HIGHLIGHTS
JUMP: EDUCATION | INFRASTRUCTURE | PUBLIC SERVICES | THE REST
First, the Good News
1) National: The Washington Post reports that cities and states are stepping into the breach as SNAP benefits expire. “The desperate dash to replace money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, is unfolding in both red states and blue states as funding for the program that feeds 42 million Americans — most of whom are children, elderly or disabled—runs out today. Four weeks into the government shutdown, the Trump administration has so far declined to use billions in contingency funds to cover the shortfall.” Two federal judges have ruled that the Trump administration must keep SNAP benefits in place as shutdown drags on.
2) Idaho: The Idaho Capital Sun, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, reports that “a Boise-based nonprofit coalition that supports openness in government has announced a series of four upcoming government transparency seminars that are free and open to the public. (…) The group Attorneys for Civic Education has partnered with IDOG for the government transparency seminars. More information about Idahoans for Openness in Government is available online at www.openidaho.org.”
3) Michigan: Reversing privatization. Mlive.com reports that “Eastern Michigan University will soon take back control of its parking system after officials took steps last week to end a lengthy legal battle—and the privatization deal that preceded it several years prior. But so far, officials are mum on what that settlement will include.”
4) New York: The Town of Poughkeepsie has acquired IBM land for a public park. “The acquisition has been a multi-year process led by the Town of Poughkeepsie Planning Department. According to the Department, as of October 2025, the Town has raised a total of $1.1 million from a combination of state and local grants and a donation from Scenic Hudson, as well as an additional $100,000 from the Town’s Parks and Recreation budget. Despite a private appraisal valuing the land at $1.8 million, IBM has agreed to meet the Town’s proposed offer of $1.1 million.”
5) Texas: The Hechinger Report says more first-generation students in Texas are applying to college. “‘Absolutely we see more and more first-generation students who are trying to navigate this transition from high school into postsecondary over the last several years,’ said Will Davies, director of policy and research at the nonprofit Breakthrough Central Texas, which helps these students do so. Hispanic student enrollment, which is largely driving the boost in first-generation students, has increased in all but 10 of the 61 bachelor’s degree-granting public colleges in Texas since 2020, even as total enrollment fell for 46 of those institutions, according to federal data.”
6) National: Here’s the latest Education Week update on how the federal government shutdown is affecting schools. “Under its shutdown contingency plan, the Education Department is furloughing nearly 87% of its 2,447 employees. A third of those continuing to work are in the department’s office of federal student aid. The department would rely on non-furloughed employees on a rotating basis as the shutdown continues, with no more than 122 full-time equivalent employees on duty at any given time.” Also, “the Education Department will cease any new grantmaking during the shutdown, including soliciting applications and announcing new awards. Grantees who received awards during the summer will continue to have access to funds, the shutdown contingency plan says. It’s not yet clear whether dozens of grantees across close to 20 programs who appealed the department’s recent decision to discontinue their expected funds will get resolution during the shutdown, or at all.”
7) National/Think Tanks: U.S. investment in public education is at risk, the Economic Policy Institute says in a report. “Vouchers, state budget austerity, and federal attacks on the Department of Education threaten children’s futures.”
8) National: What do you give your teacher “when your teacher is an Apple? Or Google? Or ChatGPT? An Arizona charter school will use AI instead of teachers. Before being given approval to operate in the Grand Canyon State, Unbound Academy had been rejected by four other states.”
9) Colorado: Colorado Newsline, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, reports that millions have been spent to influence Colorado’s 2025 school board elections. “More than half of that has been spent on races for the Denver Public Schools board, where a deep-pocketed reform group hopes to wrest control away from candidates backed by teachers unions.”
10) Florida: The Tallahassee Democrat reports that “Facing rising food costs, the Leon County School District is exploring outside lunch providers with a goal of delivering meals with the same quality and staff, but at a fraction of the cost. Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Sunny Chancy said the district transferred up to $700,000 from the district’s general fund to dining services to avoid a deficit last school year.”
11) International/Caribbean: The Center for Disaster Philanthropy reports that Hurricane Melissa’s “slow movement compounded its destructive impact, causing catastrophic flooding, landslides and infrastructure collapse across multiple countries. At least 50 people died throughout the Caribbean, and many villages are still isolated. AccuWeather estimates that the storm has likely cost $50 billion so far. While aid is being sent to main airports, regional airports are not all operational, and transporting goods by land is not always possible. Until transportation routes are accessible, some communities will be unable to receive food, water and medical supplies.”
12) International: Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Kuhaneetha Bai Kalaicelvan report that data center investments are bad deals. “As tech companies are not paying for the additional energy generation capacity, consumers and host governments are, whether they benefit from AI or not. As DCs increasingly faced growing pushback in the North, developers have turned to developing countries, outsourcing problems to poorer nations with limited resources. Understanding these energy- and water-guzzling facilities is necessary to better protect economies, societies, communities, and their environments.”
13) National: NBC News has reported on which private companies and government contractors are on the donor list for Trump’s ballroom.
14) National: Claude Cummings Jr., president of the Communications Workers of America, says rural America deserves dependable broadband, not more billionaire handouts. “Unlike fiber, fixed wireless and satellite offer only a short-term fix. Fixed wireless requires costly equipment updates every 5 to 10 years, making it as expensive as fiber over the long run for lower quality, less reliable service. Subsidizing satellite service may seem cheap now, but it will cost millions more in the long term to launch thousands more satellites. And it serves as a giveaway to Elon Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos’s Kuiper.”
