Digital Commons Network^™

Lfcug's Utilization Of 2022 Opioid Settlement Funds For Recovery Housing, Emily Wiley, Ken Britton Jr, Madelaine Coy

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Following national settlements to combat the opioid epidemic, Kentucky and its local governments received a collective $842 million to invest in prevention and treatment. To employ these dollars most effectively, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) aims to become “recovery ready” as a part of Kentucky’s Recovery Ready Communities (RRC) certification program. This mixed methods comparative case study determined the following high-priority variables that align with RRC certification requirements: recovery housing infrastructure, certification disclosure, and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) services. To provide additional insight into Fayette County’s recovery housing landscape, we analyzed the following supplemental variables: vulnerable populations served, …

A Review Of The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In Kentucky Schools System, Spencer Collins

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The federal government's role in education has been center stage for the past decade. Policy actors on the right call for a complete deconstruction of the federal Department of Education (ED). In today's partisan fighting over government funding, the topic of education services is critical. With further investigations into education services provided by federal funding, one vulnerable population that needs to be safeguarded is those students with disabilities. Protecting those students with disabilities and ensuring equal access to education and resources provided for non-disabled students should be one of the highest priorities of policy actors within the education sphere today. …

Analysis Of Implementation Of Student Homeless Programs Per County School District In The State Of Georgia, Hannah Watson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This report investigates the implementation of federal and state policies concerning homeless students within school districts across Georgia. This analysis focuses on understanding how these policies are translated into practical strategies to meet the unique needs of homeless students, encompassing identification, enrollment, and provision of essential support services that result in proof of academic success. Through a combination of policy assessment techniques of current county school district procedures and services offered to students experiencing homelessness and a descriptive assessment of the contents of the current policies through the lens of public administration theories; we will develop a series of key …

Relationship Between Weir Openings And Green Tide Variation In Korean Rivers, Uisuk Jung

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

On the four major rivers in South Korea (Han River, Nakdong River, Geum River, and Yeongsan River), 16 weirs were installed in 2011 to secure water resources. However, there is controversy that the weirs allow the summer Green Tide (hereafter referred to as GT) to thrive, so the South Korean government has been opening them since 2017 to evaluate their effectiveness. The opening of the weirs was mainly done at three weirs on the Geum River, where there are few constraints, and some on the Yeongsan and Nakdong rivers, depending on the degree of constraints, while the Han River was …

Sports Betting In Kentucky: An Analysis Of Kentucky’S Sports Wagering Legislation Through Local And Regional State Budgetary Revenue Trends, Brett Gillispie

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Kentucky’s legislation legalizing sports wagering in the Commonwealth and delineating its taxation, HB551 of the 2023 Regular Session of the General Assembly, has been implemented and posted numbers in its early months that suggested it will exceed revenue projections for the Commonwealth. Researchers have raised concerns, particularly in studying West Virginia, which implemented similar legislation in 2019, that sports betting may be cannibalizing existing gambling revenue for states that implement it. However, this was not conclusive. While evidence from West Virginia suggests that sports betting may be cannibalizing existing revenue, evidence from Kentucky and the individual and broader regional trends …

The Impact Of Actuarial Valuation Reporting On State Pension Funds, Samantha Montgomery

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The U.S. is currently experiencing a public pension funding crisis that has become the topic of news outlets around the country and political talking points for legislators. It is estimated at the end of fiscal year 2023 that the average funded ratio for a public pension program is 78.1%, which equates to total unfunded pension liabilities for state retirement systems being approximately $1.4 trillion (Pension Plan Funded Ratio Rankings 2023, 2024). Pension systems across the U.S. are managed by boards and pension agencies that are charged with fiduciary responsibility to manage the pension funds in a manner that focuses on …

Evaluating The Impact Of Patient Acuity On Nursing Productivity: A Case Study At Uk Healthcare Chandler Hospital, Kara Klein

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This study examines the relationship between patient acuity and nursing productivity at UK HealthCare (UKHC) Chandler Hospital from June 2022 to April 2024. Patient acuity, characterized by the complexity and intensity of nursing care required by patients (Juvé-Udina et al., 2020), is crucial in determining staffing needs and operational efficiency. The primary objective of this research is to investigate how variations in patient acuity levels impact Full-Time Equivalents (FTE), a key metric for assessing nursing productivity. The study utilized hospital data and applied descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, and regression models to assess the impact of patient acuity on FTE. The …

Enhancing Equity And Economic Growth: A Strategic Review Of Procurement Practices In Prince George’S County, Andrew Stover

