the scheme should do more of the “heavy lifting”.

He, too, skirted the question of paying for offsets.

For context, the ETS made polluters pay for around half the country’s domestic climate pollution (the other half was from agriculture) and was already factored into projections of needing 100 million-odd tonnes of extra ‘top up’ help from overseas.

The scheme could do more, particularly if carbon prices went higher (taking petrol prices with them), or if farming was included, or if there were no limits on planting land in cheap pine trees, but Luxon did not detail how National would navigate these kinds of changes.

Cutting domestic emissions
Meanwhile, other party spokespeople talked-up cutting domestic emissions.

Labour environment spokesperson David Parker told the conference in Auckland he wanted to look at claims that native afforestation could meet the entire Paris target (without overseas help).

National’s climate spokesperson Simon Watts told the same gathering — the annual Climate Change and Business Conference — that National believed it could meet 70-75 percent of the 2030 target inside these shores, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates by the Climate Change Commission.

Watts did not supply details on how that would be achieved, though he discussed lightening regulation on wind and solar energy.

His party has said it would scrap Labour’s Clean Car Discount and major grants to companies to switch off coal boilers, and it would also delay pricing farming emissions a further five years, until 2030. There were questions about how it would meet even the current domestic emissions budgets.

The cost of waiting
Hood had a spot of good news on the cost front. She told RNZ that based on recent purchases by Switzerland, the cost of overseas carbon offsets was likely to be towards the lower end of Treasury’s range.

Even if the government winded up buying 100 million tonnes of savings offshore, that was still only around half the quantity the John Key-led government expected it might have to stump up for when it made its first Paris Agreement pledge, despite the first pledge being weaker on climate than the current one, she noted.

But getting offsets at the lower end of the cost range relies on the government getting moving on lining them up and buying them, she says.

Shaw told RNZ that environmental integrity would be a bottom line after New Zealand was burned for buying valueless “hot air” credits from Russia and Ukraine in the early years of carbon trading.

As well as Switzerland, Singapore and others had already started striking deals to buy the offsets they needed.

While the New Zealand Government has been scoping out prospective sellers overseas, it has refused to reveal who it is talking to, citing commercial sensitivity.

The ministries for Foreign Affairs and the Environment were working on advice to Cabinet on how to make these purchases and ensure the carbon saved was real. But that advice will not land until after the election.

Most expensive time to buy
One thing is clear. 2030 will be the most expensive time to buy, Hood said, because many countries will be panic-buying from overseas projects to meet their missed domestic commitments. Shaw agreed.

“A whole bunch of countries will be going, ‘Oh crap, I’ve missed my target,’ and scrambling around trying to find ways to fill the gap.”

Shaw wanted Paris costs to go into PREFU, making it clear to the government that any money spent on domestic action on climate change was also a cost saving in terms of buying fewer offshore credits.

“This is one of the things that worries me about what some of the other parties are saying, is that they aren’t really accounting for [Paris] in their fiscal plans.”

Shaw called the huge variance in Treasury ‘s $3 billion-23 billion estimate “unhelpful”.

“It’s such a wide variance it’s hard to trust it. At the moment… people are putting their fingers in their ears and saying ‘lalalala”.”

But asked how much the Green Party had costed for meeting New Zealand’s offshore climate commitments, Shaw would not be drawn on naming a more accurate number.

Treasury estimate best
“The best estimate I’ve got is the Treasury estimate. The Ministry for the Environment and MFAT (Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade) are doing a lot of work on this at the moment, but they’re not going to have a report back until just before Christmas. If I was to give you a number I would be pulling it out of thin air.”

As for how to pay for it, Shaw said ETS proceeds from polluters could do a lot of it.

“In a good year that’s a billion dollars, so if there’s seven years for us to do that it’s $7 billion.”

But Shaw also acknowledged there were a lot of other calls on that money — including for adapting to climate change, paying for domestic carbon savings, and helping low-income families weather the costs of higher emissions prices, which boost fuel and electricity costs.

National has said it would use ETS proceeds to help fund its tax cuts, meaning it will need to pay for the Paris target (both the offshore and onshore parts) some other way.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by David Robie.

A third New Zealand university is close to signing with Mumbai’s Bombay Stock Exchange Institute, opening up opportunities for Indian students to study in Aotearoa.

The Bombay Stock Exchange Institute is a subsidiary of Bombay Stock Exchange, which at 148 years old, is the oldest stock exchange in Asia.

Managing director and CEO of the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute Ambarish Datta said it was a privilege to partner with universities in New Zealand.

