STATE AUDITOR'S REPORT JUNE 30, 2017

The Office of State Auditor audited the financial statements of the South Carolina Legislative Services Agency using agreed upon procedures

Adapting Conservation Easements to Climate Change

Perpetual conservation easements (CEs) are popular for restricting development and land use, but their fixed terms create challenges for adaptation to climate change. The increasing pace of environmental and social change demands adaptive conservation instruments. To examine the adaptive potential of CEs, we surveyed 269 CEs and interviewed 73 conservation organization employees. Although only 2% of CEs mentioned climate change, the majority of employees were concerned about climate change impacts. CEs share the fixed-boundary limits typical of protected areas with additional adaptation constraints due to permanent terms on private lands. CEs often have multiple, potentially conflicting purposes that protect against termination but complicate decisions about principled, conservation-oriented adaptation. Monitoring is critical for shaping adaptive responses, but only 35% of CEs allowed organizations to conduct ecological monitoring. In addition, CEs provided few requirements or incentives for active stewardship of private lands. We found four primary options for changing land use restrictions, each with advantages and risks: CE amendment, management plan revisions, approval of changes through discretionary consent, and updating laws or policies codified in the CE. Conservation organizations, funders, and the Internal Revenue Service should promote processes for principled adaptation in CE terms, provide more active stewardship of CE lands, and consider alternatives to the CE tool

Comment Letters to proposed statement on standards for attestation engagements : Management\u27s discussion and analysis

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sas/1108/thumbnail.jp

The effects of custodial vs. non-custodial sentences on re-offending: A systematic review of the state of knowledge

As part of a broad initiative of systematic reviews of experimental or quasiexperimental evaluations of interventions in the field of crime prevention and the treatment of offenders, our work consisted in searching through all available databases for evidence concerning the effects of custodial and non-custodial sanctions on reoffending. For this purpose, we examined more than 3,000 abstracts, and finally 23 studies that met the minimal conditions of the Campbell Review, with only 5 studies based on a controlled or a natural experimental design. These studies allowed, all in all, 27 comparisons. Relatively few studies compare recidivism rates for offenders sentenced to jail or prison with those of offenders given some alternative to incarceration (typically probation). According to the findings, the rate of re-offending after a non-custodial sanction is lower than after a custodial sanction in 11 out of 13 significant comparisons. However, in 14 out of 27 comparisons, no significant difference on re-offending between both sanctions is noted. Two out of 27 comparisons are in favour of custodial sanctions. Finally, experimental evaluations and natural experiments yield results that are less favourable to non-custodial sanctions, than are quasi-experimental studies using softer designs. This is confirmed by the meta-analysis including four controlled and one natural experiment. According to the results, non-custodial sanctions are not beneficial in terms of lower rates of re-offending beyond random effects. Contradictory results reported in the literature are likely due to insufficient control of pre-intervention differences between prisoners and those serving “alternative” sanctions

Management of forested trust land, Department of State Lands : performance audit report /

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Montana State University, Montana Agricultural Experiment Station, Montana Cooperative Extension Service, financial and compliance audit for the two fiscal years ended June 30, ... /

1989-199

Montana State University, Montana Agricultural Experiment Station, Montana Cooperative Extension Service, financial and compliance audit for the two fiscal years ended June 30, ... /

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