The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency on Thursday launched a new website aimed at preventing human trafficking and better supporting victims by bringing together resources for first responders, social service providers and members of the public.

The announcement came during Human Trafficking Prevention Month at a roundtable discussion in Philadelphia that included state and local officials, advocates, social service providers and survivors.

The new website, developed with Villanova University’s Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation, provides trauma-informed training materials, guidance on recognizing warning signs of trafficking and information on how to report suspected cases.

“The fight against trafficking begins with coordination and working together to raise awareness of the warning signs, making sure people know where and how to report, strengthening support for survivors, and holding perpetrators accountable,” Kathy Buckley, director of PCCD’s Office of Victims’ Services, said in a press release.

Human trafficking is the crime of using force, fraud or coercion to induce another person to perform labor or sex acts.

According to the Philadelphia Anti-Trafficking Coalition, the number of identified trafficking survivors in the region increased by 23% in 2025 compared to the previous year. The organization cites housing, food assistance, medical care and counseling among the most common needs for survivors

“That’s the goal of our new website and the purpose of this conversation today, shining a light on organizations leading this work and ensuring that all across Pennsylvania, every individual knows there are people and resources dedicated to combating all forms of exploitation,” Buckley said.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 26 states have enacted legislation creating human-trafficking task forces, study groups or similar coordination efforts. Eight of those states — Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri and Rhode Island apply to sex trafficking only, while the others target both labor and sex trafficking.

In 2019, researchers in the Biotechnology and Human Systems studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a Human Trafficking Technology Roadmap aimed at helping federal, state and local agencies to better identify, investigate and prosecute trafficking cases. The report’s recommendations include building tools that automatically analyze large amounts of data, establishing centralized collections of evidence templates and trafficking “signatures,” and developing shared computing systems for law enforcement and courts.

Pennsylvania’s new website builds on efforts by the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro, who announced his reelection bid Thursday, to combat human trafficking. Those include spending $14 million over the past two budget cycles on the Victims Compensation Assistance Program and moving the state’s Anti-Human Trafficking Workgroup under PCCD’s leadership. That group now focuses on training, law enforcement coordination, victim services and public awareness.

Union leaders for Rhode Island state employees are publicly airing frustrations with the state’s new payroll system following weeks of complaints, claiming many state workers have had problems receiving their full pay.

Rhode Island Council 94, the largest state workers’ union with more than 4,500 members, and the union representing correctional officers issued press releases Thursday calling on the state to fix the system that rolled out in early December.

The new system is operated by Workday, a company that provides services to more than 10,000 companies and organizations, including other states.

“Simply put, Workday is not working,” Council 94 President Michael McDonald wrote in a statement.

The unions claim problems for state employees include missing pay, partial pay, missing overtime pay, incorrect or no holiday pay, and benefits deductions not sent to accounts.

Council 94 says the state has worked on some solutions, but complaints and calls to a hotline mount.

“The state, in meeting after meeting, urges patience. Our members mortgage payments, grocery bills, childcare, fuel costs and other expenses do not pause for payroll processing errors. The payroll errors have touched every state agency,” Council 94 State Vice President John Monse stated.

The unions say they’ve brought the complaints to state officials, including Gov. Dan McKee.

“While some prior errors were corrected, the continued recurrence demonstrates a systemic payroll breakdown, not isolated mistakes,” the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers wrote in its statement.

NBC 10 News messaged the governor’s office and the Department of Administration before noon Thursday.

The governor’s office later referred comment to Administration, which has not responded to NBC 10’s messages.

The unions are calling for legislative oversight hearings into the matter and are considering legal action.

MONTPELIER — In his annual address to Vermont legislators Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Phil Scott urged members of the House and Senate to move forward with the next stages of the sweeping education reform project they started last year, at his administration’s urging.

But as the 2026 legislative session got underway this week, it has seemed far from certain that the process of creating new school districts and developing a new funding model — with the goals of improving educational quality and making the system less expensive overall — will advance at the pace, or in the form, that the governor and his Republican allies want.