• READ MORE: Other NZ education reports

“New Zealand education is recognised worldwide, and students are offered a fantastic opportunity to learn in a great country,” he said.

The University of Canterbury signed a memorandum of understanding in late 2018, allowing students to study in New Zealand for two of its master’s programmes.

It allows students to start their course in India and then travel to New Zealand to graduate while still qualifying for a Post Study Work Visa.

University of Canterbury Business Taught Masters programme director Stephen Hickinson said the agreement was beneficial to universities because they get students in different levels of study.

Cheaper for students
“It is also cheaper for students because they spend the first half of their study in India.”

The University of Otago reached agreements with five Indian institutions in 2017.

International director Jason Cushen said staff were also looking to develop further partnerships across India, particularly in the southern region and in the state of Maharashtra.

He said these programmes offer more opportunities for international students that may not be accessible in their home country

RNZ understands that another New Zealand university is in the final stages of signing an agreement with the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute.

A spokesperson for the institute said they are currently finalising the curriculum and planning to start the programme by February next year.

Covid-19 impact
According to a recent Education New Zealand study, international students contributed $3.7 billion to New Zealand’s economy in 2019, with a sizeable portion going to universities.

But the pandemic changed everything.

“We started the course in 2019 and then covid hit, so we have only had a few students so far,” Hickinson said.

“At the moment, it’s a little unknown how things will turn out.”

Education Minister Jan Tinetti and Finance Minister Grant Robertson recently announced extra funding for struggling universities and tertiary institutions.

An additional $128 million will be invested to increase tuition subsidies at degree-level and above by a further 4 percent in 2024 and 2025. This is in addition to the 5 percent funding increase that was included in the 2023 Budget, which the government described as the most significant funding increase in 20 years.

“The government has heard the concerns of the sector,” Tinetti said.

“When we began our Budget process, universities and other degree providers were forecasting enrolment increases. The opposite has occurred, and it is clear that there is a need for additional support.”

A new approach
However, Quality NZ Education chief executive Sandeep Sharma believed the pandemic offered a fresh perspective.

The organisation was formed during covid-19 and played a major role in creating the pathway programmes that connect Indian students with New Zealand universities.

“The pandemic was a good time for us because all our shareholders were in New Zealand, and they found that the pandemic [changed] a lot of things in the education industry, especially the traditional way of recruiting students,” he said.

He mentioned that there was considerable interest among Kiwis to go to India to learn about “wellbeing, Ayurveda and yoga”.

Sharma believed that it was time for universities to introduce programmes that were not dependent on border control.

He also highlighted the importance of Indian contributions to New Zealand’s education sector in the coming years.

“India is going to be the largest pool of international students, overtaking China by 2027,” Sharma said.

“It’s vital to have these pathway programmes and I think New Zealand should capitalise on these opportunities.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A third New Zealand university is close to signing with Mumbai’s Bombay Stock Exchange Institute, opening up opportunities for Indian students to study in Aotearoa.

The Bombay Stock Exchange Institute is a subsidiary of Bombay Stock Exchange, which at 148 years old, is the oldest stock exchange in Asia.

Managing director and CEO of the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute Ambarish Datta said it was a privilege to partner with universities in New Zealand.

• READ MORE: Other NZ education reports

“New Zealand education is recognised worldwide, and students are offered a fantastic opportunity to learn in a great country,” he said.

The University of Canterbury signed a memorandum of understanding in late 2018, allowing students to study in New Zealand for two of its master’s programmes.

It allows students to start their course in India and then travel to New Zealand to graduate while still qualifying for a Post Study Work Visa.

University of Canterbury Business Taught Masters programme director Stephen Hickinson said the agreement was beneficial to universities because they get students in different levels of study.

Cheaper for students
“It is also cheaper for students because they spend the first half of their study in India.”

The University of Otago reached agreements with five Indian institutions in 2017.

International director Jason Cushen said staff were also looking to develop further partnerships across India, particularly in the southern region and in the state of Maharashtra.

He said these programmes offer more opportunities for international students that may not be accessible in their home country

RNZ understands that another New Zealand university is in the final stages of signing an agreement with the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute.

A spokesperson for the institute said they are currently finalising the curriculum and planning to start the programme by February next year.

Covid-19 impact
According to a recent Education New Zealand study, international students contributed $3.7 billion to New Zealand’s economy in 2019, with a sizeable portion going to universities.

But the pandemic changed everything.

“We started the course in 2019 and then covid hit, so we have only had a few students so far,” Hickinson said.

“At the moment, it’s a little unknown how things will turn out.”

Education Minister Jan Tinetti and Finance Minister Grant Robertson recently announced extra funding for struggling universities and tertiary institutions.