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Procurement represents a substantial portion of public spending in state and local governments, and thus is an essential element of responsible public financial management. This paper explores the procurement process on the local government level and provides research into best practices that are conducive to equity and economic development. It takes a look specifically at Prince George’s County, Maryland and analyzes its procurement function in relation to these best practices. An analysis of the County finds that despite its strides in implementing equitable procurement policies, significant gaps remain in the engagement of disadvantaged classes of businesses. To tackle these challenges, …

From Local Income Tax To Local Sales Tax In Kentucky: An Examination Of Lfucg, Zachary Vogl

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Property tax revenue is widely known as the largest own source revenue for local governments. However, other taxes such as local sales taxes (LST) and local incomes taxes (LIT) also provide significant revenue streams for local governments. For example, in Kentucky, “[e]xcluding Fayette and Jefferson, counties collected a total of $353.5 million in occupational license fees on payroll and net profits in FY 2022, making up 42.7 percent of all tax revenue” (Smith 2024).

The use of LST and LIT, in addition to property taxes, by local governments allows for flexibility and revenue diversification; but, these taxes also come with …

Role Of Program Activity Data In Allocation Decision-Making For The Community Development Block Grant Program, Carolyn Anne Ferguson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The forthcoming study aims to further the conversation on the importance of data for effective, efficient use of public funding by conducting a quantitative, correlational case study of the Community Development Block Grant (“CDBG”) activity obligation approvals for grant allocations administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”), Office of Community Planning and Development (“CPD”). The increasing use of data, including but not limited to program outcomes, accomplishments, capacity, sustainability, compliance, efficacy, efficiency, and activity provision, to inform decision-making associated with appropriations, allocations, and awards results in a mounting need to focus on various means of data …

Administering A Democratic Industrial Policy, Joel Michaels, Amy Kapczynski

Center for Law and the Economy

In Washington today, we are witnessing what many call the “return of industrial policy.” Some argue that a new political economic paradigm is emerging, departing from the neoliberal order of the last several decades. High-stakes questions about how to administer industrial policy have followed, for good reason: industrial policy necessarily involves a great deal of administrative discretion. Yet we have no adequate literature discussing how that discretion should be deployed. Administrative law scholarship has largely ignored the distinctive tools of industrial policy, such as grantmaking, lending, government contracts and ownership stakes. These tools require flexibility and discretion, and often cannot …

The Violence Of Numbers: A Critical Appraisal Of The Justice Capabilities Framework, Abhineet Maurya

Socio-Legal Review

Systems of indicators and international rankings have today become a new mode of evaluating social, political, and economic life. In the context of measuring the rule of law and justice delivery systems at a local as well as a global level, such indicators enable empirically grounded solutions to justice reform issues. However, scholars like Siddharth Peter de Souza argue that the existing discourse concerning the rule of law and access to justice indicators promote a specific vision of a well functioning justice system grounded in western normative considerations. de Souza, in his book Designing Indicators for a Plural Legal World …

Centering Community Voice And Knowledge Through Participatory Action Research, Jennifer Lucko

Education | Faculty Scholarship

This paper analyzes a Participatory Action Research (PAR) Project focused on improving public safety and community lighting in one Latinx immigrant community in California as a case example to better understand the possibilities for university-community-government partnerships. The paper explores residents' motivations for their sustained participation in the project, the relationships and power dynamics that led to a $100,000 commitment from the city government to fund the recommendations of the PAR collective, and the social contexts that allowed community residents to position themselves as political actors as the PAR project progressed over the 2021-2022 academic year. This case example illustrates how …

Caught In The Crosshairs Of Educational Reform: How Teacher Labor Markets Respond To Polarized Education Policies, Danielle Duffy Chipman

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) teachers have been caught in the crosshairs of political debates about education policy (Davis, 2014; EPE Research Center, 2013a; Steiner & Woo, 2021; Woo et al., 2022; Zubrzycki, 2016). As political polarization between parties increased in the 2000s, debates about education policy became more acrimonious impacting teachers’ work lives (Heltzel & Laurin, 2020; Iyengar, 2021; Layman et al., 2006). The topic of these debates ranges from curriculum changes such as Common Core and Critical Race Theory (CTR), school shootings and safety, battles over school choice and voucher programs, teacher activism about …

An Individuals-Oriented Approach To Conservation, Kristy M. Ferraro

Animal Sentience

Individual cognitive and emotional differences in personality among animals, along with differences in their behavioral traits, are increasingly important in conservation efforts. It is not only more effective but more ethical to take both collective and individual perspectives into account in both research and practice.

