The Brief

We've all been there: A store cashier asks if you'd like to donate money to the local food bank. Or the PIN pad at the checkout counter prompts you to round up your payment for charity — spare a little change for a worthy cause.

Those "round-up" campaigns have become ubiquitous in recent years — at grocery chains, gas stations, retail stores and online merchants — and they rake in millions of dollars annually for everything from scholarships to cancer research.

In 2022 alone, charities raised $749 million nationwide through so-called point-of-sale donations, a 24% jump from 2020, according to Engage for Good, which tracks this type of charitable giving. And that was just from campaigns that brought in $1 million or more. Although that figure was tiny compared to the nearly $500 billion in estimated charitable giving in 2022, total giving actually dropped that year.

But it's the round-up fundraising strategy, which was first introduced about 15 years ago, that has really taken off in recent years, according to Michelle McCarthy, executive director of Round It Up America.

"Especially since the pandemic, we've seen a big increase," says McCarthy, whose nonprofit provides legal and financial guidance for for-profit businesses that collect donations for charities.

Much of that growth is fueled by customer generosity, but those who study consumer behavior point to other factors, too, including how we think about money and even our unconscious feelings of guilt.

It makes sense (and dollars) to ask for less

Michael Rindos says he "almost always" taps the donate button on the credit/debit card reader, or PIN pad. But lately, that's been changing. "I don't do it as much as I used to," Rindos says, as he juggles an armful of groceries outside a Giant Food supermarket in Severna Park, Md., near Washington, D.C.

Rindos said he's noticed a sharp uptick in the number of requests popping up in places he shops, and it's become a bit tiresome. "Every place that you go to — Taco Bell, 7-Eleven. They're all doing it."

Data suggests that despite being bombarded by such requests, Rindos and others like him are giving more each year at cash registers, self-checkouts and online. And it has resulted in a huge boost for charities on the receiving end. Consider the Taco Bell Foundation, a nonprofit that operates independently from the fast food chain. It brought in $42 million last year on round-ups collected from the company's more than 7,500 restaurants across the U.S. The average donation: just 44 cents.

Previously, the foundation's fundraising strategy asked customers to donate $1 to a scholarship program in campaigns that lasted a few weeks or months. "For many years we did that," says Jennifer Bradbury, the foundation's executive director. "We had our scholarship program and we had our community grants program, which funds nonprofits like the Boys & Girls Clubs and Junior Achievement."

But in 2019, the foundation decided to try a different approach. Bradbury says it realized, somewhat counterintuitively, that less is more. "The data we had at that point was that customers were three times more likely to round up than to donate a dollar," she says.

The results after the switch were "mind-blowing" she says: The foundation roughly doubled what it had been raising, which averaged between $11 million and $14 million annually, but hit more than $20 million in 2019. The change was so successful, the foundation decided to permanently adopt the new strategy. "The number of regular customers who donate every time and round up every time — it's really inspiring," Bradbury says.

Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, which raises money for pediatric hospitals, partners with such retail giants as Costco and Walmart, as well as Ace Hardware, Panda Express, 7-Eleven and DQ. In 2022, the network, with the help of its partners, raised $138 million through 78 point-of-sale fundraising campaigns, including round-ups, it says. These campaigns made up a third of the CMNH's total fundraising for that year. An online survey conducted by the network in 2022 polled some 4,000 customers. It showed that of the 88% of respondents who reported being asked to donate at checkout in the previous year, more than half said yes at least once.

How you perceive "pain" may influence how much you donate

Why have round up for charity campaigns proven so successful? Katie Kelting, an associate professor of marketing at Saint Louis University, suggests that there's some powerful psychology at work.

In 2018, Kelting and her colleagues enlisted the St. Louis Zoo in a field study. Instead of asking food court patrons for the usual $1 donation for a wild animal conservation effort, the zoo temporarily tried the round-up approach. Fundraising jumped 21% during the experiment, which ran for a few weeks. Kelting calculated that over a one-year period, the zoo would have brought in about $8,000 more by simply changing the way customers were asked to donate.

As Kelting explains, a lot of it has to do with the "pain" of parting with our hard-earned cash. "The perceived pain is less in the consumer's mind when that round-up request is presented," compared to a solicitation for a specific dollar amount, she says.