An additional $128 million will be invested to increase tuition subsidies at degree-level and above by a further 4 percent in 2024 and 2025. This is in addition to the 5 percent funding increase that was included in the 2023 Budget, which the government described as the most significant funding increase in 20 years.

“The government has heard the concerns of the sector,” Tinetti said.

“When we began our Budget process, universities and other degree providers were forecasting enrolment increases. The opposite has occurred, and it is clear that there is a need for additional support.”

A new approach
However, Quality NZ Education chief executive Sandeep Sharma believed the pandemic offered a fresh perspective.

The organisation was formed during covid-19 and played a major role in creating the pathway programmes that connect Indian students with New Zealand universities.

“The pandemic was a good time for us because all our shareholders were in New Zealand, and they found that the pandemic [changed] a lot of things in the education industry, especially the traditional way of recruiting students,” he said.

He mentioned that there was considerable interest among Kiwis to go to India to learn about “wellbeing, Ayurveda and yoga”.

Sharma believed that it was time for universities to introduce programmes that were not dependent on border control.

He also highlighted the importance of Indian contributions to New Zealand’s education sector in the coming years.

“India is going to be the largest pool of international students, overtaking China by 2027,” Sharma said.

“It’s vital to have these pathway programmes and I think New Zealand should capitalise on these opportunities.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins faced a grilling by University of Otago students during his trip to Ōtepoti yesterday.

Students, staff and community members have been fighting against the university’s request for staff to consider redundancies in a bid to save $60 million.

But the students did not keep their questions to cuts alone.

• READ MORE: Other NZ universities reports

Hipkins got a mixed welcome with protesters chanting and asking for selfies with the prime minister.

Associate professor of politics Brian Roper said staff were already finding out that their courses were being cut and they were losing their jobs.

“I bumped into one of them. She was in tears, she’s absolutely distraught. What this government is doing to our universities is scandalous,” he said.

“Five out of eight of them are currently experiencing severe financial difficulties because of a chronic underfunding from this government.”

Declining enrolments
Hipkins said declining enrolments meant universities across the motu were finding ways to rebalance their books.

“I know that’s a really uncertain and uncomfortable time for the staff. The universities make their own decisions about how they manage their finances so it’s not something we can intervene on as a government.”

The prime minister attended a student association forum yesterday afternoon, making a speech before opening the floor to questions from students.

“I was just in a lecture where we’re doing course evaluations and my lecturer was begging the class to give a positive evaluation to keep her job. We have a $60 million budget hole, why can’t you just fix it?”

Hipkins said there was a lot of demand on the government’s coffers, and they could not cover all of the requests they got.

He offered no policy promises, telling students they would hear them well before the election

“Our rent has increased, the university’s spiralling down. I’m just thinking why on Earth should I be voting for you?” one student asked.

‘Most political answer’
Hipkins said: “I’ll probably give you the most political answer I’ve given you so far. The biggest increase in tertiary funding that we’ve seen in 20 years in this year’s Budget versus a government that actually wants to do the opposite of that.”

But his responses in regards to the National Party did not go over well with multiple students telling him to stop the blame game or saying what the opposing party would not give them, and instead tell them his policies and what he would deliver.

A yellow-suited monkey has become a feature of recent university protests — they want the government to bail out the university to save jobs and courses.

“I have a banana addiction as a monkey, but my Bachelor of Arts is being cut and I think that’s appalling. Millions and millions of dollars are sitting there which could bail out our university for underfunding, but he’s just not spending it, which he needs to,” the monkey said.

Earlier in the day, Hipkins toured KiwiRail’s Hillside Workshops in South Dunedin as it works on a multi-million dollar redevelopment to build a new wagon assembly facility.

Then he swapped a hard hat for a console, visiting three gaming development studios, after announcing $160 million to set up a 20 percent rebate for game developers in the recent Budget.

Hopeful over rebate
Balancing Monkey Games co-founder Sam Barham is hopeful the rebate could help them hire more staff and continue to do what they love.

Currently, he said developers made most of their money straight after releasing a game and then lived off that until they released another one.

“It makes a huge difference in terms of our ability to survive. It’s not the least risky business out there so we’ve got to think about how do we keep going. Our main aim is to still be doing this. It’s a thing that we love doing.”

The details of the rebate will be consulted on, but up to $3 million in rebate funding is likely to be up for grabs per year for individual studios.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Last week, the White House released President Biden’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2024, which begins October 1 of 2023.

As usual, the biggest portion of the discretionary budget request—52 percent—was for military spending.

