#transparency

Do you really think a company who's been struggling for as long as fiserv is going to be selling a positive story when publishing the results when they've scheduled it for the same day as the midterms?

No one can get any work done why don't they just come clean with who is being laid off

Anyone feel like Rick was gaslighting us a bit in the Q&A during the corporate update? No layoffs huh? I know of several!!

Tried asking a question in the Q/A and it was blocked bc they didn’t want to talk about HWF. Didn’t allow others to vote on if they wanted to see the question.

Any updates for Sky employees under Global Product org ? We’ve been completely left in the dark about what’s going to happen to us. Are engineers within Sky’s Fraser division likely to be affected more , given that this division is moving to Comcast?

Phillips 66 has posted updates to the ongoing labor negotiations. These updates dates contain incomplete information.
The company has posted salary offers, changes to the holiday schedule and a revised time of progression for operations.
What it hasn’t done is post what demands it making in return for these offers.
What are you hiding P66?

Gadsden County's NAACP chapter is demanding an explanation for the dismissal of seventeen employees. Local commissioners expressed surprise, stating they were not consulted on the terminations. The county attorney has initiated a legal review of the situation. The NAACP also questioned reports of immediate replacements being hired. This controversy highlights a lack of transparency in county personnel decisions.

Quincy, Florida

https://fox49.tv/news/local/why-were-they-fired-naacp-demands-answers-over-17-gadsden-county-layoffs

The webpage at america.gov/fraud is the official portal for the U.S. government's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a centralized system designed to let the public report fraud, waste, or abuse directly to federal agencies. Managed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the platform aims to modernize and accelerate the federal whistleblower process.

The platform reads your submission and instantly routes the data directly to the Department of the Treasury, which then assigns it to the exact federal office best suited to investigate it. This replaces legacy whistleblower pipelines that historically took years of secret legal filings.

Submissions are fully encrypted, and providing your name or identity is completely optional. The platform itself does not store or retain any submitted information.

If users choose to provide their contact information, they may qualify for a financial reward if their report successfully leads to criminal charges or the recovery of stolen federal funds.

How the Reporting Process Works

1. Describe the Incident: Users write a brief summary detailing what occurred, who was involved, and when the activity took place.
2. Attach Documentation: The tool compiles the text, allows the user to review the details, and supports uploading up to five files or photographs as supporting evidence.
3. Submit & Track: Upon submission, the user receives a unique reference number and can download a complete copy of the encrypted report for their records.

The portal connects to more than 20 federal enforcement arms, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Offices of Inspectors General across multiple departments (such as HHS, VA, and SBA).

I’m trying to understand the company’s policy and process for potential conflicts of interest in hiring. If a software lead hires their spouse onto the same team, is that allowed under our policies? Are there requirements for disclosure, independent hiring decisions, or safeguards to ensure the process is impartial?

I’m not looking to identify anyone or make assumptions about a particular hiring decision. I’d appreciate guidance on where employees can find the relevant policy and which appropriate channel can explain how these situations are handled.

I’d keep the post free of names, team details, or other information that could identify the people involved. Seeing both people still at work doesn’t by itself tell you what review or decision may have taken place.

This has been a long and exhausting week. Not having access to clear sales numbers is frustrating enough, but what's even more frustrating is finally getting access to data and still not being able to make sense of it.

We've been given Power BI, but nobody can explain what we're actually looking at. Sales data is dumped into the system, yet there is no clear way to understand where the numbers come from, what they represent, or how they were calculated. Reps are showing anywhere from 30% to 55%, with some approaching 60%, but it's the end of October and nobody on my team, or any team I've spoken with, can explain what those percentages actually mean.

For years, we've relied on Tableau. It wasn't perfect, but it allowed us to compare current-year performance against prior-year performance and understand what was driving the business. That visibility is gone.

Instead, we've been handed Power BI, which currently feels less like a sales management tool and more like a dumping ground for disconnected data. The most concerning part is that even managers are struggling to explain what we're seeing.

It's hard to have confidence in targets, forecasts, or performance metrics when nobody can clearly explain the underlying numbers. At some point, leadership has to provide more than data. They need to provide clarity.

