"Premiums averaged from $16,000 to nearly $17,000 in Delaware, Alaska, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, the District of Columbia, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, which have the highest average family premiums."
"Over the last two fiscal years, federal funding for local public health efforts has been slashed by 8 percent and 34,000 local health department jobs have been eliminated. Advocates say more cuts could be catastropic."
“What appears to have become a problem are the purchasing procedures,” [Auditor-Elect Doug] Hoffer said. It’s not clear, he said, how recommendations from outside experts affect an individual agency’s plan to revamp its computer systems. “On a couple of high-profile cases, decisions made about buying either hardware, software or training, didn’t work out very well.”
"The Department of Motor Vehicles has spent roughly $18 million dollars on a new computer system that doesn’t work. The courts have spent at least $1.7 million dollars on their own computer system. It doesn’t work either. Why have there been so many failures in the state’s efforts to modernize its technology systems? And what we can learn from these mistakes."
"Just a few examples of the completed projects: Washington’s Department of Agriculture completely eliminated livestock-inspection nonpayment and reduced cash payments by 90 percent while cutting non-value-added steps by 20 percent. The Department of Fish and Wildlife reduced the time to manage commercial -fishery harvest data from 90 hours to eight. And the Department of Ecology reduced the number of days between guidelines issued and the start of grant negotiations by 48 percent."