While that’s usual, what’s not usual is the sheer level of that military spending. The Biden request calls for $886 billion in spending for the military and war preparations.

That’s near historical high levels, on par with spending at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—even though those wars officially ended with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021.

It’s far higher than the height of military spending during the Reagan years at the height of the Cold War. Looking further back, the Biden request is higher than the height of the Vietnam or Korean wars, too.

The Biden request is $28 billion higher than what Congress approved for regular military and nuclear weapons operations in 2023 (excluding most military aid for Ukraine).

But the Biden request is just the beginning of the story.

Biden’s request of $886 billion has no legal force. At best it’s an opening bid, and if past patterns hold, Congress will approve significantly more. In 2023, for example, the Biden request was for $813 billion, and Congress ultimately approved $858 billion. And if you add military aid from the Department of Defense to Ukraine, military spending in 2023 was more than $890 billion.

We can fully expect Congress to follow this path again, if left to their own devices. Hawks will refuse to retire weapons systems, add new ones, or insist that we need more money for inflation - all tricks they successfully used in 2023 to bump up military spending.

And the administration has promised to continue aid to Ukraine. While that now faces some opposition in Congress, the war in Ukraine shows no end in sight, so it’s likely that the U.S. is not done spending.

All of that means that without serious pressure from outside, military spending in FY 2024 is shaping up to be one of the highest in history.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Lindsay Koshgarian.

A National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) report claims that “wage theft has shamefully become an endemic part of universities’ business models” while Australia’s biggest public universities record massive surpluses and their vice-chancellors earn more than A$1 million a year in wages.

The union report, released late last month and titled Wage Theft, exposes a staggering amount in wages that has allegedly been stolen from casual academic staff.

An analysis of 34 cases conservatively estimates that a collective amount of A$83.4 million is owed to staff across the higher education sector. More than A$80 million has been uncovered since 2020 across public universities.

• READ MORE: Other Australian university reports

Thousands of casual academic staff were laid off during covid-19 pandemic closures starting from March 2020 when revenue from foreign students fell dramatically.

NTEU argues that this should not be an excuse for some of Australia’s wealthy universities not to pay proper wages to hard-working staff who are integral to teaching and research which “generates revenue and delivers immeasurable public good”.

Bigger problem than anticipated
“It’s deeply disappointing but not at all surprising that the staggering wage theft figure is even higher than the NTEU first calculated,” Dr Alison Barnes, national president of NTEU, said in a media statement.

“Even more sadly, the true figure will rise well beyond AU$107.8 million once ongoing cases are settled. Systemic wage theft is endemic in our public universities. This is simply unacceptable,” she added.

Barnes told University World News it was also “unacceptable” that A$107.8 million “has been stolen from higher education staff while universities post huge surpluses and vice-chancellors collect million-dollar salaries”.

At fault are some of Australia’s top universities which also attract huge numbers of foreign students.

The University of Melbourne topped the list with an estimated “wage theft” bill of A$31.6 million, while the University of Sydney came second with A$12.75 million and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) third with A$10 million.

Higher education wage theft comes in many forms, according to the NTEU report.

It includes being paid for fewer hours than the work takes, piece rates for marking instead of the actual time worked, and sham contracting to undercut award and agreement entitlements.

Teaching misclassification is among the most common forms of wage theft in universities.

According to Barnes, two-thirds of all Australian university staff are employed insecurely. With high rates of casualisation among university academic staff, casually employed workers are more vulnerable to wage theft than those who have secure employment, argues the NTEU report.

“Many workers are reluctant to raise complaints over underpayment, or to ask for compensation for hours worked for free when they require contract renewals every teaching period,” it notes.

Fresh revelations and claims
New revelations from the University of Melbourne have taken its underpayment tally beyond A$45 million, cementing it as the leading culprit. Monash University admitted to A$8.6 million in wage theft in 2021.

The management is now fighting tooth and nail against new claims, going to the Fair Work Commission in an attempt to change its enterprise agreement so it is no longer liable to pay staff the money the union alleges is owed.

Bill Logan (not his real name) has worked as a casual for many years at Melbourne University and lately at RMIT. Speaking to University World News on condition of anonymity out of fear that his casual contracts may be denied in the next round, he said that as a casual you have job security for only three months at a time.

Casual lecturers, even though they do the same work as full-time lecturers — preparing tutorials, marking and student administration — are not considered for full-time academic appointments.

After reading the NTEU report, he said: “I still can’t figure out how it has happened as universities pay via software and it is approved by a few people at the top before payments.”

He said it was ironic that universities underpay staff “while teaching students how to practise good governance”.

