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LInda Chapman retires as Florence Finance Director after 21 years, looks forward to 'nexts' – NKyTribune

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LInda Chapman retires as Florence Finance Director after 21 years, looks forward to 'nexts' – NKyTribune

By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter

Linda Chapman is about to close a chapter on her life as Finance Director in the city of Florence, a position she has held for the last 21 years.

She finished her last week, and though she is a little sad about leaving, a part of her is looking forward to the freedom that comes with not having to report to work at a certain time of the morning.

“This is the first time in years that I haven’t had to plan anything,” she said, looking over her desk full of papers, and computers with three screens. “From January to August things are really busy with taxes and the budget, then we have the property taxes in October, so I always took my vacation in November or December. I felt like this was the best time to retire, too.”

Chapman is from the west side of Cincinnati and she said the roots are strong there — “you never leave the west side.”

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Linda Chapman is finished with the city’s paperwork — she has retired after 21 years a Finance Director.

She attended McCauley high school and the University of Cincinnati and then became an accountant.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do until my senior year in high school,” she said. “I always thought I would go into a dental or nursing field and I took classes that would help with those fields, but there were things I didn’t like about those fields. So I decided to go with numbers.”

She eventually found her way to Rankin and Rankin, where she worked for ten years, doing audits for different cities in the Northern Kentucky area.

It was while she was doing the June 30, 2002 audit for the city of Florence that she discovered a problem on the books.

“Things just didn’t add up,” she explained. “The numbers weren’t right.”

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Ron Epling had been the Finance Director for ten years at Florence, and Chapman knew him, so she worked the numbers over and over before she turned the evidence over to her boss at Rankin and Rankin, and the police brought charges against Epling for embezzling $4.9 million from the city.

Linda Chapman was hired as Finance Director in March of 2003.

“The embezzlement meant I started with a big mess,” she said. “The city was able to recover everything. It was bad, but it was up to me to come up with programs to install so that it never happened again. I put several safeguards in, and had to change all the systems over. It took about two years. So even though it was a big mess, it was a challenge for me, and I really like challenges.”

She said that the embezzlement was definitely the worst thing she had to deal with, but the result was the greatest satisfaction of her job, because she met the challenge and she fixed it. Governmental accounting is a special niche, she commented. Chapman said the people who work with her are very great to work with, the five ladies who work up front and her right hand man, Jason Cobb.

Through the years, she said she has had ups and downs, but her attitude is equanimical— most things ‘are what they are’ and she handles them with ease. Her philosophy is ‘one day at a time’, and she said she would come into work each day with the expectation of something good happening, something different, to make her smile.

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Without the job to come into, what does she want to do as the next step in her life?

“I have no clue,” Chapman said with a smile.

Her first idea is that she has yard work to do, as well as some gardening chores to take care of.

Gardening is one of her passions. Chapman has a large garden, the length of the side of her house, and garden boxes in the back of her house.

“I grow green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, cucumbers, and a lot more,” she said. “Gardening is my stress relief.”

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She is not a person who travels a lot. She likes to take her annual vacation to Pigeon Forge, an area she loves, but she has no sites she wants to see, like Mount Rushmore, or Hawaii.

“I don’t want to spend that much time in the air,” she explained about visiting Hawaii. “And I don’t want to go on a cruise. I can just picture me on a boat that becomes Titanic number two.”

Chapman has plans to go to Opryland for their Christmas extravaganza. Another passion she enjoys is Christmas.

“I am a big Christmas person,” she said, pointing to pictures of her decorated yard. “My yard isn’t that big, but I squeeze it all in.”

The lights and inflatables cover every available inch of yard, and she said it is such a glorious site people stop in front of the house to take it all in. It does take awhile to put it all up and take it all down, but she doesn’t mind.

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“Inside, I put up my tree at Halloween, and during the time while I hand out candy, I also decorate the tree,” she said, laughing. “I love my Christmas decorations!”

She also decorates her office, and her co-workers like to decorate, so that tradition will continue.

Chapman loves to do jigsaw puzzles, and she said her minimum puzzle is 1000 pieces. She showed pictures of her special setup for puzzles so she can concentrate on them and not lose any of the tiny pieces.

“I do a lot of puzzles, and one of the worst ones I have done was candy canes,” she pointed to a picture that showed a massive amount of striped candy canes. “Another one that was challenging was one with pictures of rolls of toilet paper. I finished it, though, even though it took about a month, and I had to get new lighting. I haven’t met a puzzle I haven’t finished yet.”

Chapman feels she has enough to keep her busy through the end of the year, but she understands that when January gets here, she might reach a point where she looks around and there is nothing to do.

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“I will still take it one day at a time, but I will be looking for different challenges, different things to fulfill me,” she said. “I have no doubt I will find things. I would like to get a better exercise regimen, to add to my walking.”

Chapman said her mom and dad live in the same area, and she has two brothers and a sister who live relatively close, so she knows she will be getting together with family a lot.

She always thought she might like to have a dog, but she hasn’t had one since she was a child, largely because she didn’t feel that she had the time that a dog requires, but she is now thinking about pet ownership.

“I figure I will take a breather, and then keep on keeping on, stay busy and keep my mind fresh,” she ventured. “I think it’s kind of exciting to see what’s going to develop out there. If something comes up, I can take advantage of being spontaneous. I am looking forward to it.”

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Finance

Car finance saga: Millions of motorists to find out how they will be compensated

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Car finance saga: Millions of motorists to find out how they will be compensated

Millions of motorists who were mis-sold a car loan will find out how they will be compensated, as the finance watchdog shares its final plans for an industry-wide scheme.