Tax Streams, Land Rents, And Urban Land Allocation, Yugang Tang, Zhihao Su, Yilin Hou, Zhendong Yin

Center for Policy Research

This paper examines the fiscal motives behind municipal governments' decisions to allocate commercial and residential land when two categories of land use are subject to different fiscal revenue alternatives: business-related tax and/or land rent. We use urban parcel-level land transfers during China’s peak period of urbanization, match commercial parcels with residential parcels, and find significant price discounts on commercial parcels relative to adjacent residential parcels. The observed discounts arise from the future tax flows from commercial use, i.e., expected taxes from developed commercial land reduce its transfer price. We conduct a structural estimation to examine the implications on land use …

Ledroit Park Photograph Collection, Jaclynn Martin

Prints and Photographs Department

The LeDroit Park Photograph Collection is a limited edition of ten (10) 12" x 12" gelatin silver print photographs capturing the revitalized LeDroit Park and its surroundings, taken in 2003 by Steven M. Cummings. The LeDroit Park Initiative, spearheaded in the late 1990s by then-Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert and Ms. Jamie Gorelick, Vice Chair of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), aimed to renovate and redevelop Howard University-owned properties within the LeDroit Park area. The initiative also explored innovative mortgage rates and payment assistance programs to enhance homeownership opportunities for the university-affiliated and neighboring community. Notably, the …

A Review Of Emerging Sensor Technologies For Tank Inspection: A Focus On Lidar And Hyperspectral Imaging And Their Automation And Deployment, Sergio Pallas Enguita, Chung-Hao Chen, Samuel Kovacic

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper reviews various sensor technologies for tank inspection, focusing on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) as advanced solutions for corrosion detection. These technologies are evaluated alongside traditional methods such as ultrasonic, electromagnetic, and thermographic inspections. This review highlights their potential to enhance inspection accuracy, reduce the limitations of manual inspection, and support integrated data analysis for comprehensive asset management. Additionally, this paper proposes a pathway for automating these techniques to streamline inspection processes and improve implementation in practical applications.

When Ballots Are Blank: Write-In’S Serving Local Government And The Implications For A Healthy And Vibrant Democracy, Thomas J. Ruter

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Our democracy depends on having a supply of candidates running for elected office, but in some instances, no one wants to run. This phenomenological study asks what the effects on a healthy and vibrant democracy are if ballots are blank and the seat is filled through write-in or appointment. Rooted in democratic theory, this study explores small, rural city elections where write-ins won election. Understudied, local governments are responsible for decisions affecting the lives of millions of people each day. Workforce scarcity, the alienation of young Americans from politics, government bashing, nasty campaigns, threats of physical harm, and other barriers …

Predictors Of Identity Crime Victimization Of Adolescent Youth In Foster Care, John Gyourko, Greg Ridgeway

Department of Social Work - Faculty Scholarship

Identity crimes pose serious risks and challenges for youth in foster care. As young people move through various out-of-home placements and schools, their personal data are often widely disseminated, difficult to secure, and thus vulnerable to theft and misuse. When they transition from foster care to adulthood, identity crime victims with compromised credit histories may be denied loans, employment, and/or housing during the already-precarious period of emerging adulthood. Even though federal law requires state child welfare agencies to conduct annual credit checks for adolescent youth in foster care, little is known about the factors contributing to risk of identity crime …

The Impact Of Measure 110 On Fatal Overdoses, Property And Violent Crime In Oregon, Hannah Mercado

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In November 2020, the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act (also known as Measure 110) was passed in Oregon with the purpose to provide access to treatment and recovery services available to anyone who may need to utilize them, while focusing on a health-oriented approach towards substance use disorder (SUD) across the state through the removal of low-level drug possession criminal penalties (Oregon Health Authority, n.d.). Historically, Oregon has consistently had some of the highest rates of substance use in the U.S., making this a pertinent issue which was addressed through the implementation of Measure 110. Citing a critical need …

Government Grant Receipts And Revenue Volatility: A Correlational Investigation Of Medium-Sized Arts Organizations, Carly Colvin

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Minimal revenue volatility has been shown to enable more accurate planning by nonprofit managers and contribute to nonprofit financial sustainability. The volatility of government revenues, a major income source for nonprofit organizations, is not a well-researched topic. This capstone presents correlational tests to study the relationship between government grant receipts and revenue volatility within medium-sized nonprofit arts organizations in California. In addition, a data compilation methodology is tested and documented to enable future research. The results do not show a correlation between receipt of government grants and revenue volatility. The ensuing considerations for nonprofit managers along with areas for future …

University Of Kentucky Healthcare Community Engagement Program Strategic Plan, Madison Fyffe

