Des Moines Register. December 29, 2016
Anti-drunken driving efforts aren’t working
Here are a few facts to consider while celebrating the new year:
In Iowa, fatal crashes involving alcohol or drugs increased 27 percent between 2011 and 2015, while overall fatal traffic accidents fell.
The average blood-alcohol level in alcohol-impaired fatalities in 2015 was 0.206, well above the legal limit of .08.
Iowa has made little progress in reducing the percentage of repeat intoxicated drivers - 26 percent in 2015 vs. 29 percent in 2003.
Since 2009, only 14 Iowa establishments have been cited for serving alcohol to drunken patrons.
These facts may kill conversation at a party, but they should fuel action in the Legislature this session. The Iowa Statewide Impaired Driver Plan offers a blueprint for lawmakers to act. The plan was created by coalition that Gov. Terry Branstad tasked with developing recommendations to prevent and reduce impaired driving.
As we’ve written, Iowa lawmakers should keep pushing for more tools to stop drunken drivers. The coalition “recognized impaired driving as a statewide problem with no single solution.”
The impaired driving plan includes 66 proposals that cover prevention, enforcement, education and adjudication. Some are noncontroversial, such as more training for law enforcement and increased social media campaigns and other educational efforts.
Others, however, will collide with opposition. They include:
Adopting a 24/7 sobriety program. These innovative programs require offenders to undergo twice-a-day breath tests or wear an alcohol-monitoring bracelet. Studies have shown the program can lead to behavioral change, such as reducing repeat OWI arrests and other crimes related to alcohol, such as domestic violence.
Strengthening Iowa’s ignition interlock laws, which are among the weakest in the nation, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Offenders who are ordered to put such a device on the car aren’t monitored, so state officials rarely know whether they are failing the breath tests.
Giving more power to prosecutors. The plan points out that some portable breath tests have become more reliable, so state law should now allow the results to be admitted into court.
Putting more responsibility on businesses. Recommendations include requiring bartenders and others who serve alcohol to be trained in identifying intoxicated customers. That training is now voluntary. Bars and restaurants would also be required to have a plan to get transportation for intoxicated patrons.
Implementing the Place of Last Drink program.The program requires that offenders disclose where they were served their last drink. That could allow police and city officials to identify patterns and prevent future problems.
That’s a lot to swallow for lawmakers, who’ve done very little in the last few sessions to prevent impaired driving. A voluntary 24/7 sobriety program passed the Senate last year but stalled in the House, with MADD, civil libertarians and others raising opposition. This program has shown its effectiveness in South Dakota and elsewhere, so lawmakers should address concerns and find a way to give counties the option of using 24/7.
Yes, lawmakers should move carefully and be wary of overburdening alcohol establishments and offenders. OWI defendants already face costs of about $10,000 - including fines, fees, attorney costs and insurance increases - for a conviction.
Idling also has a cost, however, as the toll of death and destruction rises on Iowa roads. All signs indicate that what the state is doing now isn’t working. The Legislature now has a map showing how to proceed.
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Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. December 28, 2016
Support Jesse Cosby Center
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the saying goes.
And a small Waterloo church has taken a very big step to help a longtime east Waterloo community center stabilize its financial situation.
Saviour Missionary Baptist Church, 1220 Roosevelt St., has contributed $25,000 to establish an endowment fund for the Jesse Cosby Neighborhood Center, at 1112 Mobile St., to help support the center’s ongoing programming for seniors and youths.
“What we’re trying to do is build momentum for others to match it,” said center executive director Jesse Henderson.
It is the first step toward establishing a $100,000 endowment fund with additional contributions. Once fundraising hits $90,000, the Community Foundation will contribute $10,000.
The endowment would provide stable funding for the center’s tight-but-improving financial situation. “We’ve been able to pay our bills,” Henderson said. “Right now, our major concern is building our client base for our programs, getting more people to utilize the services.”
The center relies on other agencies and volunteers for various programs, including meals through the Northeast Iowa Area Agency on Aging. It also provides anti-poverty, summer youth mentoring and work experience programs.
“It’s going to be a forever stream of support to the Jesse Cosby Center and their mission,” said Elizabeth Hackbarth, director of development with the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa. “As the fund is invested and donors contribute, the fund is going to grow and dollars will be available for Jesse Cosby Center for their mission and their programming and the people they serve. It’s a permanent investment.”
Four percent of the fund balance each year is available to the agency for operation and programs.
Saviour Missionary Baptist pastor Rudy Jones said, “We prayed about it, we talked about it and we thought it would be a good opportunity to join with them,” Jones said of the Cosby Center. “They do a lot for the community. They’ve earned the right to be given special attention.”
The church can’t provide programming by itself, Jones said, but can assist entities that can, like the Cosby Center. While his congregation is comparatively small, Jones said, “God never used big armies.”
The Black Hawk County Gaming Association this past year awarded a $41,800 building improvement grant for the center.
Jesse Cosby was a musician, entertainer and square dance caller who attracted black and white audiences together after World War II, making a dent in de facto segregation in the Cedar Valley.
His namesake agency, established in 1966 in what was St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, provides a number of services to people of all ethnic backgrounds throughout Black Hawk County, including senior programs, meals and crisis services. Director Jesse Henderson is Jesse Cosby’s great nephew.
“Think about how many individuals and families this organization has supported over the past 50 years,” Hackbarth said. “As the need is growing, and there’s always more to do, and good to be done, that’s going to propel us into the next 50 years. We’re excited to grow the fund and grow support of it. We’re considering the church the lead donor, but we’re really challenging the community to get behind it.”
“I’ve seen what happens when folks decide they want to do something. It gets done,” Jones said.
