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- Written by: Tom Philpott
The first-ever “Military Financial Capability Study” finds that service members are more likely than civilians to keep up with monthly expenses, save for their kids’ education, avoid payday lenders, invest in stocks and bonds, and even check on their own credit scores.
Where military members clearly need more financial counseling is credit card balances. Twenty-seven percent carry more than $10,000 in credit card debt versus only 16 percent of civilians surveyed.
But overall “we can definitely say that [military personnel] are more savvy than the general population” regarding personal finances, said John M. Gannon, president of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.
FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is the largest independent regulator of securities firms doing business in the United States. Its Investor Education Foundation, which sponsored the survey, operates on the fines collected from security firms that violate laws to protect investors.
Since 2006, the foundation has partnered with the Department of Defense to improve military financial readiness. It holds financial forums for service members, provides continuing education to on-base financial counselors and offers fellowships for military spouses to become Accredited Financial Counselors.
The foundation’s campaign to educate military people got its initial funding from $6 million paid by First Command Financial Planning Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, in 2005 to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company had mislead military investors.
The new survey of 700 service members and 100 spouses was conducted online in June and July of 2009. The results were linked to a national civilian survey on financial capabilities FINRA conducted earlier.
The report cautions that some disparities in answers from military and civilian respondents reflect demographic differences.
Military respondents were more likely to be younger, male, employed full time and high school graduates.
Also, the military sample didn’t precisely reflect the current force. There was a higher proportion of officers surveyed (31 percent) and a smaller proportion of young enlisted (10 percent in pay grades E-1 to E-4).
Still, Gannon said, the results capture financial challenges for military families and serve as a good baseline for future surveys.
Feedback from Defense and military officials who track financial matters, Gannon said, is that “our data is very spot on” in identifying issues that the troops face.
The report can be found online at: www.finra.org/web/groups/foundation/@foundation/documents/foundation/p122257.pdf.
It’s no mystery why the survey shows military people more financially literate than the civilian population, Gannon explained.
“If you look at the level of effort that the Department of Defense has put into financial readiness compared to private sector employers, it’s really tremendous,” he said.
He noted that a personal financial manager can be found on every base and the services have mandatory financial education requirements, starting from boot camp. “There aren’t too many private sector employers that have such substantial programs,” he said.
The survey found that 36 percent of military respondents have trouble paying their monthly bills but that compares favorably to nearly two thirds of civilians reporting trouble.
Fifty percent of military respondents reported having emergency money saved to cover at least three months of living expenses if needed. That varied by rank, of course, falling to 39 percent for junior and mid-grade enlisted and rising to 67 percent for officers.
“Fortunately, military personnel and their spouses are less exposed to the financial risks of unexpected medical emergencies than civilians as they are covered by health insurance,” the report notes.
Fifty-two percent of military respondents with financially dependent children were saving to send them to college. Only 41 percent of civilians with children were doing so.
Among respondents with bank accounts, which is virtually all service members, 21 percent of military respondents versus 24 percent of civilians had taken out some sort of non-bank loan over the last five years. That could be payday loans, auto title loans, pawn shops or “rent-to-own” stores. A third of junior enlisted respondents had used these services.
Worried that such lenders preyed on the military, Congress in 2007 set a cap of 36 percent on annual interest that can be charged military borrowers. Its full effect likely isn’t seen yet in this survey, Gannon said.
Military respondents, Gannon said, already are “much more likely to comparison shop for financial products and they’re much more willing to check their credit report and credit scores. That is something that the Department of Defense, through its financial readiness program, has always stressed and the numbers are really outstanding. I mean 72 percent of military respondents have obtained a credit report in the last 12 months [compared] to 40 percent of civilians. That’s really good.”
Given this and other positive survey results, the foundation will turn more of its attention to educating on credit card debt, Gannon said.
“Non-bank borrowing is still an issue [but] at least, based on our data, the military is doing better than the civilian population,” he added.
More disturbing is that 36 percent of military respondents versus 26 percent of civilians had at least four credit cards. Ten percent of the military reported over $20,000 in credit card debt versus seven percent of civilians.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
On Tuesday, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell criticized Schwarzenegger's line-item veto of funding for the CalWORKS Stage 3 program, which provides subsidized child care services to low-income families.
