By Rich Larson, News Director
Senator Rich Draheim yesterday expressed his frustration with the pace of progress at the State Capitol during the current special legislative session to iron out the next state budget. Draheim said he sits on four conference committees, only one of which was able to come to an agreement before the end of the regular session. He said he did not feel a sense of urgency among many of his colleagues to get things done during the regular session, which to him was disappointing.
And he said, he and his Senate colleagues are waiting for bills to be passed by the House of Representatives so that the Senate can pass them as well. The major sticking points, he said are two matters. The DFL is looking for more police reform. Draheim said the position his party has taken on the matter is that police reform action was taken last year in the wake of the death of George Floyd. WIth the pandemic having slowed things down, most of the GOP believes that not enough time has passed for the initial reforms to have taken hold, and the legislature should take a more wait-and-see approach before taking more action.
Legislative Republicans are calling on Governor Tim Walz to end the Covid Emergency and give up his emergency powers, which is the other major sticking point. The DFL is answering the call by pointing out that as long as the emergency is in place, the state is able to collect millions of dollars to fund the SNAP program for food stability. Draheim said he does not see the need.
“I think it’s about $32 million a month in food programs. If we have this, what I would call a fake state of emergency, we do qualify for some extra money, which if we need it then we should take it. I would argue we don’t need it and we’re just taking money from ourselves; our taxpayers.”
The special session will continue until all the budget differences have been ironed out. The current budget ends on June 30th. If a new budget is not in place by then, the state will shut down on July 1st.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Senator Rich Draheim can be heard here
Malecha sees strong need for more mental health programming
When the Rice County Board of Commissioners voted in favor of building a new jail and Law Enforcement Center last month, they did so on a split 3-2 vote. Commissioner Galen Malecha, who was the strongest dissenting voice throughout the debate, said he had several reasons for opposing the project.
Malecha said the concept of incarceration is changing. He is seeing judicial and jail reform happening, and he believes that governments have learned more about home monitoring and electronic confinement through the pandemic. He pointed out that Dakota County had a plan to remodel its jail, but those plans are on hold while they study new ideas.
He also said the proposed Joint Powers Agreement with Steele County would have cost the county less than 20% of what the county will spend on the new facility, and most importantly, he said, that money could have been spent on programming for those with behavioral and mental health issues, which have come to the forefront more and more over the past several years.
Malecha said people with mental health issues should not be in jail.
“A jail cell, or an emergency room, is not a place for someone who has mental health issues. Maybe to begin with, but then they need to be sent somewhere where their issues can be taken care of. Minnesota doesn’t have enough mental health beds, and if you don’t address it, we’re going to have bigger issues down the road.”
Malecha said the State of Minnesota needs to do more to help cities and counties with mental health issues. More money needs to be allocated. More beds need to be created. He credited Rice County Sheriff Troy Dunn and State Representative Todd Lippert as great advocates for mental health issues at the local and state levels and said more mental health programming will be addressed at the county level as plans for the new jail progress. But, he said, he is frustrated that more help is not coming from St. Paul.
The important thing is to put programs in place, he said, so people can receive the help they need before they end up in jail.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Rice County Commissioner Galen Malecha can be heard here
District projects come in under budget
As the 2020-2021 fiscal year comes to a close for the Northfield School district, the district has issued the final reports on the various construction
projects that were approved via referendum in 2018.
Voters approved $40.975 million in bonding to construct the new Greenvale Park Elementary School, convert what was the Longfellow school into new District Offices and the Area Learning Center, convert the former Greenvale Park Elementary school to the Northfield Community Education Center and make improvements at other buildings throughout the district.
Northfield Schools Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann said due to the high bond rating that the school has earned, which he said is one of the highest in the state, the district was able to spend $2 million less than the taxpayers had authorized for the projects.
Hillmann said some of the projects had enhancements that had not been foreseen when the referendum was put to the voters. He said extras like installing all new windows at the District Offices will help to extend the lives of all the buildings that had work done. The district was able to use some internal funding from their general fund, their long-term facilities maintenance fund and some of the Covid relief funds they received to cover some of the costs. In the end he said, the district worked hard to get as much value as they could from the money approved by the taxpayers.
“The bottom line is our taxpayers got a beautiful new elementary school building, they got renovations at four other sites, and what we bonded for – and thus what the taxpayers paid for on that bond – was less than what we had originally told them. So, we think our community got a great product, and we did it for less bond impact than what we had told the voters.”
Hillmann said there will be smaller renovation projects happening over the summer, but the major projects that had been funded by the referendum are now all complete.
Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann can be heard here
