The time I got swindled

About five years ago my checking account received an unauthorized debit from which I had made a previous purchase. The debit was for $30, but caused my checking account to go overdrawn by approximately $800.

Not knowing the debit had been taken and I was already overdrawn, I deposited enough money to cover my pending expenses and let my checking account to fall deeper and deeper in the red.

It took the bank 6 days to notify me of the overdraft on my account. In the mean time, the bank charged me $32 for every debit that came in as an overdraft, six dollars for every day I was overdrawn, plus the amount of each debit while not giving me overdraft protection and covering the amount I owed to each business at which I had made purchases.

When I discovered my overdraft, I immediately went to the bank and asked to see what had gone wrong. I received a small statement from all charges and deposits from the prior week and discovered the unauthorized charge. The bank contacted the business that had charged me and got them to take away the $30 charge without argument.

As for everything else, the bank did nothing to help me. I was told I would have to collect the overdraft fees from the company that had put me into the negative. They also continued to charge me $6 for every day I was overdrawn, causing the overdraft to grow even larger.

I was never able to collect my fees the company who had taken the unauthorized debit from my account. In the end, I owed every business what I owed them, plus their individual check-bouncing fees, the bank overdraft fees, the daily $6 overdrawn fee and also the money I owed to the businesses I had to pay two-fold to the bank.

To expose such practices from the bank and the business, I would contact the Better Business Bureau to report the incident and look for similar complaints.

Marshall University Foundation feeling the recession

Businesses are not the only entities feeling the negative effects of a poor economy. Universities and colleges, including the Marshall University Foundation, have experienced a decline in endowment funds, net assets and charitable donations.

According to the foundation it experienced a 15 percent decline in the number of donors and a 29 percent decrease in the value of gifts given, down from $8.6 million in 2008 to $6.1 million in 2009. According to a Chronicle of Higher Education article, the foundation experienced a loss of 17.8 percent in endowment value in 2009.

The decrease in gifts of 29 percent is greater than the 11.9 percent decrease in gifts U.S. universities and colleges experienced, according to a survey by the Council for Aid to Education. According to a Chronicle of Higher Education article from March 7, the national decline in endowments was 23 percent in 2009 compared to the foundation’s loss of 17.4 percent.

According to the foundation’s annual report, it experienced a decrease of net assets of 21 percent, down from $119 million in 2008 to $94 million in 2009

R. Scott Anderson, Marshall University Foundation chief financial officer, said the foundation had to cut its operating budget late in fiscal year 2009 including a reduction in staff of five positions in April 2009. These structural changes will carryover to fiscal year 2010.

Financial Aid Director Kathy J. Bialk said the amount of available scholarships for all students decreased from approximately $2.87 million in 2008 to $1.2 million in 2009.

“We haven’t seen our numbers for 2010-2011, but we are hoping they are better,” Bialk said.

Anderson said the foundation also reduced the amount of support to various Marshall University departments by 34 percent: from $14.5 million in 2008 to $9.5 million in 2009, according to the foundation’s audited financial statements.

“In fiscal year 2010, there were some specific endowed scholarships which did not have earnings available to award scholarships,” Anderson said. “The foundation continues to award scholarships in 2010, although in a reduced amount based on the market values of the endowment funds.”

Montserrat Miller, associate professor of history, said the history department has felt the decline in available scholarships. Miller said student awards once accompanied with a monetary award were given without a check while others were not awarded at all in the 2009-2010 school year.

“I was told that the ADK Doris C. Miller Scholarship was underwater,” Miller said, “and as a consequence we have taken a year off from naming a recipient.”

According to the 2009 Voluntary Support of Education survey conducted by the CAE, in which the foundation participated, charitable donations to colleges and institutions in the U.S. were down by 11.9 percent, the steepest decline in the survey’s history.
In a Feb. 3 CAE press release, Ann E. Kaplan, director of the VSE survey, said the decline in gifts to universities was expected given the economic conditions.

“Historical patterns indicate that as the economy recovers, contributions will rise again,” Kaplan said in the release. “However, 2009 was a difficult year for colleges and universities and, indeed, also for the individuals and institutions that care about them.”

According to the survey, prior to the 2009 downturn, gifts to universities and colleges had increased at an average rate of 4.1 percent over the past ten years.
According to the survey, gifts to operations experienced a modest decline of less than 1 percent, but gifts for capital purposes, which include gifts to endowments, for property, building and equipment, experienced a steep decline of 25 percent.

Foundation Gifts by Year














Marshall University Foundation Net Assets by Year


Sources: Marshall University Annual Financial Report 2006-2009

City’s wallet feels the economic crisis

Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2010-2011 reflects the hardships the town is facing in the wake of the national economic crisis.
In the State of the City address on Feb. 13, Wolfe said the current fiscal year budget was cut by 10 percent from last year’s budget in reaction to the current national economic crisis and an estimated 10 percent reduction in proposed revenue for this year
The proposed budget has been cut from last year’s proposed budget of $44.6 million to approximately $39.5 million, a difference of $5.1 million.
The cuts in the proposed budget expenditures were across the board except for the budget under the heading of mayor, which saw an increase of approximately $2000. City Council and insurance budgets are the only two to remain the same.
Accounting for 24 percent of the decrease in expenditure, the proposed budgets for the Huntington Police Department and Fire Department are down by a total of $1.1 million.
In the State of the City address, Wolfe said the $1 user fee increase made it possible to hire six new police officers With the proposed budget, the city will likely have to remove administrative positions in the police and fire department, and replace them with sworn personnel, thus reducing first responders in the field.
The largest cut in revenue sources comes from Business and Occupation tax and federal grants, which are estimated to decrease by $1.9 million and $1.4 million, respectively.
In the State of the City address, Wolfe said the city is trying tactics to collect on delinquent taxes and fees; for instance the city turned over the collection of outstanding Business and Occupation taxes to a private auditing service.
“We are exploring all that is currently available to us,” Wolfe said in the address. “In the budget that is presented, instead of massive layoffs and reductions in services, we are proposing cutbacks in some areas, removal of some positions and furloughs for city employees.”

