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Examines the realignment of school funding and potential effects on local control of education; 1991-94; US.

Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, has undergone significant changes in the last fifteen years. Many of those changes relate to the intergovernmental nature of the program. Medicaid is jointly operated, with the federal and state governments sharing program costs. Despite a set of program guidelines dictated by the federal government, states have traditionally had substantial latitude in Medicaid decisions. However, a series of developments in the 1980s led to increasing constraints on state Medicaid discretion, including federal mandates to expand Medicaid coverage. This article examines the inception and effectiveness of the Medicaid mandates from the perspective of interstate equity of health care services for poor families.

State preemption of local government discretion is examined through the lenses of county cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and "immigration federalism." Through a mixed-method approach, we examine why counties collaborate with ICE as well as how and why they deviate from state preemptions on local support for immigration. Analysis of a sample restricted to Georgia and Texas, states with especially robust preemptive anti-immigrant laws, suggests that special interests—those related to immigrant-dependent industries important to county economies—have significant influence over county decisions to minimize cooperation with ICE.

AbstractContracting for prison services has been a topic of discussion for decades. Absent from this discussion is the relationship between contracting for immigration detention and confinement quality, a topic that has gained relevance as the detained immigrant population recently surpassed 440,000 per year. Detaining immigrants presents unique challenges because of detainee characteristics, the performance standards governing facilities, and the intersectoral and intergovernmental arrangements used to manage detention facilities. This research conducts the first‐known large‐N study that evaluates the confinement quality of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention facilities to determine the effect, if any, of contracting on performance. The findings suggest that all detention facilities have deficiencies that threaten the well‐being of detained immigrants, but, broadly, privately contracted detention facility environments are less safe and secure than their public counterparts. The authors use contracting theory to explain why this performance disparity might exist and conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of this research.

Any shifting of responsibilities from the state or federal governments to local governments would fall mostly on the shoulders of general-purpose governments, namely, cities (municipalities) & counties. This study explores city & county revenue decisions associated with general funds -- the governmental fund most likely to be affected by state requirements for greater local financing responsibility for new or devolved programs. The results suggest that state control over local revenue authority affects decisions regarding the imposition of financial burdens on residents, & that intergovernmental aid to cities & counties does not necessarily mitigate those burdens. Despite evidence of healthy financial reserves, especially for cities, shifting responsibilities from the state to city or county governments could place cities & counties in difficult fiscal positions. Given the importance of own-source revenues to current budgets, & in view of the questionable impact of intergovernmental aid on city & county residents' revenue burdens, questions persist about the ability of city & county governments to maintain (&, if necessary, to expand) services during economic recession. 2 Tables, 1 Figure. Adapted from the source document.