Right now, it feels like confusion has replaced transparency, and that's a big part of why so many employees believe this company is a mess. I feel like everyone is just holding on, pretending to care, looking busy, and no one really cares , because there has been Zero significant wins.

What is the company strategy again? :( I guess No one was listening last week to MH and Mr. Apple.

Performance reviews often feel like a joke when the feedback collected through 360-degree reviews is overridden by the lead, without adequately considering input from other internal and external team members. HR should be present in these discussions as a neutral party to ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability. Assigning ratings based on tenure in a role rather than actual performance undermines the entire purpose of the review process. Such practices raise serious concerns about the fairness and integrity of the performance evaluation system.

The protection racket around certain incompetent managers has gone on way too long. Hopefully that shield is finally starting to crack and accountability starts mattering more than decades old relationships and loyalties

WHO ELSE IS TIRED OF THE AMAZON SURPRISES?

Just a heads-up to everyone at Whole Foods: apparently, there’s ANOTHER BIG announcement coming from Amazon on 11/10. 👀

No details yet, of course. Wouldn’t want to give the people actually doing the work a little transparency ahead of time, right? 🙄

Another round of hiring freezes before the holidays? More labor-hour reductions? More unrealistic productivity expectations? New rules handed down by people who haven’t worked a single shift on the floor? Or are they about to find yet another way to squeeze more out of the same employees while telling us how much they “value” us? Newsflash - they don't.

At this point, it could be literally anything, and that’s the problem. Every time there’s some big corporate announcement, employees are left wondering whether it’s going to make our jobs harder, our schedules worse, or our stores even more understaffed.

Maybe it’ll be something good for once. 😂 Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking.

Carbon Robotics has announced layoffs due to broader economic conditions. The company did not disclose the number of employees affected by the cuts. Some former employees reported a lack of transparency from leadership prior to the layoffs. The ag robotics firm is known for its laser weeding technology. Carbon Robotics has 275 employees globally.

Seattle, Washington

https://agfundernews.com/layoffs-at-carbon-robotics-as-firm-realigns-costs-due-to-broader-economic-conditions

She is full of herself. This past year has been completely stressful for all of us. Our anxiety has been through the roof with this whole multi year restructuring. Each of us wondering if we will make it through the next round is not an ideal way to live. You say you are being transparent but you are not. I was impacted recently and I would say there hasn’t been support in finding other roles. The severance packages are also pretty horrible.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ubh68153EEM?si=1FWKMQW9RKOQKPwX

Over one hundred students and employees gathered to protest recent layoffs and perceived mismanagement of the university's budget. Demonstrators voiced concerns that Temple is prioritizing infrastructure over educational resources and student support. They demanded greater transparency from the administration regarding the $1.3 billion operating budget. Speakers highlighted the negative impact of staff reductions on classroom environments and student retention. The protest called for increased staffing and accountability from university leadership.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

https://temple-news.com/ditch-mitch-employees-and-students-protest-layoffs-and-administration/

I'm yet to work for a company with more cowardly leadership than this one. Tell us what's going on, for heaven's sake! We're all big boys and girls, we can take it. Being kept in the dark is ten time worse than anything we might find out, whether it's about layoffs or whatever else.

Things like which groups and teams will be affected, which locations, how many people, if there'll be any changes to severance...stuff like that. What's with the lack of transparency?

Beaverton School District is initiating a two-year review process that may lead to school closures and boundary changes. The district has experienced a significant drop in student enrollment, losing nearly 5,200 students since 2019. Projections indicate this decline will continue, creating a substantial budget deficit. Superintendent Tony Smith emphasized that no specific schools are predetermined for closure but decisions are necessary to align resources with the student population. The district plans a transparent process involving community feedback before any final votes.

Beaverton, Oregon

https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2026/10/another-portland-area-school-district-is-mulling-school-closures-to-address-enrollment-challenges.html

Share your truth on this layoff board. Even after signing the big scary severance - they cannot harm you!

American jobs are under attack in mass and corporate America wants you, the working class, to fade off into absolute silence. What's best for Cigna is not best for YOU or your neighbor or your CHILDREN / next generation!