O'Connell said the veto will have “far-reaching effects” that stretch beyond the loss of child care for struggling families.
Schwarzenegger has issued no statements from his office explaining his decision or responding to the criticisms, although the state finance department said he exercised line-item veto power to reduce general fund spending with a view to creating “a prudent reserve.”
O'Connell held a press conference in Oakland Tuesday to discuss the issue, and was accompanied by parents who may have to choose between welfare and their jobs because they can't afford child care.
“We stand at the cusp of a disaster,” O'Connell said. “The governor's veto has set the stage for a cascading set of circumstances that will disrupt struggling parents' employment, eliminate jobs of child care workers, force the closure of child care businesses, cause loss of early learning opportunities for kids, and worsen California's economic downturn.”
As Lake County News reported last week, Schwarzenegger made the cuts to the 12-year-old program on the evening of Oct. 8.
The move was completely unexpected, according to Teri Sedrick, co-director of Rural Communities Child Care, a program of North Coast Opportunities.
In Lake County, Sedrick said 73 local families, 149 children and 100 child care providers will be impacted by the cuts to the program, which helps families that have worked their way off of welfare and have been without cash aid for 24 months. This year's budget for CalWORKS Stage 3 in Lake County was $475,458.
The program ends effective Nov. 1, although legislators have indicated they plan to try to restore the $256 million in child care funds through other avenues, including seeking funds from the California First Five Commission and using savings from Assembly budget cuts, as Lake County News has reported.
O'Connell said Tuesday that the cuts will impact thousands more children around the state.
He said more than 187,000 children are already on long waiting lists for child care services, and Schwarzenegger's veto added 54,000 more names to the waiting list, which O'Connell said is a nearly 30-percent increase.
In addition, some 1,500 names will be added to the list of those children who would have moved into Stage 3 from Stage 2, O'Connell said.
Under CalWORKS, a family usually progresses from Stage 1 to Stage 3 as their employment situation stabilizes and working parents need help to cover the prohibitively high cost of child care in order to go to work and remain off public aid, state officials reported.
“The governor's veto is turning out to be a job reduction act at a time when California's unemployment rate is at a near-record high 12.4 percent,” O'Connell noted.
That's because California's subsidized child care system generates more than 130,000 related jobs, according to a study released by the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security entitled, “Cutting Child Care Out from Under Californians,” www.law.berkeley.edu/files/chefs/Child_Care_in_California_Sept_2010.pdf.
Sedrick said last week that supporters of the program had put out a call for people to contact the governor's office to lodge complaints.
The governor's office, in turn, directed the resulting calls to O'Connell's office, which reported being inundated with messages from people told by Schwarzenegger's staff that there are other child care programs with available funding that can help them right away.
O'Connell said Schwarzenegger and his staff knew that thousands of California children are already on waiting lists for these scarce child care services. He called that message of false hope to parents “cruel and shameless.”
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The incident led to a daylong search of the Lower Lake area and lockdowns at local schools that lasted for about three hours Monday morning, according to Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Bauman said the two males suspects in the incident are still at large and should be considered armed and dangerous.
Both are described as black male adults. One is between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, with short, wavy hair, wearing a black beanie and all black clothing with several tattoos about the arms. The second man had braided hair, was wearing a black beanie and gray sweatshirt, and was possibly armed with a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun.
The suspects allegedly broke into a home where they confronted Dustin Lee Wilson, 33, of Clearlake, the son of local businesswoman and council candidate Jeri Spittler, and Michelle Truong, 27, of Hercules.
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Wilson and Truong had been taken into custody on Oct. 22 for drug and weapons charges after a traffic stop in Middletown. A California Highway Patrol officer found them in possession of more than 2 pounds of processed marijuana and a handgun with two loaded magazines, the CHP reported.
Wilson also had been arrested by Clearlake Police on Oct. 16 for several felony drug charges and for attempting to bribe an officer, according to jail records.