Logan admits that having job flexibility is a highlight of doing casual teaching.

However, he points out disadvantages: “Until the pre-semester preparation, we didn’t know whether we would be able to do tutoring for the semester, because it depends on the number of students [enrolled for the course].”

“Casuals are not paid for administrative tasks such as writing recommendation letters for internships or further studies [for students],” he added.

Personal sacrifices
Speaking on ABC TV’s 7.30 Report, Natalia Chulio, who has worked as a casual sociology lecturer at the University of Sydney for the past decade, said that to do such work she had had to make a lot of sacrifices in her personal life.

“I can’t have children because I don’t have a guaranteed income … You are always doing work that you are not paid for. For example, I am paid for 28 hours of face-to-face work per week, but I work for more than 45 hours a week.

“I’m underpaid when it comes to marking.”

Logan said: “Even though casual tutors are paid at a higher rate [in academia] than in other sectors, there is no consistency in payments. [Thus] casuals are discriminated against [for example] when you apply for bank loans.”

According to the Wage Theft report, the University of Melbourne admitted in November 2022 that it had started back-paying more than 15,000 staff who were owed A$22 million. That revelation came a little over a year after Melbourne repaid A$9.5 million to 1000 casual academics.

It posted a A$584 million surplus in 2022.

When interviewed on the 7.30 Report, Professor Nicola Phillips, provost of the University of Melbourne, admitted that the system needed an overall. “This is not a sustainable model for us and it is not a desirable one for the future,” she said. “We are looking at dramatically reducing our number of casual contracts as a way of employing staff.”

Logan agreed that institutions like Melbourne University should employ permanent part-time staff rather than casuals.

“Permanent part-time tutors could be hired who could teach a variety of similar subjects,” he argued, pointing out that casuals “teach different but similar subjects” every semester.

‘Tackle insecure work’ plea
“We’re calling on the federal government to address wage theft through tackling its chief cause — insecure work,” said NTEU’s Barnes. “Wage theft in higher education is a deep crisis. We need urgent action to create the better universities that Australia deserves.”

Barnes called on the Australian government to pass laws that make wage theft a crime.

“That needs to happen alongside a mechanism for staff to quickly recover money stolen from them,” she said.

She also encouraged all university staff to become union members.

“The NTEU has pursued enterprise agreements which include secure jobs guarantees, like at Western Sydney University, to increase permanent roles,” she said.

• The full NTEU Wage Theft report

Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lanka-born journalist, radio broadcaster, television documentary maker and a media and international communications analyst. He was head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in Singapore from 2005-2012.This article was originally published by University World News and has been republished here with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

For decades, billionaires have rigged the rules in their favor at the state and federal level to avoid paying what they owe in taxes while working people have paid the price. With the active support of politicians who depend on them to fund their campaigns, the rich just keep getting richer. During the Covid-19 pandemic alone, the world’s ten richest men vastly expanded their fortunes to $1.5 trillion by gouging prices, taking advantage of a global crisis, and denying fair wages to workers.

Last month, state legislators and grassroots organizations from eight states banded together to say “enough” and launched the first-ever multi-state effort to pass wealth tax bills across the country, and foster a fair shake economy where all families from all backgrounds have the freedom to thrive. In California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Maryland, and Washington, they introduced legislation to finally make billionaires pay what they owe toward making healthcare, education, and many other essential needs accessible to all of us. We’re now calling on lawmakers in the remaining 42 states to join this nationwide effort and do the same in their own legislatures. No longer should a handful of billionaires be able to rig the rules to redirect resources from our communities to their country clubs, from our classrooms to their ballrooms, and from our public parks to their private jets.

We’re seeing the results of rising income inequality every single day — in overcrowded classrooms, car-sized potholes on our streets, a healthcare system that puts people in debt at the most difficult times of their lives, and communities that have become unlivable due to rising costs and generations of underinvestment. The solution to this is obvious: unrig the rules and tax the ultrarich. But with Congress in gridlock, states must assume the responsibility of putting a check on billionaires and wealthy corporations.

Make no mistake: this collective effort cannot and will not stop at eight states.

Through the Fund Our Future campaign spearheaded by our two organizations — SiX Action and the State Revenue Alliance — state lawmakers, advocates, and grassroots organizers have been working together for over a year to establish a first-of-its kind network of tax justice leaders, build public support and political power for wealth taxes, and introduce legislation that will best address the unique needs of their communities.