Speak up - share information - don't go out like a silent little minion.

Now be prepared in the replies to this thread for what is called "BOT ASTROTURFING" - this is Cigna's way of steering the narrative to a favorable opinion, shifting blame to someone or something else, or calling out the poster as crazy or posting long unrelated misinformation.

F CIGNA and speak your truth and encourage others to do the same!!

What’s going on rims and mows , since Oct 2 ,where’s all the comments , give us the good the bad and the ugly, share the truth people!

hoping you feel liberate coz Norlin is not here and he isn’t commanding this site or Jetta to command this site to delete posts

does it not feel just cool to be able to speak freely and these id--ts aren’t deleting posts?

speak up! Post more on this site!

Power to the people

Is anyone else staring to suspect the numbers are cooked?

I was under the impression that in certain states an employer must disclose what is being tracked.

For my team there has been zero transparency on what counts toward productive time and our leader flat out said that he didn’t want people to game the system. People simply wanted to know if they were logged into the network at work but attending an event or talking to a coworker but not actively on the computer would that count….since there would not be a lot of typing or mouse clicks.

Even tech companies like meta decided not to track their employees. Kinda ridiculous we are being treated like cr-p and talked to like children…I don’t know how much lower this company can go

Mentioned how hard covid times were because we were all wfh and he needs to see his people face to face. Does he not know we can look his org up and clearly see 90% of his team is at other sites. It feels like we are constantly being fed bullsh-t and they think we are buying it. This is why we can’t trust or believe anything these people say.

Higher Ed schools are finalizing ISBN selections this week, with some institutions potentially extending decisions until November 1.

Anyone who has worked in educational publishing understands what that means. The window to win meaningful Spring business is rapidly closing, and in many cases may have already closed.

One manager told me that last year's Fall selling season was already among the weakest they had seen. According to them, this year appears to be even more challenging.

So far, no one on their team has reported closing any significant new business. At the same time, several reps have reported substantial losses in key disciplines, including Computing and Economics.

The level of concern is growing. One manager estimated their territory could be down as much as $2 million or more by March 31 if current trends continue.

Whether these reports ultimately reflect the broader business remains to be seen. But if similar conversations are happening across multiple teams, it would help explain why so many employees are questioning management's outlook and asking for greater transparency around the numbers.

Bumping this from @mw+1m4jfecx3 for info.

Hoping the Town Hall Wednesday is going to provide new information. ANY information!

Comcast, if you genuinely want to see better business results, improved productivity, and stronger employee morale, you need to seriously reconsider your layoff and employee retention strategies.

Why are H-1B visa holders and green card holders seemingly being retained while other experienced and qualified employees are losing their jobs?

If this is happening, Comcast leadership owes its employees an explanation. What criteria are being used to determine who stays and who gets laid off? Are these decisions based on technical expertise, performance, experience, and business contributions, or are other factors influencing the process?

Instead of repeatedly laying off valuable employees, Comcast should conduct a transparent and unbiased review of its workforce decisions, including the retention of H-1B and green card employees.

Layoff decisions should be based on measurable performance and business needs, not immigration status or preferential treatment.

Comcast might be surprised by how quickly productivity, accountability, and employee confidence could improve if it adopted a genuinely fair and merit-based approach.

The real question is: Why are some employees being protected while others are being shown the door? Comcast employees deserve transparency and equal treatment.

A legal expert suggests the Canadian government should consider nationalizing Stelco, a U.S.-owned steel plant in Hamilton, due to recent layoffs. Professor Nicolas Lamp believes this action could provide transparency and time to ensure decisions align with national interests. He questions whether the current management is acting in the best interest of Canadian workers, especially amidst a trade war. The federal government has given Stelco's owner five business days to present a plan to retain Canadian jobs. This discussion arises as 300 to 350 workers face job losses at the Hamilton facility.

Hamilton, Ontario

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/stelco-nationalize-9.7376461

I heard from a source that employees impacted by the layoffs will be notified via email on October 28. Has anyone else heard anything similar or have additional details they can share?