There are likely other factors in play, says Ike Silver, an assistant professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Humans, for instance, appear to have a fairly strong preference for round numbers, or figures ending with a zero. A 2013 study looked at purchases at self-serve gas pumps and found that 56% of them ended on a round dollar figure — far exceeding mere chance. The same study noted that at restaurants, many people prefer to leave tips that bring the final bill to a round number.

"It's like an effort-reduction strategy whereby people are better at and intuitively prefer to deal with round numbers," Silver says. "That manifests in how much you want to pay and how much you want to buy."

Arguably more important is that point-of-sale charitable requests can transform an ordinary purchase into a moral quandary, he says. "It becomes an opportunity to signal to yourself and others that you care," Silver says. In the case of the round-up request, it becomes something of a moral test, he says. "It's such a low-cost ask that to say no starts to induce slight feelings of guilt."

Kelting, citing a body of research by others, says that customers might also change their behavior and perceptions in public versus private settings. In this case, the self-checkout is analogous to a private setting where it is easier to decline, but the same decision in front of a cashier — especially one who adds a verbal prompt for the donation — is something different. "When you're in the long checkout with the cashier, with everyone around you, that's more like this public setting," she says.

Round It Up America's McCarthy says the data supports this thinking. "Customers do appreciate being asked, so that prompt at the checkout does make a difference."

But Cait Lamberton, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, cautions that there's a potential downside to all of this. Customers, she says, may feel manipulated and could end up "feeling resentful toward the source of the manipulation" — the retailer doing the collecting.

Shoppers want to know where their money is going

Paula Nichols says she never taps "Yes" on the PIN pad when it prompts her to round up her bill. "Does that make me a bad person?" she laughs, as she loads groceries into the back of her SUV at the Giant Food supermarket in Maryland.

It's not that Nichols minds giving to charity. She says she supports a local nonprofit food bank and is friends with its president. "We do a lot with them."

But when it comes to giving in the checkout line, she's wary. "How do I know where that money is going? And the price of food? I just spent almost $200 on this," she says, nodding to the groceries in the trunk.

In 2022, a CVS customer filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical chain claiming that it wrongly used money collected through point-of-sale donations to honor a pledge to the American Diabetes Association. In a statement to NPR, the pharmaceutical giant says the suit was dismissed in September 2023, which "allowed CVS to complete its in-store National Diabetes Month Campaign, which collected more than $10 million in donations for the benefit of the American Diabetes Association."

Round It Up America says its agreements are designed to ensure that charities receive more than 90% of the money collected, and charities can spend no more than a quarter of donations on administrative costs. McCarthy says her organization receives up to 7% "to cover our legal and financial costs" and stores can take up to 2% to cover credit card transaction fees.

"Consumers deserve — and state attorneys general require — transparency and assurance that the donations go where they are advertised and intended," McCarthy says.

Save the Children is one organization that has made extensive use of point-of-sale campaigns, including requests to round up. "We can try to influence [the message] put on that PIN pad or what the store associate says," according to Dan Peirce, who is in charge of the nonprofit's corporate partnerships. "But ... operationally they have to make sure that it works for them. And so they do have the final say."

The ride-share company Lyft runs a campaign that helps customers take a more considered approach to giving. Riders can select from a list of charities on the company's app. Then each time they ride, their bill is automatically rounded up to the nearest dollar to benefit their charity of choice.

"If you go to your profile in the app, it'll say something like, 'You know, you've given X number of times' to kind of remind people that this is a good thing, even though ... it was 50 cents here, 20 cents there," says Jeremy Bird, the company's chief policy officer. "It's been a massive success for us."

How much is too much?

Despite the burgeoning success of point-of-sale fundraising, including round-up solicitations, there's the risk that customers could become overwhelmed with these pervasive campaigns. "I think you have to be very careful because so many people do find these annoying because they're not relevant to what they're doing at the moment," which is making a purchase, says Lamberton, the Wharton professor.

Kelting, too, says this could be a problem worth studying. "You might have donated yesterday [but] you forgot to buy milk." So, what happens, she wonders, if you go back the next day for that carton of milk. Are you less likely to round up your bill the second time?