This community-led wealth tax effort will help alleviate deep inequalities from coast to coast. Today, in Washington state, low-income households currently pay six times more in taxes compared to high-income households. California, where more billionaires reside than any other state in the country, faces the starkest homelessness crisis of any state, with affordable housing becoming farther out of range for many of the state’s residents. In Hawaii, the extreme effects of tourism have placed a deep strain on public services and the economy for decades, threatening the livelihoods of people living on the islands. Meanwhile in New York, the state with the highest income inequality in the nation, residents struggle to pay their heating bills in the winter while the ultra-wealthy buy and sell apartments to the tune of tens of millions. Wealth taxes in these states would tip the scales and raise billions of dollars to reinvest right where it’s needed the most: in our communities, in our schools, on our roads, towards our healthcare system, and so much more.

There is no justifiable barrier to these bills becoming law. A vast majority of voters across the country and political spectrum say they support tax increases on the ultra-wealthy. According to new polling, this includes 67 percent of voters in Washington, 68 percent in California, 70 percent in Connecticut, 75 percent in New York, 74 percent in Maryland, among other states. In all eight states, the same party controls both chambers of the state legislatures as well as the Governor’s mansion. We know that people across this country want the ultra-rich to pay what they owe and legislators in the majority have the power to make that a reality.

Make no mistake: this collective effort cannot and will not stop at eight states. Our communities depend on this campaign being replicated in every single state across the nation and we’re ready to work hand in hand with all legislators and voters alike who wish to join us in this movement.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessie Ulibarri.

The post Police Violence Reached an All-Time High Last Yea, Are We Ready to Shrink Police Budgets? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

Inflation rose sharply throughout 2022 across both advanced economies and emerging markets. Structural trends suggest that the problem will be secular, rather than transitory. Specifically, many countries are now engaged in various "wars"—some real, some metaphorical—that will lead to even larger fiscal deficits, more debt monetization, and higher inflation in the future.

Cold and hot wars are on the rise.

The world is going through a form of "geopolitical depression" topped by the escalating rivalry between the West and aligned (if not allied) revisionist powers such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan. Cold and hot wars are on the rise. Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine could still expand and involve NATO. Israel—and thus the United States—is on a collision course with Iran, which is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear-armed state. The broader Middle East is a powder keg. And the US and China are facing off over the questions of who will dominate Asia and whether Taiwan will be forcibly reunited with the mainland.

Accordingly, the US, Europe, and NATO are re-arming, as is pretty much everyone in the Middle East and Asia, including Japan, which has embarked on its biggest military build-up in many decades. Higher levels of spending on conventional and unconventional weapons (including nuclear, cyber, bio, and chemical) are all but assured, and these expenditures will weigh on the public purse.

The global war against climate change will also be expensive—for both the public and private sectors. Climate-change mitigation and adaptation could costtrillions of dollars per year for decades to come, and it is silly to think that all these investments will boost growth. After a real war that destroys much of a country's physical capital, a surge of investment can of course produce an economic expansion; nonetheless, the country is poorer for having lost a large share of its wealth. The same is true of climate investments. A significant share of the existing capital stock will have to be replaced, either because it has become obsolete or because it has been destroyed by climate-driven events.

We are also now waging a costly war against future pandemics. For a variety of reasons—some of them related to climate change—disease outbreaks with the potential to become pandemics will become more frequent. Whether countries invest in prevention or deal with future health crises after the fact, they will be incurring higher costs on a perpetual basis, and these will add to the growing burden associated with societal aging and pay-as-you-go health-care systems and pension plans. Already, this implicit unfunded debt load is estimated to be close to thelevel of explicit public debt for most advanced economies.

Moreover, we will increasingly find ourselves fighting a war against the disruptive effects of "globotics": the combination of globalization and automation (including artificial intelligence and robotics) that is threatening a growing number of blue- and white-collar occupations. Governments will be under pressure to help those left behind, whether through basic-income schemes, massive fiscal transfers, or vastly expanded public services.

These costs will remain large even if automation leads to a surge in economic growth. For example, supporting a meager universal basic income of $1,000 per month would cost the US about20% of its GDP.

Finally, we also must fight an urgent (and related) war against rising income and wealth inequality. Otherwise, the malaise afflicting young people and many middle- and working-class households will continue to drive a backlash against liberal democracy and free-market capitalism. To prevent populist regimes from coming to power and pursuing reckless, unsustainable economic policies, liberal democracies will need to spend a fortune to reinforce their social safety nets—as many are already doing.

Fighting these five "wars" will be expensive, and economic and political factors will constrain governments' ability to finance them with higher taxes. Tax-to-GDP ratios are already high in most advanced economies—especially Europe—and tax evasion, avoidance, and arbitrage will further complicate efforts to increase taxes on high incomes and capital (assuming such measures could even get past the lobbyists or secure buy-in from center-right parties).

