BlandGuy

I wonder, does the District now have to hire a bunch of extra folks to get to the same total labor hours? (I assume the county would assert they had the right number of labor hours being spent) And, since that's less efficient (more hiring/termination processes to execute, more records to keep, checks to cut, cars to park, etc) I wonder if they incorporated that inefficiency into their calculation about what they could/couldn't afford?

One wonders, too, about selecting 25 hours as the cutoff. Since the hours are taken as 1300 hours over the year rather than strictly weekly (as mentioned in pg. 8 reference) there's plenty of time to keep track and limit people when they get to that level - you could set a work week of 29 and be pretty much as "safe" as at 25. So this makes me suspect it's not about the healthcare insurance per se as much as about the administration simply trying to squeeze temp wrker hours and using this as a convenient excuse.

Minor point - according to previous statements, it's 1300 employees rather than 5000+

And yet, I have replayed your "Ill Wind" several times - it's a very very nice piece of work. I was hoping you'd spend more time at Caritas ;)

In an Ethics class about 40 years ago, we began with the question "is it OK to steal food for your hungry child" - and never really came up with a satisfying answer. So, are there better ways to think about such questions now than we had then ... has the state of ethical calculus advanced? What/who should I read (as a layman!) to help me make better decisions about which causes to support?

(This is pragmatic, we're coming up on our family's annual contributions budget discussion!)

Any programs you would specifically recommend as getting the most value out of the remains?

Thanks! That's a type of donation I hadn't thought of, and it's a great idea after they harvest whatever else is useful ... but, I'll look for one (or hope the hospital/hospice/whatever looks for one) nearer me and which will take someone who had hepatitis when a child (9 yrs).