Another potential downside? Quick point-of-sale donations might not do much to create any meaningful connection with charities, Lamberton says. Donating your virtual pocket change to a cause might elicit a sugar high for the ego — but one that quickly fades.

It's harder to stand outside a store, ringing a bell to ask for donations, "but what you are getting is a lot of exposure," she says. "So you're building familiarity."

In a face-to-face solicitation, she says, "people who do engage with you are probably very positively disposed towards the charity already."

The El Monte Union High School District agreed to sweeping reforms Friday in settling a state attorney general investigation into how it handled allegations staff sexually abused students.

The wide-ranging stipulated judgment with the school district draws to a close an 18-month investigation, which found “systemic shortfalls in the district’s response to allegations and complaints of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse of students.” The investigation was spurred by a 2023 article in Business Insider, The Predators’ Playground, which documented decades of sexual misconduct by teachers, coaches and other staff at one of the district’s schools, Rosemead High, ranging from sexual harassment and groping to statutory rape.

“Every child deserves to learn and grow in a safe and supportive school environment. Unfortunately, our investigation found that this has not always been the case for students enrolled in El Monte Union High School District,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said. District administrators, he added, “consistently mishandled students’ complaints of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse by District employees and others. In doing so, it jeopardized the safety and well-being of its students and violated the community’s trust. Today’s settlement marks a beginning, not an end. I am hopeful that the District will move swiftly to implement the reforms required by this settlement, and my office will be monitoring closely to ensure its compliance.”

In an emailed statement, El Monte Superintendent Edward Zuniga said that “student safety and well-being remain our highest priorities. This agreement reflects our continued commitment to strengthening systems that support safe, inclusive, and respectful learning environments.”

Reforms mandated after investigation

Among other changes, the stipulated judgment requires the district to designate a compliance coordinator to investigate complaints of sexual harassment or abuse and creates a centralized system to store documents related to investigations. It also requires the district to maintain a list of substitute teachers found to have violated the district’s employee policy on appropriate boundaries with students. The agreement requires the district to establish an advisory committee to study its compliance with the reforms and make additional recommendations, and to provide students and parents with training for how to recognize the signs of grooming — curriculum that Rosemead students have fought to have implemented for the past four years.

The agreement is a rare instance of state law enforcement taking an active role in a K-12 school district’s compliance with California education code and mandated reporting laws. The only other agreement like it was reached in 2024 with the Redlands Unified School District, following sexual abuse and misconduct allegations that cost the district more than $50 million in legal settlements. In El Monte’s case, announced Friday by Bonta at a press conference in Los Angeles, the judgment requires four years of court-supervised oversight, and includes sweeping reforms in how the district handles serious misconduct allegations.

In an interview with CalMatters, Bonta said that his office was focused on trying to establish best practices for school districts across the state in how to address sexual misconduct allegations when they surface. “I don’t think this will be the last case of this type, unfortunately,” Bonta said, adding that his staff would conduct unannounced site visits of the district in the months ahead to ensure compliance with the settlement. “We think we’ve arrived at a model that can really help districts that have failed systemically, transform.”

Attorneys in the justice department’s Bureau of Children's Justice conducted the investigation, which focused on the district’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against school staff since 2018. It included a review of more than 100 complaints, thousands of pages of documents, and interviews with more than two dozen employees, former students and others. The investigation found that district officials had failed to properly respond to complaints, provide adequate reporting procedures and adequately maintain records of misconduct allegations.

The findings mirror those first identified by Business Insider, which sued the school district for not releasing records under the California Public Records Act. That case settled out of court, with district administrators agreeing to conduct new searches for records and pay $125,000 in legal fees. The district's head of human resources, Robin Torres, said in a deposition that her office had discarded disciplinary records it was legally obligated to keep. She acknowledged that her predecessors had failed to properly investigate allegations that staff had sexually harassed students or had sex with former students soon after they graduated.

Years of sex abuse allegations

The stipulated judgment is the latest fallout from generations of Rosemead High students coming forward to share their stories of being preyed upon and groomed for sexual relationships at school. The LA Sheriff’s Department opened criminal probes into at least three former staffers, while students walked out of class in protest and several teachers resigned following district investigations. At least five civil lawsuits have been filed on behalf of former students. Many were represented by attorneys Dominique Boubion and Michael Carrillo, who previously brought a case against the district that resulted in a $5 million verdict in favor of a former student who said she was abused by a teacher the district allowed to continue teaching after he was accused of fondling children.