Thus, waging these necessary wars will increase government spending and transfers as a share of GDP, and without a commensurate increase in tax revenues. Structural budget deficits will grow even larger than they already are, potentially leading to unsustainable debt ratios that will increase borrowing costs and culminate in debt crises, with obvious adverse effects on economic growth.

For countries that borrow in their own currencies, the expedient option will be to allow higher inflation to reduce the real value of long-term fixed-rate nominal debt. This approach functions as a capital levy against savers and creditors in favor of borrowers and debtors, and it can be combined with complementary, draconian measures such as financial repression, taxes on capital, and outright default (for countries that borrow in foreign currencies or whose debt is largely short-term or indexed to inflation). Because the "inflation tax" is a subtle and sneaky form of taxation that doesn't require legislative or executive approval, it is the default path of least resistance when deficits and debts are increasingly unsustainable.

I have focused primarily on demand-side factors that will lead to higher spending, deficits, debt monetization, and inflation. But there are also manymedium-term negative aggregate supply shocks that could add to today's stagflationary pressures, increasing the risk of recession and cascadingdebt crises. The Great Moderation is dead and buried; theGreat Stagflationary Debt Crisis is upon us.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Nouriel Roubini.

Despite total borrowings reaching $11.1 billion, the Auckland Council Group’s latest results show it has managed to weather the worst of the storm created by the covid pandemic.

But the super city’s statement to the NZX shows it will face some tough times ahead as it seeks to balance its next budget.

In June the council with New Zealand’s largest Pacific population — almost 250,000, more than 15 percent of the city’s total of 1.7 million — agreed to defer $230 million in capital works over the next three years to address a $150 million per annum shortfall in its operating costs.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Auckland’s covid recovery

South Auckland projects affected included a new Flat Bush multi-use centre, the upgrade of the Papakura park and ride and the Ōpaheke Park sports fields.

Auckland Council finance and performance committee chairperson Desley Simpson said a number of projects were impacted on by the cutbacks, but increases in revenue and operational savings meant it was now in a stronger position.

“The key point we considered when preparing our Recovery Budget last year was to provide significant support to the economic recovery of Auckland,” Simpson said.

“This proved to be crucial, with our ongoing capital investment programmes helping to counterbalance some of the anticipated economic pressures in Auckland, as well as supporting future infrastructure growth needs for the region.”

Council’s results ‘positive’
The council’s debt increased $757 million to $11.1 billion in the 12 months to June 30, while its revenue grew by $361 million to $5.7 billion.

Manurewa-Papakura ward councillor Angela Dalton said the council’s latest results were positive.

“I think considering the last few years we’ve had, they are pretty good,” she said.

“But I think the future budgets are going to be really tough for us and we are looking at some challenging times ahead.”

Dalton said the results need to be looked at in the context of the Auckland Council Group’s total asset base, which grew by $9.7 billion to $70.4 billion in the past year.

“Considering the huge drop in revenue we’ve faced we’ve still been able to build our city and work on capital projects like the Central Interceptor and City Rail Link. They are the big game changers for Auckland.”

Some council projects were delayed, but it still spent $2.3b on capital works, including over $1b on transport-related assets, $815m on water, wastewater and stormwater and $384 million on other assets.

Climate change funding juggle
Simpson said whoever won Auckland’s mayoral race would have to juggle funding for climate change initiatives, infrastructure and transport spending, community facilities and parks and reserves.

She said while some projects that were deferred might be brought back from the brink, some may be consigned to political history.

“We’ve come through the worst period any Auckland Council has had to deal with. But it’s not going to get any easier.”

Auckland mayor Phil Goff’s final budget was announced in June and included $600 million for new bus services, funding for electric ferries and buses and completion of key links in the city’s cycling network.

The budget’s climate change package will be funded by a targeted rate, generating $574m over 10 years, with plans to seek a further $482m in funding from the government and other sources.

• The political campaign for mayor is being keenly contested with a Pacific candidate, Fa’anānā Efeso Collins, narrowly leading opinion polls for the October local body elections.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air. Asia Pacific Report is an LDR partner.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ralph Nader.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Seattle Times. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Washington state lawmakers are set to dedicate $1.5 million to removing toxic fluorescent lights from schools and another $125,000 to studying environmental hazards and creating new standards to protect students from exposure to harmful substances.

In requesting the funding, lawmakers cited an investigation by The Seattle Times and ProPublica into a Seattle-area campus where children and staff were exposed to a combination of harmful conditions, including elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a banned chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency has linked to cancer and other illnesses.

