POLICY ROUNDUP

School vouchers can limit criminal behavior in students, according to a new study from the University of Arkansas. The study examined Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program, a private school voucher program for nearly 28,000 low-income students.

Students who stayed in the voucher program through 12th grade were up to 12 percent less likely to be accused of any crime as young adults. They were up to 3 percent less likely to commit a felony and 7 percent less likely to commit a misdemeanor. That analysis controls for family income, parental education levels and whether one or both parents live at home.

The study compared public school students and voucher students who were in eighth or ninth grade in 2006. It found no statistically significant results when it analyzed all voucher students from that period, instead of just the ones who stayed through 12th grade. Evidently, students need to stay in the program for four or five years to realize its crime-reducing effects.

The study was authored by Core DeAngelis and Patrick Wolf. The two cautioned against extrapolating the results to other voucher programs across the country. It’s possible the Milwaukee program attracts students who are already unlikely to commit crimes. — Jason Russell

HOUSING

Despite mixed results, Congress expands ‘Moving To Work’ program

Congress this month expanded a Department of Housing and Urban Development program called “Moving to Work” that gives local housing authorities more independence. While longtime participants like the freedom, not everyone agrees that the program helps the people who rely on those agencies.

Some fear Moving to Work also removes accountability. By allowing housing authorities to change their own systems, HUD cedes authority and eliminates oversight, said Linda Couch, senior vice president for policy and outreach at the Low Income Housing Coalition.

“Local groups become the regulator,” she said. “They’re the ones who have to keep an eye out for what’s happening, because HUD doesn’t have the authority or capacity to do that.”

HUD allows participants of the program to lump various pots of federal money into one big pot and lifts rules on how the agencies can use that money. While the program allows localities to decide what works best for its population based on local conditions, it has also empowered agencies to shift money out of housing voucher programs to fund public housing construction. So while the new public housing units are nicer, there are fewer of them, leaving thousands of people waiting for vouchers.

While Congress was voting to expand flexibility to additional housing authorities, HUD was already making changes to Moving to Work contracts after acknowledging issues of unequal funding formulas and lack of evaluations. — Joana Suleiman

LABOR

House Republicans renew push for more data on ‘official time’

The practice of “official time” has allowed federal employees to perform functions on behalf of labor groups since 1978 while receiving a federal paycheck. Republicans for years have tried to curb and shed more light on the practice, without much success.

Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the chairmen of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and its Government Operations Subcommittee, respectively, wrote letters to the heads of every major federal agency this month asking them for more information on “official time.”

Last month, Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., introduced a bill to require the Office of Personnel Management to report on official time annually. The last time Congress required OPM to report data on official time was in 1998, though the agency began doing so voluntarily in 2002. In 2014, OPM released its Labor-Management Relations in the Executive Branch report, which showed agencies spent 3.43 million hours on official time that year, an increase of 1.3 percent from fiscal 2011 at a cost of $157.2 million.

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., who introduced the Federal Employees Accountability Act last year to prevent federal workers from engaging in official time, also signed on to the oversight committee’s letters, which asked agencies to provide documentation on all their employees who performed any official time activities in fiscal 2014 and 2015.

An OPM spokeswoman said it “will work to respond to the committee’s request,” but declined to say if it would meet the Feb. 26 deadline.

Federal employee unions say the practice comes with fiscal benefits, since it allows for resolution of disputes that arise in the workplace without resorting to costlier administrative or legal procedures. While easing labor-management relations, the unions say, it does not allow for conduct strictly boosting the unions. The statutes governing the practice already forbid solicitation of members, internal union meetings, elections of officers and any partisan political activities. — Joana Suleiman

HEALTHCARE

Medicare’s vaccine coverage found lacking

Health officials stress that everyone should get vaccinated, but that could be a problem for some people on Medicare.

Medicare enrollees have limited access to about 10 recommended vaccines without having to pay out of pocket, an analysis from the healthcare research firm Avalere Health found.

The analysis found that only 12 percent of enrollees in Medicare Advantage, a program that allows seniors to get private health plans, had access to the 10 vaccines in 2016 without a co-pay. That is up from 5 percent in 2011, Avalere noted.

In addition, no standalone Part D plans covered any vaccines for diseases such as tetanus or hepatitis A or B without out-of-pocket costs from 2011 to 2016, Avalere said.

The vaccines examined were for conditions such as tetanus, hepatitis A and B, chicken pox and meningitis.

Avalere found that last year there was a difference between the types of cost-sharing that Medicare Advantage Part D plans offered for vaccines compared to standalone Part D plans.

About 80-90 percent of Medicare Advantage seniors had a fixed co-pay for the vaccines, while that percentage plunged to 47-72 percent of enrollees in standalone Part D plans.

“Medicare has an opportunity to encourage broader use of these vaccines through expanded coverage,” said Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere. — Robert King

ENERGY

Toyota eyes exporting gas to Mexico

Big energy companies have been pressing the Obama administration to grant them licenses to export natural gas for years to take advantage of the big shale gas boom. But one company comes as a surprise: Toyota.

Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America had wanted permission to export gas to Mexico. But the auto giant withdrew its request last month, and the Energy Department vacated its license approval.

The Energy Department made official on Thursday the list of companies to which it granted export permits in January. The notice was published in Thursday’s Federal Register.

The approvals included: Sabine Pass; Applied LNG Technologies; Coahuila Energy; White Eagle Trading; Cannat Energy; BNP Paribas Energy; Freeport LNG; and Mercuria Commodities Canada.

Toyota was the only license that was withdrawn. — John Siciliano

DRUGS

Marijuana may enhance risk for alcohol and drug abuse

Marijuana use by adults is associated with an increased risk of alcohol and drug abuse, a new study found.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, comes as several states are pushing to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use, according to the journal.

Researchers looked at 34,653 adults interviewed three years apart in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

At the three-year follow-up, researchers found that marijuana use was associated with an increased risk for developing alcohol and drug disorders such as nicotine dependence. But it was not associated with a higher risk for depression or mood anxiety disorders. — Robert King