A look at the books: For the second consecutive year, Baton Rouge Community College did not maintain adequate controls over its payroll records and overpaid employees more than $16,000, according to a report from Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera’s office released this morning. In written response to the findings, BRCC Chancellor Andrea Lewis Miller acknowledged the overpayments, saying the college’s human resources department was severely understaffed when the overpayments were made. Since then, Miller says eight full-time employees and two part-timers have been hired to address compliance and controls. A corrective action plan has also been developed and will be fully implemented by next July, she says. “This will not be a repeat finding,” Miller says in her response, which is included in the complete audit.
On the sidelines: President Barack Obama is set to headline more campaign events in the next eight days than he’s done the entire 2014 election cycle. But as The Wall Street Journalreports, Obama’s schedule only underscores what’s become a signature theme of the Nov. 4 election: He is a drag—not a boost—on the vast majority of Democratic candidates. The states the president will be visiting—Michigan, Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—are not home to this cycle’s most critical races. And he won’t be campaigning for Democrats in Louisiana or any state in which tight Senate races could decide which party controls the chamber. It’s a marked departure from a few months ago, when White House officials left open the possibility of Obama campaigning in Louisiana for incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu. Read the full story.
By the numbers: The fight for Senate control is unchanged at the outset of this week, The New York Times reports, and that’s good news for Republicans. All three major Senate models—including Election Lab, The Washington Post‘s model; LEO, The New York Times‘ model; and FiveThirtyEight’s model—are essentially unchanged from one week ago, meaning that Republicans continue to hold a better than six in 10 chance of winning the majority in eight days. And all three models give Republicans a better than 75% probability of winning six seats that Democrats control in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia. Read the full story.