Given the scale of these potential layoffs and the number of employees who may be affected, I find it hard to believe that all the details will remain confidential for much longer.

What’s most disheartening is how this entire situation is being handled. Behind every position is a person with a family, financial responsibilities, and years of dedication to this company. Yet it increasingly feels like we are nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Now we are facing even more weeks of anxiety, uncertainty, and speculation. How can leadership reasonably expect employees to remain focused, engaged, and productive when so many are wondering whether they will still have a job at the end of the month? At this point, productivity is going out the door, morale is deteriorating, and the emotional toll is only growing. The lack of communication is creating an environment where fear and rumors are filling the void left by leadership.

And to the person in Corporate Communications whose job includes monitoring conversations like this one: I sincerely hope you are taking these messages back to leadership. I hope you are communicating the anxiety, frustration, and emotional distress that this prolonged silence and lack of transparency have created. These aren’t just comments on a message board. They are the voices of real employees who feel abandoned by a company they have dedicated years of their lives to. Your responsibility shouldn’t just be to monitor the conversation or manage the company’s reputation. It should also be to ensure leadership understands the very real human consequences of how this situation is being handled.

Regardless of the business decisions being made, employees deserve transparency, compassion, and dignity. The uncertainty alone is exhausting, and the way people are treated during moments like these says a great deal about an organization and its values.

People will remember not just the layoffs themselves, but how they were treated in the weeks leading up to them. And no amount of carefully crafted corporate messaging will erase that.

Well, holy shiatballs NoCenteam Nation!!!

Yesterday, Florida's First District Court of Appeal ordered the entire 116-page Hope Florida grand jury report expunged! The grand jury had called the movement of $10 million from Centene's Medicaid settlement a "sophisticated scheme" and said the money was misappropriated. The appellate court basically said not so fast nope: the grand jury could not declare conduct unlawful, name people responsible, decline to indict them, and then publish the accusations anyway. It also found serious disclosure problems and concluded that the $10 million was not an identified Medicaid overcharge and never became State of Florida property.[1]

That's a big deal. If we've cited the grand jury as proof somebody committed a crime, that part just got blown up. No indictments were returned, the appellate court rejected the report's central legal theory, and the ruling expressly says third-party settlement payments like this were not prohibited by the Florida statutes the grand jury relied upon.[1]

But here's where this gets a he-l of a lot more interesting. The court ordered the report expunged. It did not erase the transaction. Centene's original settlement draft sent the entire roughly $67 million to Florida. Then AHCA briefed the governor's office on September 10, 2024. The next day a new draft contained a $5 million Hope Florida payment. On September 12 that payment got a special seven-day deadline while Florida could wait up to 45 days for its first payment. On September 13 the Hope Florida amount doubled to $10 million, with no explanation in the email record for why. Florida's own Chief Deputy Attorney General wrote that the payment section was "different than I have seen in a settlement with Medicaid monies."[2]

And Centene's lawyers weren't asleep at the wheel. They inserted language making clear Centene was "directed by the state" to make the payment and that Centene had no authority over the state's allocation or subsequent distribution of the settlement money.[3]

(That's actually pretty smart lawyering.)

More importantly, Centene's lawyers clearly considered the payment's authorization important enough to negotiate specific protections around it.

So here's the question nobody should let disappear just because the grand jury report did:

What did Centene's Legal, Compliance, executive leadership, and anyone responsible for government-contract risk actually review before approving this?

Because as we discussed in my last post, Centene tells employees that "Compliance is Everyone's Responsibility." It requires ethics and compliance training at hire and annually. Every employee completes annual Fraud, Waste and Abuse training. We were quizzed and had to attest to it. Very thoroughly, I might add! The company says employees should be vigilant, think critically, report concerns, and protect taxpayer dollars. They really love that part and hammer it home in multiple areas. Centene even tells CMS that MCOs need better information sharing so they can eliminate fraud blind spots.[4][5]

So here's a pretty simple governance question:

How much scrutiny does a $10 million politically sensitive settlement payment go through?

It gets better.

