Public health spending focuses on children, mentally ill

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Minnesota’s greatest health challenges fall into two categories: children living in poverty and gaps in care for people with mental illness, according to Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson.For the past two days, Jesson and division directors laid out Gov. Mark Dayton’s health care proposals to the House Health and Human Services Finance Committee, which took no action.The governor’s overall proposed $35.5 billion budget for the Department of Human Services includes $12.8 billion from the General Fund, about $176.5 million more than the projected base funding for the 2016-2017 biennium. The remaining department operating funds come from the Health Care Access Fund, federal matches, lottery revenues, special revenue fund and fees for services.Not all of the initiatives would require changes in law, but many do.Caring for the childrenA disproportionate number of babies born to mothers addicted to opioids occur in tribal communities. Department officials are calling for early, in-utero intervention, which may result in public fund savings because it’s more expensive to treat the babies in the neonatal intensive care unit after birth. The grant program would enable clinics to target pregnant at-risk women and direct them into services for substance abuse and public health services.To improve access to quality child care, regulations for assistance would be simplified and the Basic Sliding Fee program for child care would be expanded to reduce the number of families on waiting lists. The sliding fee is capped and some counties have long waiting periods for families that qualify. Continue Reading

Lawmakers listen as educators share ‘achievement gap’ success stories

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As Minnesota leaders in K-12 education continue to work toward their shared goal of narrowing the achievement gap, the House Education Finance Committee is looking to the educators themselves for examples of progress.On Tuesday, principals and superintendents from public and charter schools and school districts that have reported improvements in that arena shared their success stories.The purpose of the hearing, said committee chair Rep. Jenifer Loon (R-Eden Prairie), was to allow the committee to glean from educators successful tools and strategies they have used that have proven effective in closing the gap between students of color and white students with respect to their scores on Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) exams.One of those schools is Global Academy in Columbia Heights.The public charter school with an enrollment of 430 kindergarten through eighth graders — 75 percent of whom are students of color — has been designated by the Department of Education as a “Reward School,” a status that recognizes the top 15 percent of Title 1 schools that have demonstrated exceptional student outcomes in helping to close the achievement gap.“‘How do we do this?’ People ask us that a lot,” said Helen Fisk, director. “Sometimes we are pretty stumped ourselves. But I think the answer is really pretty simple: it never occurred to us that our students wouldn’t be anything other than very successful.”Fisk pointed to the school’s International Baccalaureate learning program, ability to control quality of teaching staff based on at-will employment model and its one-to-one student-iPad ratio as a few of the reasons for its high MCA scores across the board in math, reading and science.About 68 percent math of its black students in grades three through eight were measured to be proficient in math, Fisk said. About 63 percent measured proficient in reading and 62 percent in science.In the most recent round of MCA results released by the Department of Education last fall, the gap between white and black students continues to persist on a statewide level. In reading, 33 percent of black students in grades three through eight were achieved proficient for their grade level, compared to 67 percent of white students. Continue Reading

HRC: Minnesota is ‘solidifying’ equality but lags on important issues

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The Human Rights Campaign recently launched a new index rating the states on LGBT equality, and while Minnesota ranks well above many other states, the report notes some glaring inequities particularly on youth and transgender issues.According to the State Equality Index, Minnesota is rated as “solidifying equality” along with neighboring Iowa. The report notes that:“States in this category have marriage equality and nondiscrimination protections, though some lack explicit gender identity protections. They have relatively robust anti-bullying laws, but bad laws begin to crop up in this category.”Liberal bastions such as Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York are also in the category. But Minnesota is behind states rated as “innovating equality.” Those states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.Minnesota’s deficiencies range from a lack of equitable health care for transgender Minnesotans to a lack of solid protections in parenting laws.Relationship recognitionIn the relationship recognition category, though the state has marriage equality, Minnesota lacks an alternative to marriage. “Other states continue to allow both options for relationship recognition,” the report notes.Parenting lawsMinnesota’s parenting laws are also not as strong as other states. Continue Reading

City increases transparency with open data portal

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Last month, the City of Minneapolis launched its open data portal, a website that provides online access to municipally collected information.People who visit the site (opendate.minneapolismn.gov) can see fire and police incidents, 311 calls and crime statistics. Data also show property rental locations and open liquor licenses. Air quality, digital inclusion and neighborhood revitalization are additional areas covered on the site.Rollout of the website is the result of an August vote in which the City Council made Minneapolis the 16th city in the U.S. to pass an open data policy. The intention: Make city information easily accessible for residents to increase transparency and improve quality of life.Before the portal, residents and other people who wanted city data were required to complete a Freedom of Information Act request. Now with constant access to data, people can learn more about where they live by just going online.While an innovation for Minneapolis, the open data portal provides information on only a fraction of the City’s functions and services. Continue Reading

BEHIND THE STORY | Paying for public servants

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I thought law enforcement officials were supposed to be public servants. Like teachers, police and other law enforcement serve the citizens of a local area and are paid by taxpayer dollars. The latest threat to ten organizers of the December Black Lives Matter protest at the Mall of America, however, purports a different view. By charging these organizers with the cost of riot police and extra security ordered by the Mall of America, Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson shifts our relationship with the police to extreme anarchist libertarianism, where citizens are individually charged for the “use” of these public servants, even when they didn’t request them.Imagine if parents were sent a bill any time their child had to stay after school for detention, or needed extra attention from their teacher. The idea is absurd, of course. Continue Reading

Help sought to tackle rising tuition, student debt

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A 15-year trend of rising tuition for students attending public and private colleges throughout Minnesota has captured the attention of the House Higher Education Policy and Finance Committee.Three themes emerged in committee discussions Tuesday and Wednesday: tuition continues to rise, enrollment has leveled off in recent years and student debt is at an all-time high. That news has many key players in post-secondary education wanting to take a closer look at how and why.On Tuesday, University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler pitched to legislators the university’s $65.2 million request for state funding to cover a tuition freeze for its students over the next two years. Without a tuition freeze, university administrators predict costs will rise between $2,100 and $2,600 over four years for undergraduate students. Kaler said the freeze on tuition would “enable the core middle-class families to more easily access the university.”Last week, Senate DFL leaders unveiled SF2 that would have the state pay education costs of students who graduate from a Minnesota high school and attend two-year vocational or community colleges governed by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. No similar legislation has yet been introduced in the Republican-controlled House.Committee members have yet discuss the university’s request or the provisions outlined in SF2. Continue Reading