This is a cause everyone in Waterloo and the Cedar Valley can and should support because it benefits some of the most vulnerable of our society. The center’s senior programming allows people to remain in their homes longer, and today’s youth programming may provide a “hand-up” to young people and steer them away from crime.
Donation checks may be made to the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa, with a memo to the Jesse Cosby Neighborhood Center Fund. Contributions also may be made online at CFNEIA.org/jessecosby. Checks may be mailed or dropped off at the Cosby Center or at foundation offices, 3117 Greenhill Circle, Cedar Falls, 50613.
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Quad-City Times. December 30, 2016
Medicaid in Iowa is crumbling
Collapse: It’s the best description of Iowa’s Medicaid network and Gov. Terry Branstad’s ideological crusade to gut the program.
Providers have raged since Branstad this year privatized the bulk of the program that provides health care insurance for roughly 20 percent of Iowans. Anecdotes about slow payments and rejected services are piled high. Democrats demanded more oversight of handover of the $4.2 billion to a trio of private insurers. In March, federal regulators urged Branstad to postpone the shift, citing the state’s unreadiness. But Branstad, preferring ideological purity over reality, wasn’t having any of it.
Iowa will save more than $100 million this fiscal year, Branstad insisted, even as the insurers themselves reported huge losses and demanded more cash.
Branstad’s narrative crumbled earlier this month, however. That’s when The Des Moines Register got its hands on internal memos and emails between state officials and the insurers.
CliffsNotes: Branstad’s partisan pipe-dream is something of a cash-bleeding nightmare. In fact, the state’s October offer to pony up more cash incensed executives at the insurance providers tasked with managing this mess.
“We are extremely disappointed in the amended rate offer, as it does not address the significant rate issue identified and documented. . The department’s rate offer is not actuarially sound and is not acceptable to us,” AmeriHealth Caritas Regional Vice President Russell Gianforcaro wrote to state Human Services Director Charles Palmer.
Let’s unpack Gianforcaro’s statement a bit.
Two of the three firms reported losses in the tens of millions shortly after taking control of Iowa’s formerly public, once-lauded health care system for the poor. The Branstad administration, which promised huge taxpayer savings, offered them more money through an amended rate. AmeriHealth scoffed at the pittance.
Taken on its own, it would be easy to dismiss that firm’s complaints as little but profit-driven sour grapes. But, as a whole, it’s increasingly clear that, less than a year in, Branstad’s expedition into for-profit welfare is failing corporate boards and Iowa’s poorest, alike.
Other states have done it and succeeded, Branstad says. Even states run by Democrats have contracted-out a portion of Medicaid services, he argues.
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Dubuque Telegraph Herald. December 28, 2016
With cushion shrinking, Iowa spending priorities key.
where we stand:
With “rainy day fund” balances under stress, state officials must ensure that their spending meshes with needs and priorities.
For nearly all of us, government finance and budgeting are complicated. The larger the government entity - from local to state to federal - the more complicated it all is. Between the various funds and the statutory limitations placed on them, it’s hard to understand.
But whether it involves a multitrillion-dollar federal government or a household budget, it’s not hard to understand this: Spend more than you take in, and set nothing aside for emergencies, and you run into difficulties.
While the federal government has exercised means to delay the day of reckoning - being the ones printing money helps - red ink and deficits are not options for most other government entities. Many, including the State of Iowa, are legally required to approve budgets that are balanced.
Compared to most states - especially a neighbor to the east, Illinois, which is in fiscal cardiac arrest - Iowa state government is on sound financial footing. Iowa’s budget was balanced and just a couple of years ago its reserve accounts - commonly called “rainy-day funds” - were filled to the brim.
That is not to say that every state program has all the money it needs or wants. Water quality is suffering. Despite the increase in the gasoline tax, lots of catching up is necessary for transportation initiatives. Local schools and institutions of higher education argue that funding is not keeping pace with needs.
But, all in all, state finances in Iowa are in pretty good shape. A half-year ago, State Auditor Mary Mosiman, who has a reputation for being a tough grader, gave the current budget a B-plus.
Her marks likely would have been lower had Democrats in the Legislature (particularly in the Senate, where they held the majority) gotten their way a year ago and dipped into rainy-day funds. They argued that the state should spend some of that money for operational needs. Those calls didn’t go anywhere with Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, and the Republican majority in the House.
That’s a good thing. There are warning flags on Iowa’s fiscal horizon.
Mosiman has pointed out that major, multi-year actions have chopped away at the budget surplus. In 2013, for example, the Legislature and governor approved education reform and enacted long-overdue cuts to commercial property taxes. That has resulted in hits of hundreds of millions of dollars to the state budget. Education reform is costing about $150 million in the 2017 budget alone, and the reimbursements to local governments due to the commercial property tax reductions will be about $280 million.
Iowa would be in a better position to handle those decisions if it had a healthy stream of money coming into state coffers. But that’s not necessarily happening.
Earlier this month, the state Revenue Estimating Conference, an important, three-member panel whose predictions legally set the limits on budget proposals, again cut its forecast for how much money state government will take in. Less revenue means less to spend on state programs.
With Iowa Republicans now holding the Capitol “trifecta” - the governorship plus majorities in the House and Senate - it’s unlikely that reserve funds will be targeted in the upcoming session.
Good thing that the Legislature didn’t go along with spending initiatives that would have raided rainy-day funds. The balances are taking enough of a hit as it is.
The challenge facing elected officials in Des Moines will be to ensure that their spending appropriately coincides with needs and priorities.
Editorials reflect the consensus of the Telegraph Herald Editorial Board.
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