“The attorney general’s intervention confirms what survivors have been saying for years: EMUHSD failed its students,” Boubion told CalMatters. “This was not an isolated breakdown. It was a longstanding failure to protect children, and it stretches back decades. The district should stop resisting and start complying. Students have the right to be safe at school.”

A new state law, the Safe Learning Environments Act, took effect earlier this year and gives school officials more tools to identify suspected misconduct. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat from Alhambra whose district includes Rosemead High, authored the law.

Among other reforms, the law establishes the creation of a non-public database of alleged staff misconduct that administrators are required to consult before hiring new employees. Similar databases already exist in other states as part of a growing nationwide effort to prohibit instances of “pass the trash,” where educators accused of sexual misconduct leave a school district only to return to the classroom elsewhere. This happened numerous times in the El Monte district.

Matt Drange is a journalist with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Projectand an alumnus of Rosemead High School. He can be reached at matt.drange@occrp.org.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

You know that moment.

You tell your child it’s time for bed or they can’t have that candy, and they suddenly start crying, maybe even throwing themselves on the floor.

That’s called dysregulation, which parents may know all too well as tantrums and meltdowns, such as crying, kicking, screaming or shutting down. But it can also show up in other ways.

Sometimes it looks like avoiding eye contact or interaction, high energy and trouble focusing.

"Dysregulation can be thought of as a mismatch between the child's energy level and the energy level that is required to participate in the activity that they need to do, or to exist in the environment that they need to exist in that moment,” said Kira Bender, a pediatric occupational therapist at the Center for Connection and founder of Here We Grow, an occupational therapy and disability consultative service.

It’s hard — and often ineffective — to reason with young children when they’re like this. They're not in a state to learn new skills because they can’t access the logical part of their brain, which helps them think.

When LAist asked readers of our early childhood newsletter and HeyBB text group what resources they wished they had more of, many parents said they wanted to know how to help their children (and themselves) get through these big feelings. We talked to child development experts to get their tips.

How to support your child during dysregulation

Regulate yourself first

It’s OK to take a deep breath and pause if needed to regulate your own feelings.

Make sure your heart rate and breathing are steady, and that you're able to calmly speak to your child.

These moments matter because children’s mirror neurons — brain cells that activate when we observe others’ actions and perform them ourselves — are engaged, helping explain why children may mimic their parents' behaviors, according to Meryl Opsal, founder of Romp and Rollick, which offers process art and sensory classes along with consulting services for families, schools, and businesses.

Being calm yourself will help them to do the same.

Bender said reframing the situation is a powerful tool when you need to keep your cool: “My child is not giving me a hard time. My child is having a hard time.”

Connection during dysregulation

Once you’re in a steady state, meet your child where they are, especially by using your body, breath, and energy to stay connected with your child and help them calm down.

You might go down to their level, speak in a calm voice or acknowledge what they’re feeling — “I see you’re really upset.”

This is known as co-regulation — one of the most important ways to help your young child learn to self-regulate, which is when one is able to appropriately manage one's emotions and behaviors.

There’s a misconception that this approach is coddling or preventing a child from self-soothing on their own. However, research suggests that co-regulation is actually a crucial part of regulation, said occupational therapist Kira Bender, referencing Mona Delahooke's book, Brain-Body Parenting.

Bender also said punishment is not an effective strategy for helping young children emotionally regulate, pointing to research discussed in the books The Explosive Child and Beyond Behaviors by Ross Greene. Instead, co-regulation involves validating how your child feels.

Support will look different for each child. Some children like hugs while others need space. Observe what works for your child and provide what they need to feel better.

While it’s important to let children feel their emotions, staying stuck in that state can feel overwhelming.

Once they start calming down, it’s okay to redirect them — using play is a helpful tool to help them move forward. Make sure it’s an activity they connect with.

Timing is very important here.

“Engaging them in the next thing can be really helpful in order to help their brain shift from this state of dysregulation to this state of attention,” said Bender.

