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SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2012 Haslam Admin’s Report Focuses on ‘Streamlining and Modernizing’ (TN Report) Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bill Hagerty today released the Regulatory Reform Report, an ECD-led review of federal and state rules and regulations impacting businesses. One of the key strategies of the governor’s Jobs4TN economic development plan was to conduct this review with the goal of identifying obstacles to investment. “To reach our goal of becoming the No. 1 state in the Southeast for high quality jobs, we must always be focused on strengthening our attractive business climate to attract and grow Tennessee jobs,” Haslam said. “This regulatory review process was important to identify areas for improvement both through internal and external evaluations.” In conducting the review, ECD surveyed Tennessee business leaders, advocacy groups and state departments to identify federal and state laws, regulations and processes that could have a negative impact on economic development and job creation in the state. http://www.tnreport.com/2012/01/haslam-administrations-new-regulatory-reform-report-focuses-on-streamlining- and-modernizing/ Amazon’s Chattanooga distribution center plans to expand (Times Free- Press/Pare) Already the size of 17 football fields, Amazon’s Chattanooga distribution center is about to get bigger. Fresh off a successful holiday season in which the site became one of Amazon’s busiest in terms of volume of items handled, company officials said plans are to expand operations inside the massive Enterprise South industrial park facility. Work will start this month on an expansion that will add onto an existing second-level mezzanine and boost floor space to about 28 football fields, said Sanjay Shah, the Chattanooga center’s general manager. The space is expected to be ready by midsummer. Cost of the work wasn’t disclosed. “We’re doing the expansion to meet demand,” Shah said in an interview last week that gave the Chattanooga Times Free Press an exclusive first media look inside Amazon’s Chattanooga center. Eventually the expansion will translate to hundreds more jobs, said the UTC graduate who joined Amazon about a year ago and moved back to Chattanooga to run the local facility after working in Texas and India. http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/jan/08/amazons-chattanooga-distribution-center-plans-expa/?local Governor unveils proposal for lowering crime rate (Tennessean) Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday released a plan to increase penalties for certain violent crimes, tamp down on drug offenses and revamp how felons are supervised in the state. The plan focuses on reducing prescription and methamphetamine drug abuse, decreasing violent crime and cutting the rate at which criminals commit new crimes. It aims to do so through new legislation calling for tougher penalties for gang and drug-related crimes, new administrative moves and an increasing reliance on alternatives to prison. http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120108/NEWS01/301080064/Week-review-New-TN-redistricting-maps- would-give-GOP-advantage Tennessee education board losing staff (Associated Press) Tennessee Board of Education Executive Director Gary Nixon says employees are starting to leave for jobs that pay more. Nixon told The Tennessean that his staff's salary hasn't been adjusted since at least 2004 and now their pay just isn't competitivehttp://tnne.ws/AnboS1 ( ). Nixon says state board of education members tried to approve raises last fall, but the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration turned down the request. "We had money to cover it and submitted some adjustments," Nixon said. "We got a Post-it Note saying it was denied." The board's former general counsel, Rich Haglund, left his position last year. He was making about $60,000 a year and now makes about $80,000 leading the state Department of Education's charter school office. "I was making less (at the state board) than most of my law school classmates did right out of law school," he said. http://www.tennessean.com/usatoday/article/38289161?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|News|s New engineering building at UT to open (Associated Press) The University of Tennessee is set to open the first new engineering building on its campus in almost 50 years. Faculty began moving into the Min H. Kao Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building last week. The state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly facility is named after the co-founder of Garmin, a UT alum who gave $12.5 million for the project. The $37.5 million building, which was under construction for nearly three years, will open this week to students, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported (http://bit.ly/ACyQH4 ). College of Engineering associate dean Bill Dunne said some of the features of the 150,000-square-foot building include 11 teaching laboratories, 19 research labs, nine classrooms, more than 100 offices for faculty and graduate students and an auditorium that has network and electric outlets at each of its 135 seats. Officials at the school showed off the brick collegiate gothic building that sits on the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Estabrook Road last week. The building was designed by Bullock, Smith & Partners with Lindsay and Maples Architects. Blaine Construction built the facility.http://www.tennessean.com/usatoday/article/38289137?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|News|s How did ETSU use stimulus money? (Johnson City Press) Of the roughly $30 million in federal stimulus money East Tennessee State University received, about half was used for facility improvements and half was used to alleviate the impact of budget reversions. ETSU Vice President for Finance and Administration David Collins said the facility improvements made possible by stimulus dollars included the major renovation of Ross Hall, HVAC replacements in 12 buildings, vinyl window replacements in 11 buildings, chemistry lab renovations in Brown Hall and the digital upgrade for the campus radio station WETS-FM 89.5. “The Ross Hall renovation was a dorm we were taking offline,” Collins said. “And we had been working for a year or two trying to figure out how we could accumulate the money, because we knew we wanted it for academic space. And then that (stimulus money) came along and it gave us the money that we needed, so, of course, that created academic space.” Ross Hall is now home to the department of geosciences, the Roan Scholars Leadership Program and the office of research and sponsored programs. The $4 million renovations to the building, which included the installation of an elevator, smart labs, a digital mapmaking room and classrooms, were completed this past summer. http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Living/article.php?id=97327#ixzz1irypu0t7 TN lawmakers gear up for fast session, re-election (Tennessean/Sisk) Lawmakers return to Nashville this week for a legislative session that should be shaped by election-year politics. Republicans hope to build on their nearly two-thirds majority in the General Assembly, but their strategy on how to do that is still being hashed out. Gov. Bill Haslam and leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives have each presented slightly different plans for the year ahead. Meanwhile, less-senior lawmakers are pushing ahead with bills that the Republican leadership might not favor. Lobbyists are trying to force their favored bills onto the agenda, and Democrats are hoping to shake up the political order and score a few legislative victories, despite being deep in the minority. Republican leaders will attempt to strike a balance among these competing interests during a session that could be among the shortest in recent years. “I know there’s been a lot of questions about, ‘Well, the governor says this and somebody in the legislature says something that seems to be at odds with it,’ ” said House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga. “But that’s OK. I think a little creative tension is a good thing.” The legislative session will kick off with a once-in-a-decade scrum over redistricting. Republicans control the process for the first time ever, but with an ample majority in both chambers of the legislature, their biggest challenge will be not spreading themselves too thin in an attempt to pick up more seats. Democrats are believed to have done just that when district lines were last drawn in 2002, setting the stage for the Republican landslide eight years later. http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120108/NEWS0201/301080039/TN-lawmakers-gear-up-fast-session-re- election?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE College funds, taxes top Tennessee legislature's agenda (C. Appeal/Locker) Lawmakers face array of issues as session starts The Tennessee legislature reconvenes Tuesday for four months of debate over cutting Hope Scholarships, cutting taxes, altering the public meetings and records laws for local government, broadening gun laws and selling wine in grocery stores. Other top agenda items will include a new $7 million anti-crime initiative proposed last week by Gov. Bill Haslam, how to expand and contract 2 different programs in a $32 billion state budget, and whether to revise some of last year's major actions on evaluating teachers and requiring photo identification to vote. Students and their parents will be watching a plan to require both a 3.0 high school grade-point average and a 21 ACT score to qualify for a full lottery-funded Hope Scholarship. The policy in place since the program began in 2004 requires one or the other but not both. A Senate task force has recommended the tighter standard to deal with annual deficits in the program. But the program's reserves are adequate until at least 2024, and soon after the panel's action, the Tennessee Lottery reported record sales. State officials increased projections of how much money the lottery will generate, calling into question the need for any action this year.