Final decisions on the long-awaited programme will be published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Monday afternoon.

The regulator set out draft plans last year but it is likely to make several changes after receiving more than 1,000 responses to its consultation.

Under the latest proposals, the scheme will cover car finance agreements taken out between April 6 2007 and November 1 2024.

The FCA estimated that around 14 million deals, or 44% of all those made since 2007, were unfair and therefore eligible for compensation.

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Consumers were estimated to be compensated an average of £700 per agreement, but it will be more or less depending on individual cases.

This was expected to come at a total cost of £11 billion to the industry, including the total payouts and the operational costs of running the scheme.

Craig Tebbutt, a financial health expert for Equifax UK, said: “It has previously been estimated that average compensation levels could be in the region of £700 per agreement but the final details around the scale, scope and timelines are expected to be confirmed on Monday.

“However, there is nothing to stop consumers checking their paperwork now and getting their details ready in the meantime.”

He said research by the credit reporting firm found that “many consumers don’t know how to check their eligibility and expect the process to be a hassle, with old or missing paperwork being a real barrier”.

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Equifax has launched a car finance checker within its new app that lets people see a list of their past agreements and copy the details, with motorists encouraged to send a complaint to their lender using a template on the FCA’s website if they think they’re eligible for a payout.

Lenders and car finance providers had been challenging the FCA’s proposals with some raising concerns that the expected amount of compensation is too high and does not accurately reflect what customers lost.

On the other side, some consumer groups and MPs have argued that many motorists will be short-changed under the current plans.

The FCA said millions of motorists could receive compensation in 2026 (Jacob King/PA) · Jacob King

The FCA has already announced some changes that it is making to the process since the proposals were unveiled last year.

This includes giving lenders more time to contact motor finance customers from when the scheme is officially launched.

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But it is also aiming to streamline the process by allowing those due redress to accept it immediately without waiting for a final determination.

It thinks that this means million of people would receive compensation in 2026.

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Abacus Global CEO on record 2025 growth – ICYMI

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Abacus Global CEO on record 2025 growth – ICYMI
Abacus Global CEO on record 2025 growth – ICYMI Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock

Abacus Global Management (NYSE:ABX) earlier this week reported record-setting financial and operational performance for 2025, highlighting strong momentum in the rapidly expanding life settlements market.

CEO Jay Jackson said the company delivered more than 100% year-over-year growth across key financial metrics, including EBITDA, adjusted net income, and gross results. He emphasized that beyond headline figures, the underlying operational activity demonstrated the strength of the platform.

Jackson noted that Abacus acquired more than 1,300 life insurance policies during the year and generated nearly $180 million in realized gains. The company also sold over 1,000 policies, underscoring the liquidity and scalability of its model. He added that more than $600 million in capital was deployed, enabling over 1,100 seniors to access value from previously illiquid assets.

“We’re helping clients find liquidity in assets they didn’t know had it — their life insurance policies,” Jackson said.

Jackson explained that life insurance policies are increasingly being recognized as a viable financial asset class.

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Looking ahead, Jackson pointed to a substantial growth runway, noting that the total addressable market is approximately $14 trillion, while Abacus has only penetrated a small fraction of that opportunity. He suggested that ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty is driving investor demand for uncorrelated assets, positioning life settlements as an attractive alternative.

As a key catalyst for future growth, the company recently completed a minority investment in Manning & Napier, a long-established wealth and asset management firm. Jackson said the partnership provides access to more than 3,400 retail clients, many of whom may not yet be aware of the liquidity potential within their life insurance holdings.

He indicated that this strategic relationship could enhance origination volumes and contribute to continued record performance into 2026.

“We’re one of the largest originators, and our record numbers are an indicator of what’s coming next,” he said.

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Finance

New Funding Models Needed As Global Health Faces Growing Financial Strain – Health Policy Watch

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New Funding Models Needed As Global Health Faces Growing Financial Strain – Health Policy Watch
Christoph Benn (left) and Patrick Silborn

Global health is facing a funding crisis. Aid is shrinking, debt is rising, and the needs are only increasing. According to Christoph Benn of the Joep Lange Institute and Patrik Silborn of UNICEF Afghanistan, health systems will need to fundamentally rethink how they finance and sustain care.

On a recent episode of the Global Health Matters podcast, host Gary Aslanyan was joined by these two experts, who said “innovative finance” has become central to discussions on sustaining health systems.

Benn said that while the term is widely used, few agree on what it actually means. He described it as a “spectrum” of approaches, ranging from philanthropic grants and conditional funding to private-sector investment models that expect financial returns.

“It has frustrated us deeply that so many people are talking about innovative finance, but very few actually know what they’re talking about,” Benn said.

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Silborn emphasised that these mechanisms should not be treated as one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, financing models must be designed around specific problems whether that means raising new funds, improving efficiency, or linking payments to measurable outcomes.

Drawing on his experience in Rwanda, Silborn described how a results-based funding model tied disbursements directly to performance, helping the country to maintain progress against major diseases despite reduced funding.

Both experts stressed that private-sector engagement requires a clear understanding of incentives.

“Private corporations are not charities,” Benn said. They can, however, contribute through marketing partnerships, technical expertise, or investment models that align financial returns with social outcomes.
Looking ahead, Benn pointed to targeted taxes and debt swaps as among the most scalable tools. Still, both warned that innovative finance is not a substitute for public responsibility.

“It only works when it is designed to solve real problems in specific contexts,” Benn said, underscoring that strong systems and governance remain essential to any lasting solution.

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Listen to the full episode >>

Read more about Global Health Matters podcasts on Health Policy Watch >>

Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast.

Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here.

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