Build emotional awareness

Parents can also help their children by teaching them emotional awareness. For toddlers and preschoolers, helping them tune into their bodies is especially helpful.

This can help them understand what they’re feeling and communicate what they need to do to become more regulated.

You can ask them what they’re physically feeling in their body. For example: Is their heart beating fast? Do their hands feel clammy? Does their face feel hot?

Then teach them what they can do to help themselves. Parents can also model these skills for their children.

For example: “I'm noticing that I'm really having trouble focusing and keeping my patience right now. I think I need to check in with my body. I think I need to get a snack.”

Incorporate these skills daily so that when dysregulation happens, children will have the tools to soothe strong emotions.

According to Bender, this is often the first step in teaching them how to identify and express their emotions.

This doesn’t need to be a big discussion, especially since younger children have limited understanding of concepts and short attention spans.

Focus on senses

Children are attuned to their senses as early as the womb.

As a parent, understanding your child’s sensory system can help support your child’s emotional regulation, especially to promote a sense of safety and relaxation.

Traditionally, people know of the five human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste.

When your child’s upset, giving them their favorite stuffed animal (touch) or putting on music they like (hearing) can be helpful.

There are also three lesser-known senses, including interoception (internal body signals like hunger, thirst, pain or emotions), vestibular system (balance, movement and spatial orientation) and proprioception (body position and movement).

Children can utilize proprioception through activities like climbing and jumping or being tucked under their parent’s arm while reading their favorite book, using a weighted blanket, or receiving a deep hug.

Helping your child engage with these hidden senses can be a grounding experience.

Activities to do at home

Play is important, especially through open-ended activities, which help children process their emotions. You can incorporate these activities when you see your children on the verge of being dysregulated, but it can also serve as redirection after they’ve calmed down.

Provide a calm sensory space

It’s helpful to have a space at home where your child feels safe, cozy, calm, and relaxed, whether it’s their bedroom, a playroom or your living room — as long as they have a space they can retreat to when they need some support.

Think about a child’s senses: what can they touch, see, hear and more. That could be a stuffed animal, a weighted blanket, their favorite books or audiobooks and music.

“One of the most underrated sensory tools, in my opinion, for many young children is a tent,” said occupational therapist Kira Bender. “They love the feeling that this is a space all for themselves. So that is a very easy place to start.”

Use bubbles and balloons

Bubbles and balloons are effective tools for redirecting a child's focus after intense emotions, said Olivia Martinez-Hauge, occupational therapist and co-owner of Sensory Space Design, which helps create spaces specifically designed for families' needs.

Plus, they help bring attention back to their breath, since during dysregulation they often feel detached from their bodies and minds.

Make it a game by asking them to take a deep breath and blow bubbles in different ways — one at a time or a bunch all at once. Get creative!

The same idea works with balloons: take a deep breath in, then blow up the balloon. Kids can have fun playing hot potato with it, trying to keep it from falling, or letting it fly around after inflating it.

Incorporate sensory play

Toys or items that stimulate the senses are great tools to help calm your child’s nervous system.

“It's like a little lab that creates a safe space where we can get over these small frustrations and regulations and co-regulate together,” said Opsal of Romp and Rollick. There are simple ways to incorporate sensory play:

• Bath time: Opsal said water is a “magic power” because of its soothing effect, from the wave-like movement to the sound of a bath. You can also add bubbles, water toys and color.
• Mealtime: Let infants eat by themselves with their hands.
• Sensory bins: Lay a king-sized bedsheet on the floor, ideally outside, grabbing any container like a big bowl or box, then filling it with a “taste-safe, but not delicious” food source like rice and a small cup. (She strongly warns against dried beans—they’re a possible choking hazard.)

The best part: there are no instructions.

It’s OK if they get messy or play with rice in unconventional ways.

Let your child put it in their shirt, pour it over parts of their body, or make snow angels out of it. That’s part of the fun!

While younger children often have shorter attention spans, Opsal says that’s not true in her sensory bin classes.

“It's because that rhythmic nature just calms the nervous system and helps them lock in,” said Opsal. “Ah, it's amazing to watch.”

Try preventative play through mirroring

Georgie Wisen-Vincent, a nationally recognized play therapy expert and the director of the Play Strong Institute, said playing with your child using mirroring techniques creates a calm, connected experience — one that you can return to when your child is dysregulated.

