On Wednesday the Affordable Care Act will require insurance companies to cover eight new preventive health services for women, with no copays. These provisions supplement a series of preventive care requirements already instituted when the ACA passed two years ago. And while some states already require insurance plans to cover some preventive services, these requirements will be new for insurance providers in New Hampshire.
The female-specific services are based on guidelines recommended by the independent Institute of Medicine, at the request of Health and Human Services. Here’s what’s covered: Continue Reading →
After months of wondering about her future as an educator, Jillian Corey got some good news.
This summer, we’ve been looking at how individual Granite Staters are faring in the recovering economy with our series, “Getting By, Getting Ahead.” Last week, we delved into some of the issues facing the Manchester school district, and shared the story of an area teacher who was part of the district’s mass lay-offs in the spring. Thirty-two year old Jillian Corey had taught English at Memorial High School, and was wrestling with the possibility of leaving teaching so that she could make her house payment.
Now, however, things are starting to turn around for Corey. Continue Reading →
The market for high-end lakefront properties has slowed down along Lake Winnipesaukee.
Tomorrow morning on NHPR, we’ll hear more from Joe Skiffington, a builder of high-end vacation homes in the Lakes Region. Joe’s story is Part Six of our series “Getting By, Getting Ahead,” examining how people across New Hampshire’s seven regions are navigating a recovering economy.
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Driving through New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, it’s not uncommon to stumble onto networks of private roads. They lead to waterfront mansions — summer getaways for wealthy executives from places like Boston and New York. One of them, on Lake Winnipesaukee, belongs to Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, whose family gathered here for an annual vacation earlier this month.
Wealthy tourists like the Romneys are crucial to the region’s economy, pumping much needed cash into local businesses for three months a year. For year-long residents, however, this dynamic creates high fiscal peaks and deep valleys. After the summer boom, restaurants don’t need as many waiters, there isn’t as much demand for household goods and construction projects slow down. For a New Hampshire region known nationally as a playground of the rich, the Lakes Region has the state’s second highest poverty rate — 6.5 percent — according to a StateImpact analysis of U.S. Census data.
Rich vacationers and year-rounders were affected differently by the housing bust, too.
Sixteen New Hampshire organizations are receiving a total of $5.4 million in tax credits from the Community Development Finance Authority for this coming fiscal year. The winning projects were announced Wednesday. Awards include funding for upgrades to Portsmouth’s Prescott Park Pavillion; the conversion of an abandoned Nashua mill into affordable housing units; the rebuilding of Concord’s burned-down soup kitchen; and community theater projects in Peterborough, Lincoln and Manchester. Continue Reading →
This map traces the last year of venture capital deals across the country. In New Hampshire, a collaborative venture fund -- managed by Borealis Ventures with money from the state -- will soon be moving local capital into the hands of local innovators. Continue reading →
“We were notified during the day. It was on a Friday,” says English teacher Jillian Corey about her layoff notice last May. “Many of us still had to teach class. And the kids were very aware that there was something going on. I was honest with them. I didn’t get into the politics of the situation or the money. I wanted them to understand that it was not a personal situation, because they become very protective of the teachers. It was not for them to be concerned about.”
“At Memorial, we had the [most] reduction in force notices given. We lost 29 of our staff. In the English department, it was six alone,” says Corey.
Teaching at Memorial High School is Corey’s first job as an educator. “I certainly thought I was perfectly safe from any sort of harm of this nature. You know, five years is a long time to be in a position,” Corey says. “So I was sad that the investment that I made in this community was being taken away from me.”
Corey says she still hopes to be one of the 62 teachers the school district calls back for this year. But, “I’ve certainly been looking for jobs in other districts. But when you have 29 English teachers let go alone in Manchester, there are certainly not 29 English teaching jobs in the state of New Hampshire right now.”
“I don’t pretend to have any sort of plan whatsoever about what’s going to fix this. I know we need more money. I know the kids need more money,” Corey says. “There’s hardly a person in this building that could tell you they have not lost their job, in this district, before. So this is an ongoing issue.”