Florida officials have confirmed that when the state calculated what it owed the federal government from the settlement, it used the full $67 million, including the $10 million sent directly to Hope Florida.[6]

So follow this carefully:

For federal Medicaid settlement accounting, Florida treated the full $67 million as the basis for reimbursement.

BUT...

The appellate court says the $10 million sent to Hope Florida never became public money.[1][6]

Those two things may have a completely legitimate legal explanation. Federal Medicaid accounting rules and Florida property law are not necessarily the same thing.

Great. Somebody please take the mic and explain it.

Because "legal under this Florida statute" and "nothing to see here" are not remotely the same sentence.

Then there's what happened next. Hope Florida sent the $10 million to two nonprofits. Those nonprofits subsequently sent $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, the political committee fighting Amendment 3.[2] Centene says it had "no part in or knowledge of" Hope Florida's subsequent use of the money, and I have seen no evidence proving otherwise.[3]

That distinction really matters here.

So don't accuse Centene of secretly funding a political campaign. The evidence doesn't establish that.

Ask the much harder question:

Why did one of America's largest Medicaid contractors agree to an unusual $10 million third-party payment inside a Medicaid settlement, what diligence was performed, who signed off internally, and what documentation exists showing the risk was reviewed?

And now the process used to challenge and ultimately expunge the grand jury report is generating its own questions.

Florida Trident reports that the appeal which eliminated the report proceeded with no party arguing in defense of the report, while taxpayers have paid more than $300,000 to two law firms involved in the grand-jury matter, plus additional publicly funded legal work by a third firm. The ruling arrived 27 days before Attorney General James Uthmeier's election and is not final until any rehearing proceedings are resolved.[7]

That does prove political interference not prove political interference.

But if you're a reporter, legislator, auditor, shareholder, or analyst, you'd have to be working pretty hard not to have follow-up questions.

And don't forget the IRS!

The IRS Whistleblower Office has acknowledged a submission concerning the Hope Florida money trail and assigned it a claim number. That does not mean the IRS has opened an examination, much less found wrongdoing. But federal tax questions surrounding the foundation are separate from the Florida appellate court's ruling and remain unresolved.[8]

Which brings us to Wall Street...

CNC is trading around $65, roughly 7% below its September 52-week high. There is no evidence the market is pricing Hope Florida as a material financial event today. Frankly, investors have bigger immediate concerns: Medicaid margins, Marketplace risk, Medicare retrenchment, membership losses, and hundreds of millions in restructuring expenses.

Centene has told investors it expects roughly $315-$365 million of additional severance costs during the remainder of 2026, on top of enterprise-optimization and contract-exit costs already incurred. Q2 Medicaid HBR was 93.9%. Management nevertheless raised 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to greater than $4.80.[9]

And Centene reports Q3 earnings on October 27 at 8:30 a.m. ET.[10]

So, analysts, here's some free homework before everybody asks another question about basis points:

1. Did Centene's Audit and Compliance, Quality and Compliance, or any other board-level committee review the Hope Florida settlement or its $10 million third-party payment?

2. What internal compliance, legal, reputational-risk, or government-affairs review was performed before Centene agreed to the Hope Florida provision?

3. Who inside Centene had final authority to approve an unusual third-party payment in a settlement involving one of its largest Medicaid states?

4. Has Centene received any subpoena, inquiry, document request, whistleblower-related communication, or other contact from the IRS, DOJ, HHS OIG, CMS, Florida officials, or any other authority concerning Hope Florida?

5. Has the company determined that no disclosure relating to this matter is required under its SEC risk-factor, litigation, regulatory, or contingency obligations? If so, why?

6. With hundreds of millions being spent on severance and "enterprise optimization," what controls are in place to make sure institutional compliance knowledge isn't walking out the door while Centene simultaneously asks regulators for greater authority to police everyone else's fraud, waste, and abuse?

That last one matters beyond Florida.

Centene's own 2026 shareholder materials say:

"We do what is right, not what is easy."[11]

Centene also says "Every dollar lost to FWA is a dollar unavailable for member care."[5]

Those are pretty strong standards.

And to be crystal clear, the appellate court did NOT find that Centene misdirected funds, knowingly financed political activity, or participated in an illegal scheme. Neither am I saying that.