That’s in part because the school redistricting task force set up in last year’s education reform law, Act 73, did not recommend new proposed district maps in November ahead of the session — essentially flouting one of the law’s key directives. Any new maps would likely include far fewer school districts, with larger student populations in each, than what exists today.

Speaking to a joint assembly of legislators and other officials for his State of the State address in the House chamber, Scott called education reform “our most critical challenge.”

He pointed to how Vermonters could see a nearly 12% average property tax hike this year, about half of which is due to anticipated increases in school district spending in the 2026-2027 school year, according to estimates late last year from the Vermont Tax Department.

“These are the real costs of maintaining a system designed for a Vermont that no longer exists,” the governor said. “If there’s one thing you take away from this speech today, it’s this — education transformation is not optional. It’s essential.”

In fact, there was not much else legislators could take away from the speech, as Scott’s 35-minute address focused almost entirely on that topic. Scott also took the notable step of using his speech to issue an ultimatum: If lawmakers did not make the changes to the state’s education system that he wants to see, he would not sign other key pieces of legislation they pass, such as the annual state budget or the bill that sets property tax rates, known as the yield bill.

“From my perspective, the recent failure to produce maps was a political strategy to preserve the old system,” the governor said. “Following through is about keeping our word to students, teachers and taxpayers who all deserve better.”

Scott’s ultimatum drew criticism from the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate in remarks to reporters shortly after. House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said she did not think the veto threat was productive and, in fact, could make it harder to persuade her colleagues in the chamber to move forward with the plan the governor has laid out.

“It’s disappointing to hear,” she said. “I am 100% at the table to figure this out with the House, with the Senate and with the governor — and I think we all are coming to a place of having to reset and figure out what we do to keep education transformation going. And — what does that look like in a map?”

She added, “I think there’s concern and fear about what might happen” among House members, “but I truly believe that every member in my chamber wants to do something. It’s just how we get there — and that’s going to be the tough work ahead of us this session.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, said he “would have probably preferred no threat, but a private communication of how serious (Scott) is.” Baruth called Scott’s speech “the most narrowly focused State of the State I’ve ever seen” in his 15 years in the Senate, though he understood why the governor would make that decision.

Asked about his own appetite for advancing the stipulations of Act 73, Baruth bristled slightly at a reporter’s suggestion he was “bullish” on the law.

“I would say I’m committed to it,” he said.

In a statement issued shortly after the address, the minority leaders of the House and Senate, for their part, praised the governor’s speech. Scott “correctly identified education reform as our most urgent challenge,” said Rep. Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney, and Sen. Scott Beck, R-Caledonia.

Scott also used his speech Wednesday to foreshadow — briefly — what he called the “hard choices” his administration, together with House and Senate budget writers, will have to make in the coming months when developing the state’s spending plan for the 2027 fiscal year. That time period runs from July 2026 to June 2027.

House and Senate leaders have already said they expect some existing programs will need to be cut as support from the federal government — especially for key human services programs such as nutritional benefits, Medicaid and assistance for home heating costs — wavers.

“This year’s spending package has required difficult decisions,” Scott said of his administration’s budget proposal, which he will present in another address later this month. From there, the House and Senate will develop a budget bill, which they’ll ultimately send back to Scott for his sign-off.

The governor said Wednesday that in national politics, “conflict is chosen over cooperation, division over decency and outrage over outcomes. People lose trust.”

He said he sees advancing the education reform plan he supports, and that legislators started last year in Act 73, as a way to set an example of how people’s “government still works for them.” Democratic leaders’ willingness to evolve the public education system in 2025 along the lines Scott proposed was, in part, a political response to voters’ outrage in 2024 over property tax increases. That spike led Democrats to lose a historic number of state House and Senate seats.

“We don’t need to be asked to do the right thing,” Scott said. “We just need to do it.”

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