As part of our weekly “Getting By, Getting Ahead” series, StateImpact is traveling across New Hampshire, gathering personal stories from the people behind the economy. In our fifth installment, we talk with a recently laid-off teacher in the Merrimack Valley.
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Jillian Corey seems to belong at Memorial High School in Manchester. A teacher here for five years, she easily navigates the school’s network of dimly lit hallways, decorated with computer printouts and hand-written signs.
But Corey, a 32-year old English teacher, doesn’t work here anymore. She was one of dozens of teachers and staff laid off from the school district last spring. As she gives me a tour of the school, making her way past open lockers waiting for their final summer wash-down, the maintenance staffers and occasional educator aren’t bothered. Even if Corey doesn’t officially work here anymore, no one finds it strange that she would pop in.
When we arrive at her old classroom, however, a locked door shatters the illusion. “Um…unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to get into this particular classroom of mine,” Corey says, as we try to track down another classroom where we can sit down and talk.
The Manchester school district layoffs last spring were a result of both local and national forces
Tomorrow on Morning Edition on NHPR, you can catch the latest installment of our series, “Getting By, Getting Ahead.” This summer, StateImpact is looking at the personal stories behind New Hampshire’s recovering economy. Tomorrow’s piece will focus on one of the dozens of teachers laid-off from the Manchester school district. Reporter Amanda Loder recently discussed the district’s funding issues with All Things Considered host Brady Carlson. If you would like to know more about the local and national forces that helped shape the layoff decision, you can also check out our Merrimack Valley Economic Snapshot.
And we invite you to visit our new web feature, which includes an interactive map, more economic perspectives from the people we’re spotlighting this summer, and links to more “Getting By, Getting Ahead” coverage. It also includes ways to share your story of life during the economic recovery.
The Manchester School District's funding struggles this year are indicative of troubles schools around the country are facing.
Tomorrow morning on NHPR, we’ll hear from Jillian Corey, ahigh school English teacher recently laid off from the Manchester school district. Jillian’s story is Part Five of our series “Getting By, Getting Ahead,” examining how people across New Hampshire’s seven regions are navigating a recovering economy.
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As unemployment across the country has slowly abated, one sector has been a consistent drag: state and local government. Unlike the federal government, states and cities can’t borrow their way out of a fiscal crisis. So when the recession battered state and local revenues, many agencies had no choice but to lay off workers.
It’s a familiar story in New Hampshire, nowhere more so than in the Merrimack Valley. The region is home to Concord, the seat of state government, as well as Manchester and Nashua, the state’s largest cities. When the recession hit and the legislature began cutting the state budget, dozens of state workers at agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Corrections received pink slips. Municipalities saw state contributions to their coffers shrink. And these communities, in turn, found themselves having to trim their budgets and cut public jobs.
Today, about 200 New Hampshire small business owners are attending a series of three classes in Hooksett, during which they set up their own website, then learn how to leverage it, all for free.
Walking up the sidewalk to Southern New Hampshire University’s dining hall — where Google is launching a year-long Get Your Business Online campaign in New Hampshire — you get the distinct sensation that Google… has a really good marketing department. At the entrance to the building, there’s one of those red tear-drop markers you see on Google Maps — only it’s as tall as a building. Before you enter the building, you pass five entirely decorative, yet functional, bicycles, all painted with Google’s colors. And that’s just the start of it.
Jamie Hill, an energetic Google spokesperson, explained to me that for Google, the purpose of the event is two-fold. Every time somebody in New Hampshire Googles “plumber” and can’t find one, there are local plumbers who are missing out on business opportunities. But at the same time, that guy who wants to find a plumber is using Google’s product — its search engine — and ending up dissatisfied. So, Hill says, Get Your Business Online is both a community service and a marketing campaign. How Googley is that.
This event is one of many taking place across the country. Google is teaming up with a national web services business called Intuit. Together, Google and Intuit are offering businesses in the country free websites and consulting for one year (then, businesses will have to pay Intuit for their services). The campaign is launching with a separate high-profile event in each state. Stay tuned for more on Google’s GYBO campaign.
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