Basically, that means you reflect back what your child is feeling during play, whether through facial expressions, body language, or tone.

For example, if your child is playing with toys and there’s a battle between superheroes and villains, joining in shows them you understand what they’re feeling.

When you play along — following their lead and reflecting their emotions — you’re building trust, Wisen-Vincent said.

So, when a meltdown happens, they know you’re there to support them, just like you are when you’re playing together.

Think of it as "preventative play.”

Here’s one way parents can think about their role here: “I'm there to be the superhero of their emotional experience right now,” said Wisen-Vincent. “We can weather this together.”

Use music and movement

Music is a wonderful way to connect with the wide range of emotions we all feel.

Whether through singing or dancing, it helps us connect to our bodies and breath — tools that can assist us in self-regulation.

Veronika Luu, a music speech educator at PLAY, an art school serving young children, says that singing together or having small dance parties at home are simple ways to include music in your family's daily life.

Do it together! It encourages playfulness.

Helpful Resources

Here are a few books, guides and organizations recommended by the experts interviewed in this piece that can give some additional tips.

• Beyond Behaviors, by Mona Delahooke 
• The Way of Play, by Georgie Wisen-Vincent and Tina Payne Bryson 
• The Whole-Brain Child, by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson 
• No Bad Kids, by Janet Lansbury 
• Play Strong Institute: Resources on play-based therapy.  
• Association for Play Therapy: Provides a directory to help families find a play therapist.  
• Autism Level Up: A space created for the neurodivergent community by the community. It has resources, supportive discussion spaces, meetups and more! 
• Sensory Space Design: Occupational therapists help create spaces specifically designed to meet families' needs, including those of families with autism and ADHD. 
• Romp and Rollick: Offers process art and sensory classes along with consulting services for families, schools, and businesses 
• Here We Grow: An occupational therapy and disability consultative service. 
• Center for Connection: Has an array of therapy services, including psychotherapy, assessments, educational therapy, play therapy, occupational therapy, and speech & language therapy. 

L.A. County CEO Fesia Davenport, who has been on medical leave for the last five months, has announced she’ll be stepping down in mid-April, citing health concerns. While on leave, she has faced scrutiny from the public and county employees — as well as a lawsuit — over a secretive $2 million payout she received last August.

Davenport gave notice on Wednesday to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors — her bosses — that she plans to step down effective April 16, according to a spokesperson for her office.

Davenport remains on medical leave and her second-in-command, Joseph Nicchitta, continues to serve as acting CEO, according to a statement from the CEO’s office.

“We appreciate Fesia's nearly three decades of service to Los Angeles County and all that she has accomplished on behalf of its residents and communities,” the statement added.

Davenport said in a LinkedIn post she was stepping down “to focus on my health and wellness.” She also emailed CEO office staff to say she’s learned she has a predisposition for the same type of health problem that killed her brother Raymond in 2018 and that two of her sisters experienced last year. One of her sisters will require 24-hour care for the rest of her life, Davenport wrote.

“The County CEO role requires an extraordinary amount of time and energy to meet the demands of the job, and although I originally assumed that I would be able to return in early 2026, I now know that I would be unable to continue to do the job as it deserves to be done while also prioritizing my health,” she added.

The $2 million taxpayer payout from the county was in response to her claiming she was harmed by a voter-approved measure that will change her job almost two years after her employment contract expires. The settlement was marked “confidential” and not made public until it was brought to light by LAist.

A lawsuit filed last month claims the payout is illegal because Davenport did not have a valid legal dispute with the county. Under the state Constitution, local government settlement payouts are illegal gifts of public funds if they’re in response to allegations that completely lack legal merit or exceed the agency’s “maximum exposure,” according to court rulings.

On Tuesday, county supervisors ordered new transparency measures in response to LAist revealing the secretive payout to Davenport. The county will now create a public dashboard of settlements between the county and its executives, and make sure all such settlements are reported to the public on meeting agendas after they’re finalized.

In her message to staff, Davenport said she was proud of their work together. She pointed to balancing the county’s budget, developing a plan to compensate victims in the largest sexual assault settlement in U.S. history and protecting the county's credit rating when other agencies were being downgraded.