At least 189 bills dealing with independent contractors have been introduced in state legislatures this session, according to LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking system . Fifty of those measures have been passed by one or both chambers of their originating legislatures, including California’s...

Faced with the imminent threat of litigation from her own attorney general, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) has dropped her effort to allow thousands of Show Me State residents to continue receiving food stamps without meeting state-mandated work requirements. Kelly announced in June she would allow...

MD TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION FACING BIG SHORTFALL The MARYLAND Transit Administration says it is facing a $2 billion-plus funding shortfall over the next decade. The agency also said it will need to spend $5.7 billion between now and 2028 to address the state’s aging infrastructure and equipment...

GA GOV ORDERS SWEEPING BUDGET CUTS GEORGIA Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has ordered all state agencies to cut their budgets by 4 percent this year and 6 percent next year. State agencies haven’t received such an order since the Great Recession. (WSB-TV 2 [ATLANTA]) ND RECEIVES FEDERAL APPROVAL...

More than 15 million Americans in eight states will likely vote in 2020 on voting machines without any paper backup, despite calls from elections efforts for auditable paper trails in light of known efforts by foreign governments to tinker with U.S. elections. A just released report from New York...

MN, NC MAY BE IN RECESSION MINNESOTA and NORTH CAROLINA may be in a recession, according to research indicating that when a state’s unemployment rate rises by at least 0.4 percentage points above its lowest rate in the preceding 12 months, there’s a 50 percent chance the state is in a...

A special committee in Kansas is looking into ways to control the rising cost of healthcare in the state. This month the members of the House and Senate Special Committee on Financial Institutions and Insurance got a crash course on healthcare cost control measures other states have taken from Colleen...

Wyoming has the largest estimated fiscal year 2019 rainy-day fund balance as a percentage of total state expenditures, at 109 percent, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers’ Spring 2019 Fiscal Survey of States . California has the largest FY 2019 rainy-day fund balance...

Many states have learned lessons from the Great Recession of 2007-09 and are better prepared for the next economic downturn, according to findings by the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) and other analysts. “Rainy day funds are growing as a share of state budgets,”...