Bauman said sheriff’s deputies responded to the Morgan Valley Road residence at around 8 a.m. on a report of a possible home invasion with shots fired. Units from the California Highway Patrol and the Clearlake Police Department also responded to assist.
When the first deputies arrived, Bauman said they found Wilson on the side of Morgan Valley Road, wearing only a pair of sweat pants with a bleeding arm that had suffered minor cuts when Wilson had run through a barbed wire fence while fleeing the home.
Wilson told deputies that he and Truong were asleep inside her home when they were awakened by two unidentified men, one of which had a gun to Wilson’s head, according to Bauman.
A struggle ensued between Wilson and the man with the gun, while Truong struggled with the second suspect, Bauman said. At some point, both suspects converged on Truong and Wilson fled the home as one of the men fired several shots at him from the front porch.
Wilson, who wasn't hit by the gunfire, went to the home of a neighbor, who called 911 after hearing the shots and seeing Wilson running to her house, Bauman said.
Bauman said Wilson told deputies he believed Truong, and possibly his 10-year-old son, were being held hostage in the home by the men.
During the ensuing 45 minutes, law enforcement secured a perimeter in the area and contacted outside agencies seeking air support, Bauman said. Lt. Brian Martin had told Lake County News earlier in the day that weather had prevented the sheriff's office from getting a helicopter from Sonoma County.
The sheriff's SWAT team also was called out, Bauman said.
Bauman said officials also notified area schools at around 8 a.m. to lock down their campuses – schools would be in lockdown until just before 11 a.m.
The schools closed down were Lower Lake Elementary, Lower Lake High School, Carlé Continuation High School and Lewis Alternative School, as Lake County News has reported.
When a call was made into the home, Bauman said Truong exited the residence and told deputies the men were gone. Deputies then entered the home and verified the suspects were in fact gone and the SWAT team was canceled.
Bauman said deputies later learned that Wilson’s son had already gone to school when the suspects entered the home.
Truong told deputies that after Wilson fled, the two men forced her into a bathroom and closed the door. She heard the men rummaging through things in the house, and then heard her vehicle start up and drive down her driveway, Bauman said. When she came out of the bathroom, she saw one of the men running from the home towards the back of the property.
Truong apparently remained in the home, not knowing where the suspects were, until the call was made into the home and deputies had her step out, Bauman said.
He said it appeared Truong's car keys were taken from the home along with some other unidentified property. Deputies located her car with the trunk open at the bottom of her approximate 200 yard driveway, abandoned at a locked gate.
Tire tracks and other items of evidence were located on a road in the back of the property. Bauman said it looked like one of the suspects tried to flee in Truong’s car until coming to the locked gate, and then presumably abandoned the car and fled on foot.
Investigators believe the other suspect fled to the back of the property and presumably drove away in the vehicle used to get to the house, Bauman said.
Deputies conducted an extensive search of the area for about five hours but were unable to locate either suspect, Bauman said.
Crime scene technicians were called in and processed the scene for evidence until about 3 p.m., according to Bauman.
He said the investigation is continuing into the home invasion, with officials looking at the motive and whether or not the victims and suspects may have been acquainted.
Anyone with information about the incident or the possible location and identities of the suspects is encouraged to call the Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit at 707-262-4200.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The sample was confirmed last week, officials reported. It was one of 10 such samples confirmed positive around the state.
So far this year, approximately 1,294 mosquito samples from 24 counties have tested positive for West Nile Virus, the California West Nile Virus Web site reported. That's up from the 1,051 reported at this time last year.
Other than mosquito samples, Lake has reported no other West Nile Virus-positive cases this year, with no local cases reported in humans, horses, birds, sentinel chickens or squirrels, the state reported.
The state said the number of counties impacted by West Nile Virus this year is 35, down from 42 last year.
Statewide, human cases are down – 82 this year versus 92 in 2009 – while sentinel chicken cases dropped from 422 in 2009 to 271 this year, with dead bird cases also down, from 504 to 401 over the year, according to state data.
Horse cases have gone up slightly, from 17 in 2009 to 19 this year, with the state also reporting that squirrel cases jumped from 10 last year to 21 this year.
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