The State of Huntington, according to Wolfe

In the State of the City address on Feb. 13, Mayor Kim Wolfe focused on successes, future plans, and the fallout from the economic crisis that affecting the community’s fiscal situation.

Wolfe thanked the city council for the $1 user fee increase, which resulted in the city hiring six police officers, paving $800,000 worth of streets and purchasing Street and Traffic Engineering Division equipment.

The mayor pointed to several city successes; including the creation of a constituent services liaison, which allows the city to be more responsive to residents’ requests or complaints, national attention from “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution”, and the completion of the first phase of the Old Main Corridor with funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Wolfe said the current fiscal year budget was cut by 10 percent from last year’s $44 million to approximately $40 million in reaction to the current national economic crisis and an estimated 10 percent reduction in proposed revenue for this year.

Few Contributed, but at MU and Uk, most gave to Democrats

During the 2008 presidential election, people who identified their employer as Marshall University or the University of Kentucky gave a large majority of donations to Democratic candidates over Republican candidates according to campaign contribution information obtained from Fundrace on huffingtonpost.com.

Approximately 97 percent of donations from MU employees and 78.7 percent of donations from the UK employees went to Democratic candidates.

Ten MU employees donated a total of $4,791 and 75 UK employees donated a total of $52,902 in the 2008 presidential election.

George Davis, Marshall University political science professor, said even though there was too little information to draw any overwhelming conclusion from the donation patterns, it did not surprise him that the university employees were more likely to support Democratic candidates.

“People working in higher education are more likely to be more educated, more affluent and because of that among the most politically involved,” Davis said. “What is surprising is that only 10 employees from Marshall and 75 from Kentucky contributed to candidates.”

President Barrack Obama received the most financial contributions from employees at both universities, with 52 percent of the total from UK and 62 percent of the total from MU.

This is a greater percentage than he received in total. Obama totaled approximately 42 percent, or $659.7 million, of the total $1.54 billion in monetary contributions raised by the top 18 fund raising presidential candidates according to the campaign finance election guide on nytimes.com.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came in second in financial contributions at both universities with 16.6 percent of the total contributions from UK and 21.7 percent at MU.

Sen. John McCain came in a close third in donations from university employees at UK with 15.7 percent of the total donations, but did not received any donations from MU employees.

2008 presidential election financial contributions from Marshall University and University of Kentucky employees by candidate

Democrats	Marshall University	University of Kentucky
Obama	$2,948	$27,774
Clinton	$1,043	$8,786
Edwards	$1,000	$4,055
Kucinich	$0	$1,000
Total	$4,491	$41,615
Republicans
McCain	$0	$8,321
Paul	$300	$2,716
Guililani	$0	$250
Total	$300	$11,287

To: Professor Morris
From: Melissa Ison
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Re: Story Outline: Waste and efficiency in local government

Subject: Cabell County/Huntington government are/are not pursuing environmental efficiency

Scope: While covering the President’s Office for the Parthenon, President Kopp released a report showing embarrassing amounts of waste – monetary and energy – within the university. I am curious to see if local government is doing anything similar to what the university is doing to monitor waste and curb costs.

Need: It is important for the tax paying public to know if their governments are seeking to curb costs by becoming more energy and waste efficient.

Methods: I would contact various government departments – mayor’s office, police, fire, etc. – to see if there have been any efforts to become more efficient.

Sources: I would rely on interviews from employees within these offices, rather than department heads to see their take on the efficiency in their departments. I think the interesting people to interview would be the office workers and the maintenance crews. I would also rely on the individual, detailed budget and financial reports from each department to see how money is being spent and if waste is being monitored.

Presentation: This would be a post on my blog, Appalachian Refugee.

Follow-up: This could be a good continuing piece if the government agencies have or have not been pursuing more environmental and monetary efficiency. Further investigations could focus on state government and schools.

Investigative journalism is alive and well

The article “Foreign Interpreters Hurt in Battle Find U.S. Insurance Benefits Wanting” by T. Christian Miller investigated the claims of mistreatment from insurance companies of injured interpreters employed to aid troops during the Iraq War.

The propublica.org and the Los Angeles Times co-published article investigated claims that injured interpreters benefits from insurance companies were not meeting what was originally promised. Many of them not qualifying for coverage due to lack of paper work and others being bullied into accepting a settlement much lower than what was promised.

The article is well written, well researched and not overly graphic in nature. Though it is dealing with interpreters who were injured during the war, the journalist does not linger on the injuries inflicted to promote sympathy for them. It focuses only on the evidence derived from interviews, documents and insurance claims.

The evidence Miller found to support the claims came from interviews, corporate documents and data on insurance claims. Miller explained each individual interpreter in different sections, with their account followed by the counter from the accused.

In supporting claims and seeking responses from the parties involved, Miller cited statements from insurers, the Labor Department and internal AIG documents.

The use of graphics in the story aided the readers experience and did not merely repeat the facts of the story. The graphics illustrate where the interpreters are from by state or nation. Though this specific story is specifically about foreign contractors, many of the contractors are also American.

This article is informative for current war contractors, and might spark the interest of human rights activists and individuals serving in the military.