15) National: Kudos to the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) for its transparency. “The official and final version of the 2024-2027 Collective Bargaining Agreement has been completed and published online. The linked PDF is available for immediate use. The file is fully searchable and bookmarked.” 536 pages.
16) National: The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Eileen Appelbaum and Peter Hart weigh in on Private Equity Meets the Pentagon. “Sure enough, that news came via an October 21 report in the Financial Times, ‘US Army Taps Private Equity Groups to Help Fund $150 Billion Revamp.’ According to that report, the army convened a meeting with leading PE firms to discuss how they might help fund a major overhaul of military infrastructure. The Pentagon, as the story tells it, only has $15 billion budgeted for such work. A Pentagon official said they were seeking ‘clever financing models or unique financing models’ from the private equity bosses. The ideas that were floated included building data centers on bases and possibly entering into various lease agreements. The Financial Times dubbed it ‘an unprecedented effort to enlist some of Wall Street’s biggest investors directly in US national security.’”
17) National: CNN reports that “more federal aid programs are running dry as the government shutdown extends into November. Food stamp recipients face delays this month even after two judges ruled the Trump administration must tap into emergency funds for the program.” The Federal News Network reports that “agencies are starting to tell the more than 700,000 federal employees who are furloughed during this now 31-day partial government shutdown that their time away will be extended another 30 days. The departments of Commerce, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as NASA and the General Services Administration, at the very least, have sent out emails to employees detailing the extension. ‘Because your services are no longer needed for orderly suspension of operations and you are not engaged in one of the excepted functions, you are being placed in a furlough status effective Oct. 31, 2025,’ the Commerce Department wrote in its furlough notice. ‘This furlough, i.e., non-duty, non-pay status, is not expected to exceed 30 days. Therefore, this furlough notice expires on Nov. 29, 2025. When a continuing resolution or a fiscal 2026 appropriation for DoC is enacted, you will be expected to return to duty on your next regular scheduled workday.’”
In a story picked up by NJ.com among other outlets, the Associated Press reports that “the impacts on basic needs—food and medical care—underscored how the impasse is hitting homes across the United States. Plans by President Donald Trump’s administration to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Saturday were halted by federal judges, but the delay in payouts will still likely leave millions of people short on their grocery bills.”
18) National: Want to see what contracts with private corporations ICE has? Good luck finding current information on their contracts page. Last one that appeared was three weeks ago.
19) Colorado: The governor is moving again to try and privatize the state workers compensation fund, a hardy perennial around budget time. “The chart shows budget increases for several agencies, including the departments of Corrections and Revenue, with the largest at $10.8 million for the Department of Public Safety. About $7 million of that increase is tied to a loss of federal emergency management funds that the state will have to backfill, the governor said.”
20) Oklahoma/Revolving Door News: Oklahoma Watch’s Ross Keaton reports that a former corrections director approved a million dollar deal with an AI company, then went to work for them. “On Oct. 3, Harpe posted on LinkedIn that he had accepted the position of chief product officer at LEO Technologies, an Austin, Texas-based artificial intelligence company that caters to law enforcement and corrections officials. More than 80 people, including two Board of Corrections members, responded to the post wishing Harpe congratulations. Harpe also shared news of the job change on Facebook. Six months earlier, on April 3, Harpe authorized a one-year, $1.017 million deal with LEO Technologies. Agency officials gave final approval to the contract, which includes four one-year renewal options, on April 8. The contract stipulates that LeoTech will ‘assign designated personnel to support Oklahoma DOC operations.’”
21) West Virginia: Eyewitness News WCHSTV reports that “a Marion County judge has lifted a restraining order that previously halted the sale of the state’s four long-term care facilities. The move now greenlights the state to go through with the sale on Friday. The question that was the central part of the case is whether or not the Department of Health Facilities Secretary Michael Caruso and Gov. Patrick Morrisey had the power to sell the hospitals to a private company without approval from legislators.”
22) National: Has the SNAP program been privatized? Only on the issuance of benefits side, not on the eligibility side. Here’s a rundown on the back office mechanics of the program courtesy of the Food Research & Action Center, a 501(c)(3) public charity. “The process of getting food into recipients’ hands begins with the state generating an Issuance File each month. Essentially, it is a list of each household that is eligible to receive benefits and how many benefits they are to receive. The file is sent by the state to its Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) contractor the month before issuance. So, for example, the file that authorizes the issuance of benefits for November is sent to the contractor in October. This allows the contractor to perform their tasks to ensure that issuances occur correctly and timely.”
23) National/Public Corporation Privatization: Panera Bread “has gone from publicly-traded to private, bought out by JAB Holding Company, the parent company of Caribou Coffee, Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Keurig Green Mountain. Quick-service restaurant (QSR) Panera’s new parent, a Luxembourg-based private equity firm, paid $7.5 billion for the acquisition, beating out Starbucks and other rumored suitors. The deal was initially disclosed in April.” USASpending reports that Panera has had many government contracts.
24) International/Venezuela: Fortune magazine reports that Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado is calling for a “‘unique’ $1.7 trillion opportunity to privatize over 500 companies.”