The Texas Department of Transportation made a $1.1 billion accounting mistake last year through a mixture of "ineffective internal communication, a complex reporting structure and misunderstanding" of its data, according to a report by the state auditor's office released Thursday.

How much would your job need to pay for you to move to Alaska? If you're a police officer from Minnesota, the magic number sits somewhere between $74,000 and $104,000 a year - at least that's what Anchorage Police Department recruiters are hoping.

Due to severe staff shortages, the Anchorage Police Department is lobbying Minnesota and Michigan police officers to embrace their pioneer spirit, brave the cold and relocate to America's last frontier. Sgt. Mike Couturier, head of Anchorage's recruiting effort, said Anchorage, with 280,000 inhabitant, is looking to add another 20 officers by the end of the year to add to its 390 officer staff.

According to the Star Tribune , "Anchorage recruiters say that a rookie officer's average pay (with overtime) in 2007 was nearly...

The Massachusetts state government reported this week that nearly half a million people signed up for health insurance in the two years since Massachusetts enacted a new law requiring all residents to have health insurance or face penalties.

The plan provides free health insurance to those making less than $9,800 a year, and subsidizes costs for those making more than that but less than $30,000 per year. Employers with 11 or more full-time employees have to pay at least one-third of full-time workers' premiums and ensure that at least 25 percent of their full-time workers are covered by an employer plan.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick couldn't be happier over the progress he's seen to date.

"To have insured nearly a half-million people in less than two years is nothing...

Peter Tubic was burdened with his own problems when the Milwaukee city government thought he needed one more. For keeping his unlicensed car parked in his driveway, he was fined $50. Over the course of four years, the unpaid $50 parking fine swelled to $2,645 after late fees were continuously tacked on. To pay for it, the city foreclosed on Mr. Tubic's house.

This tragedy is not simply that one man's debt can run so high, but that there is no force to stop it. The city government became the fat kid in gymnastics: inflexible to a fault. According to city officials, they cannot reverse the fee or the foreclosure even if everyone wanted to; quite a winning attitude.

"At this point, there's really not too much that would allow us to reverse those charges," said Don Schaewe...

While most wouldn't picture Oregon as a potential bastion of solar power, the Oregon Department of Transportation recently unveiled the nation's first solar panel project on a major U.S. highway.

At the interchange of Interstate 5 and Interstate 205, the state installed roughly 1,000 square feet of solar panels to power the lights that illuminate the highway at night. The panels will feed into the local electricity grid and account for 28 percent of the energy needed.

According to state officials, the project should begin generating electricity by the end of the year.

The Oregonian reported that early next year the department plans to request bids from other solar power developers for similar highway lighting projects. Their short-term goal is to generate two million kilowatt hours...

DON'T USE CAPITALIZATION to write your emails. Don't swear at people in forums. Don't threaten anyone over instant message, and never giver your unvarnished opinion in a social network directly to someone, for if you do, you might find yourself in jail...at least in Illinois.

The Illinois state legislature passed a bill this week that bans cyber-bullying: the act of abusing and threatening others with words over the Internet or text messages.

The legislation was inspired by the October 2006 suicide of a Missouri teenager who received "hurtful messages" on MySpace from a neighbor pretending to be a teenage boy. While well-intended, the new law is a clear violation of free speech and a poor attempt to regulate the unsavory behavior a few bad apples.

It's bad enough...

Voters approved a new city ordinance this week in Denver that grants police the right to seize cars driven by those suspected of being an illegal alien.

Colorado law currently bans illegal immigrants from obtaining licenses and provides police officers the right to impound the cars of unlicensed or uninsured drivers. Under the new law, which passed by 54 percent of the vote, police officers can impound the vehicles of drivers "suspected of being an illegal alien," regardless of whether or not they actually possess a valid driver's license.

Drivers suspected of being an illegal are required under the new ordinance to prove they are not residing in the US illegally...after their car is impounded. Supporters of the bill argue it will get unlicensed, dangerous drivers off the...

The Illinois Senate rejected a 7.5 percent pay increase Tuesday following weeks of withering public pressure to turn down the money.

The 47-0 vote (with three senators voting "present") came only weeks after lawmakers got 3.8 percent cost-of-living increases on July 1. That bumped the based salary of a rank-and-file lawmaker to $67,833 and legislative leaders close to $100,000.

South Dakota is planning to conduct a referendum for an abortion ban vote that will be on the ballot in November. The ban, if passed, would prohibit abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to a mother's health. More importantly, it would create a vehicle for which to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that upheld a woman's right to abort.

For the past few years, South Dakota leaders in government and non-profits have been waging a battle to eliminate abortions in the state. In 2006, South Dakota voted and signed into law a bill to ban abortion in the hopes that the ban would be challenged in court and ultimately make its way up to the Supreme Court for a new abortion decision from a more conservative court.

Instead of challenging the bill and creating...

Save for accountants and tax lawyers, no one enjoys taxes. But even government minimalists would agree that taxes are necessary to pay for vital services like defense, road construction and maintenance, etc. The problem is, figuring out where your tax dollars are spent can prove enormously difficult.

State governments are typically much worse at providing transparency into their expense accounts than the feds. But the process has just become a lot easier for residents of New York.

The Empire Center for New York Policy, a project of the conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute, recently launched www.seethroughny.com . This transparency website, the first to be independently sponsored by a private, non-partisan organization, enables residents to access databases which detail the financial...