I'm pointing out the gap between Centene's very public emphasis on compliance, transparency, FWA controls, and protecting taxpayer dollars and the unanswered questions surrounding an unusual $10 million third-party provision in a Medicaid settlement.

Maybe Centene's controls worked perfectly.

Maybe Legal documented every concern.

Maybe Compliance blessed it.

Maybe leadership asked exactly the right questions and concluded the payment was appropriate.

Fantastic.

Then this should be the easiest question Sarah London gets all quarter:

Who reviewed the $10 million, what did they conclude, and will Centene show its work?

Because after all the annual FWA training, ethics modules, SIU investigations, accountability speeches, layoffs, optimization, and lectures about protecting taxpayer dollars...

Compliance is Everyone's Responsibility.

Apparently transparency should be, too.

[1] Florida First District Court of Appeal, In re: Leon County Grand Jury Presentment, Fall of 2025, No. 1D2026-2435, Oct. 7, 2026.

[2] Florida Trident, "Hope Florida timeline: Tracing the $10 million," Oct. 2026; underlying AHCA, Attorney General, and settlement drafting records.

[3] Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reporting on newly released settlement drafts and Centene's "directed by the state" language; Centene settlement agreement.

[4] Centene Code of Conduct and Ethics & Compliance materials: annual FWA training, reporting obligations, ethical decision-making, and "Compliance is Everyone's Responsibility."

[5] Centene, "Combating Fraud, Waste and Abuse"; Centene's Feb. 25, 2026 FWA reform letter to CMS.

[6] PolitiFact, Aug. 13, 2026: Florida officials confirmed federal reimbursement was calculated using the full $67 million settlement.

[7] Florida Trident, Oct. 8, 2026: appellate proceeding, taxpayer-funded legal invoices, and absence of an adversary defending the report.

[8] Florida Trident/WUSF, Oct. 2, 2026: IRS Whistleblower Office acknowledgment concerning the Hope Florida transactions.

[9] Centene Q2 2026 Form 10-Q and earnings release.

[10] Centene Investor Relations: Q3 2026 earnings call scheduled Oct. 27, 2026, 8:30 a.m. ET.

[11] Centene 2026 Proxy Statement/2025 Annual Report.

Cemex's cement plant in Lyons will lay off at least 70 workers, impacting over half of its staff. This significant reduction in force is scheduled to begin in November. The company stated that cement sales and distribution operations will continue at the facility. However, specific details regarding the future of the cement kiln remain unclear. Local community members have expressed concerns about safety and transparency following the announcement.

Lyons, Colorado

https://coloradosun.com/2026/10/07/cemex-layoffs-lyons-boulder-county/

Anyone else fed up with not having the proper commission since April? With no real answer on when the magic true ups will come? Can fully understand that “the erp cutover is complex” but lord have mercy, if they think they’re being ~~transparent~~ they’re ridiculous. Not to mention seeing our CEOs ni-ples on Instagram on his private yacht while an appropriate and earned commission check can’t even be cut. I dk yall, it’s wild over here. Keep solving!

Nothing new came out of the town hall today. We continue to hear claims about how well the company is doing, while many of us see significant problems that suggest otherwise.

I believe there are serious questions that need to be addressed regarding potential financial and compliance issues, particularly around Gainwell shifting development work offshore for states where we may not have authorization or contractual provisions allowing that work to be performed offshore, including Missouri, Texas, and Ohio.

There are also concerns that POs are being instructed not to include state names on state-specific work. If this is occurring, it raises serious questions about transparency, compliance, and whether the company is intentionally obscuring the nature or destination of the work.

These issues deserve a clear and transparent explanation, including where the work is being performed, what the contracts allow, and why state-specific work would be documented in a way that does not identify the state.

Bypassing Public Disclosures (WARN Act & SEC Filings)
Reclassifying headcount reductions as individual performance terminations directly suppresses public visibility:
No WARN Act Filings: The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires 60 days' advance notice for mass layoffs. Terminating individuals incrementally for "performance" does not trigger WARN criteria, allowing headcount to shrink without state notice.
SEC Accounting: Formal RIF payouts require clear line-item disclosures under "Restructuring and Severance Charges" in quarterly SEC filings. Performance firings are absorbed into normal operational overhead, hiding the true scope of white-collar workforce reductions from investors and news outlets.