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Strategic planning is an essential tool in providing direction to an organization through analysis of its current state and ideal future, and development of strategic goals. The University of Kentucky HealthCare’s community engagement program is a robust program within the department of Brand Strategy, tasked with serving all 120 Kentucky counties and over 150 local, state, and national organizations through health education, event sponsorship, and promotional resources. In its current state, a strategic plan to guide and track performance does not exist. This capstone aims to develop a strategic plan through the assessment of strategic planning theory, stakeholder analysis, and …

Employer Incentivized Cancer Screenings In Kentucky: A Case Study, Addison Dumes, Sophia Freeman, Megan Latiff

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Kentucky has some of the highest mortality rates for colon, breast, cervical and lung cancer in the United States, according to the Center of Disease Control. Our Client, The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, is seeking to lower these rates by increasing employer driven cancer screenings. Previous studies show many states have been successful in implementing programs to motivate employees to participate in preventative screenings. Through individual interviews with Kentucky employers, this study aims to answer what factors affect the best practices and perceived barriers amongst employers with health and wellness programs to increase the rate of preventative breast, cervical, …

Impact Of The Availability And Affordability Of Childcare On The Economy, Valentina Osunmade, Cameron French

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Kentucky's workforce participation rates are among the lowest in the nation, thus underscoring the urgent need to strengthen and sustain its workforce (Aull, 2023). One significant barrier for many families in the workforce is the lack of accessibility and affordability of childcare. The Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) in Kentucky aims to alleviate this burden for low-income families. Despite the program's importance, no prior study has examined the direct impact of CCAP enrollment on workforce participation in Kentucky. This research addresses this gap by conducting a multiple regression analysis using aggregate data from the Kentucky Center for Statistics, the US …

Venture Capital & State Policy: A Mixed Methods Approach For Identifying And Understanding “Bright Spots”, David Durman Ii, Cole Wilson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The relationship between the availability of venture capital at the state level and state policy is largely unexplored in research. To expand the understanding of this subject, the aim of this paper is to determine what states are performing greater than would be expected in the area of venture capital availability and examine the nature of policy in those states in order to glean insights in regard to policy improvement. To that end, the researchers developed a multiple regression model to identify overperforming states, then performed an examination of policy within the states identified and contacted subject matter experts within …

Lexington Black Prosperity Initiative: Addressing Lexington’S Equity Gap, Kinsleigh Smith, Jason Schubert

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The equity gap between Black Americans and white Americans is a persistent social issue. This equity gap presents itself in a variety of measures – wealth accumulation, homeownership, healthcare, educational achievement, financial stability, and more. Locally, the Lexington Black Prosperity Initiative, a program of the Blue Grass Community Foundation, is primarily focused on strengthening Lexington’s Black community and closing this equity gap. The initiative was established in 2020. As the Lexington Black Prosperity Initiative enters its fourth year of operations, they are seeking to expand their reach within the community by enacting long-lasting and sustainable programs that will work to …

City Beautification And Homelessness: Differing Priorities Of Cities Considered Beautiful And Ugly, Katia Davis

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The downtown area of a city is often considered the economic hub where people come together as a society to engage in consumerism, recreation, and build relationships. Cities use the downtown area to showcase the beauty and appeal of the area to attract new residents or retain current residents. One thing that affects many downtown areas is the presence of visible homelessness. Homelessness is often seen as an unsightly issue that affects local businesses, residents, and tourism. Local governments can choose to push the homeless presence out of downtown or create an environment that helps those in need. This paper …

Chinese Fintech Goes Global: Political Challenges And Business Strategies, Yujia He

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

Fintech (the application of digital technology to financial services) has witnessed unprecedented growth, bringing significant implications for the financial system and sustainable development.1 The Financial Stability Board, an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system, defines fintech as “technologically enabled financial innovation that could result in new business models, applications, processes, or products with an associated material effect on financial markets and institutions and the provision of financial services.”2 The use of technology in finance is certainly not new—consider the growth of electronic banking and high-frequency trading in the early 2000s. In the past two …

Education Out Loud Case Study: The Gear Alliance, Alexander Towne, Sladana Krstic, Sam Boering

International Education Research

This case study is part of a larger body of work funded by the Global Partnership for Education’s (GPE) Education Out Loud (EOL) programme. It explores the advocacy and policy influencing (API) activities of the GEAR Alliance, a transnational alliance of four East African civil society organisations (CSO) receiving funding from EOL, and the process, results and impact of action research project they conducted in partnership with MDF/ Australian Council for Education Research (ACER), an EOL ‘Global Learning Partner’ (GLP). EOL is the GPEs fund for advocacy and social accountability. The fund aims to support CSOs to be active and …