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More than 200 students, parents and teachers at the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe filed lawsuits claiming they developed cancer, brain damage, hormonal problems and other illnesses after exposure to PCBs on campus. Two of the lawsuits have resulted in extraordinary jury awards against Monsanto, the manufacturer of the chemicals, totaling nearly $250 million to 11 people. At least 15 lawsuits are pending.

The school district knew as early as 2014 that PCBs were leaking into classrooms from aging fluorescent lights but were slow to respond to the unfolding crisis, The Times and ProPublica reported.

The Legislature’s proposed budget, agreed upon by the state House and Senate on Wednesday but awaiting the governor’s approval, allocated $125,000 to the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences to review policies on environmental conditions in schools. The research will cover several contaminants, including PCBs, lead, asbestos and mold. The study is due in December.

“These are first steps,” said Democratic state Rep. Gerry Pollet, one of a handful of lawmakers who pushed for the funding. “If we have a report to the Legislature in December, we will have a first look at what standards need to be adopted to protect children’s health in schools, how to remediate, and from there we will learn how much we need to fund.”

Another $1.5 million is earmarked for the state departments of education and ecology to remove fluorescent lights known to contain PCBs; the substance was banned by the EPA in 1979 but is suspected to linger in building materials and light fixtures in aging campuses across the country.

Those same lights leaked oily PCB liquids into classrooms at Sky Valley, releasing the chemical into the air and onto surfaces. At that campus alone, it cost more than $1.6 million to remove PCB-laden material, including carpets, furniture and air filters.

The goal is to replace the fluorescent lights with energy-efficient alternatives, which will save school districts money in the long run, said state Rep. Alex Ramel, a Democrat who also pushed for the funding after reading the Times’ reporting. Replacing the lights is “the lowest-hanging fruit there is,” he said. “It would make sense even if they weren’t leaking toxins into schools.”

Pollet acknowledged that the proposed budget’s $1.5 million won’t cover the full cost of removing the toxic materials from schools. But he called the funding an “urgent, easy Band-Aid” and the first of many steps.

In addition to the funding, lawmakers proposed giving the Washington State Board of Health power to take action on classroom contamination.

The proposal would have reversed a rule that bars the board of health from creating and enforcing rules relating to conditions in school buildings — an exclusion that is unique to schools. That language was withdrawn in the late stages of negotiations and did not make it into the latest budget.

“What’s crazy is the board of health can adopt a rule protecting people from exposure to contaminants in state government buildings, for example, but not in schools,” Pollet said.

Though the board of health is responsible for maintaining safe conditions on campuses, the agency can’t take action without the Legislature’s approval.

This gap and others allow contaminants to fester in schools across the state.

At Sky Valley, health inspections repeatedly flagged hazards on campus as early as 2014 and made recommendations to fix the problems. But over the years, the levels of PCBs climbed, even after multiple cleanup attempts, state and federal environmental documents revealed.

Under Washington state law, however, health districts aren’t required to enforce any recommendations they make after inspecting schools. Likewise, school districts aren’t required to act when inspections find certain toxic chemicals, a gap reported in the Times’ and ProPublica’s investigation and later cited in the state budget requests.

Though the budget language doesn’t address these specific shortcomings, the proposal describes the study as a precursor to changing “policies and standards in Washington schools.”

In the Sky Valley lawsuits, juries awarded 11 parents, teachers and students a collective $247 million in verdicts against Monsanto. Other Sky Valley families are bringing similar cases, one of which is currently at trial.

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, denied the allegations both in the lawsuits and in a statement to The Times. The company is appealing the jury verdicts.

The Monroe School District, which serves about 6,000 students, agreed to a $34 million settlement with parents and students exposed to PCBs, court documents filed last month revealed. The extraordinary settlement was filed under a court seal and is the maximum allowed under the school district’s insurance policy. The settlement amounts to about a third of the district’s entire operating budget.

In court documents, the Monroe School District defended its actions at Sky Valley, saying it communicated problems to parents and addressed PCBs appropriately. The filing notes that Washington law only broadly mandates that schools maintain safe conditions, but “none of these requirements are specific to PCBs in building materials.”

In a statement to The Times, the district said it supports legislative interest in strengthening testing and remediation standards in schools, adding that those efforts are “more effective when the legislature also provides funding.”

The school district continues to clear Sky Valley of PCBs under the guidance of the EPA, which hasn’t yet given the school a clean bill of health after eight years of remediation efforts. School district records show, however, that the latest testing on campus, conducted by a district contractor in August, found only minor levels of the chemical.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Lulu Ramadan, The Seattle Times.