The University of Maine System Board of Trustees convened in Presque Isle, Maine, to discuss system-wide budgets and academic programs. During the public comment period, faculty representatives voiced significant concerns regarding proposed faculty retrenchments. One professor emphasized the shared interest in a transparent consultation process before any layoffs occur. The board also heard presentations on the history and future initiatives of the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Updates from university presidents on enrollment and system changes were also provided.

Presque Isle, Maine

https://mainecampus.com/category/news/2026/10/bot-meets-at-umpi-the-public-weighs-in-on-budget-and-faculty-cuts-at-umaine/

Good people are disappearing with no rational explanation and the ones left are anything but transparent. Morale at an all time low despite solid Financials. People coming in from Amazon that know nothing about the business. What the he-l is going on?

By now, the Centene/Hope Florida story is pretty well known. Centene agreed to pay Florida $67 million to settle allegations involving Medicaid pharmacy benefit overbilling.

But the state didn't get all of it. Florida directed Centene to send $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation. Centene had seven days to make that payment.

Within 18 days, Hope Florida had sent the entire $10 million to two nonprofits. Those groups subsequently sent $8.5 million to a political committee fighting Florida's mari--ana amendment.

A grand jury later described the money as “misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities,” although it found insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.

Centene says it was directed by the state to make the donation and “had no part in or knowledge of” what Hope Florida subsequently did with the money. That's important.

There is no evidence I've seen that Centene knew where the money would eventually go.

This is where the irony gets pretty hard to ignore. This is a company that requires employees to complete annual Fraud, Waste and Abuse training.

Remember: Centene has a Special Investigations Unit.

It tells employees to be vigilant in detecting, preventing, and correcting fraud, waste, abuse, and non-compliance. Centene says its FWA work is about “accountability, transparency, and efficiency.”

And its own values include: “We do what is right, not what is easy.”

Meanwhile, Centene remains deeply embedded in Florida's Medicaid system. So forget what happened after Hope Florida received the money for a minute.

Here's the question I'd like somebody (maybe a reporter who’s not afraid to write about something real, not margins or stock price-related) to ask Centene: When $10 million from a Medicaid settlement was redirected to a foundation instead of the state, what questions did Centene's compliance, legal, or executive teams ask before sending it?

Maybe there are perfectly good answers. Let's hear them. Because now there's another development. The money trail has reached the IRS. 😳

The IRS Whistleblower Office has acknowledged receiving a claim involving the Hope Florida money and assigned it a claim number. That does prove wrongdoing not prove wrongdoing. It doesn't mean the IRS has opened an examination.

And it certainly doesn't prove Centene did anything illegal. (very important!)

But this story has moved a long way from a weird $10 million line item in a Florida Medicaid settlement. For a company that spends a lot of time teaching everyone else about fraud, waste, abuse, transparency, and accountability, asking what its own people knew, what they asked, and what controls were applied seems pretty reasonable.

“We do what is right, not what is easy.”

Centene requires annual Fraud, Waste and Abuse training. Maybe the next one should include a case study. Start with the $10 million.

New lawsuits are challenging the use of artificial intelligence in employment decisions, moving beyond bias in recruiting to issues of layoffs and rehires. Cases against IBM and Meta allege that AI systems perpetuate discrimination by unfairly penalizing older workers or those with disabilities and protected leave. These legal battles could set precedents for how AI-driven HR technologies are regulated in the future. The core question is whether employers can avoid liability if AI influences decisions, even if the criteria appear neutral. The outcomes may lead to greater transparency in how algorithms are used in workforce management.

https://www.staffingindustry.com/editorial/staffing-industry-review/new-lawsuits-test-ai-s-role-in-layoffs-and-rehiring

All we're doing is guessing and people are getting more and more stressed. True leadership would tell employees what's going on if nothing else to stop rumors from escalating and creating panic. Sadly, who we have in top management are as far away from true leadership as they can be.