A southwest Iowa toddler died Monday night at a Des Moines hospital from injuries sustained in a two-vehicle crash near Creston. The Iowa State Patrol says three-year-old Jazmin Haley was a passenger in a car being driven by her mother, 19-year-old Cassie Pederson of Grant. Pederson was driving westbound on a gravel road when she ran a stop sign at the intersection with Highway 25. Her car was hit in the passenger side by a southbound SUV driven by 41-year-old Margaret Carbis of Greenfield. Pederson and Carbis were not injured. The crash happened just before noon. The child was airlifted to Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines, where she died Monday night.
Southwest Iowa toddler dies in accident
April 14, 2009 By
Group readies to compete for more federal stimulus money
April 14, 2009 By
The State of Iowa will receive at least $2 billion from the federal economic stimulus package, but a group of state officials is hoping to secure millions more in a process that pits state against state for specific grants.
Jon Murphy is head of the state working group that’s reviewing the rules for getting those additional grants and loans.
"Along with that opportunity is a tremendous responsibility for the State of Iowa to get this right and to make sure that Iowans have confidence that their state government is receiving and expending the Recovery Act dollars as best as possible and to maximize the opportunity that’s being presented to us with the Recovery Act," Murphy says.
Federal grants will be available for a variety of specific projects, like extending broadband access, promoting renewable energy industry, and training workers to fill high-skill jobs. Murphy says he and the other members of the state working group have reviewed 66 different "funding categories" that are available from the federal economic stimulus package.
"Even though the bill was passed on February 17, there continues to be guidance coming out from the federal government almost on a daily basis," Murphy says. The details are still being "smoothed" according to Murphy and it’s hard to tell at this point how many grants the state may be able to win.
FCC funds help Iowa Health Systems build fiber optic network
April 14, 2009 By
A large state network of hospitals and clinics announced the launch today of a 3,200 mile fiber-optic network that will link healthcare providers together across the state and beyond.
Iowa Health System C.E.O. Bill Leaver says the system is called "HealthNet Connect."
Leaver says HealthNet Connect will provide a resource to share healthcare information throughout Iowa, western Illinois and particularly, rural Iowa. He says it is one of the first networks to link up multiple states.
The network was developed under a pilot program of the Federal Communications Commission — with the F.C.C. chipping in $7.8 million, or 85% of the cost of the network.
The high speed network will allow hospitals and clinics to send patient records, x-rays and other data to the hospitals and clinics linked to the system. Khristine Jacobsen, the chief information officer at the Myrtue Medical Center in Harlan, says this system will help the western Iowa facility get more information from larger facilities.
Jacobsen says she represents all the rural health facilities in Iowa that’re striving to find a balance between technology and finances while still being able to deliver the best care to patients. Jacobsen says rural hospitals have invested a lot in upgrading to electronic records and now this network takes things a step further.
"To have a reliable, secure means of transmitting data is the first step in the future of healthcare," Jacobsen says. She says they want to be able to collaborate care with specialists from larger facilities while still maintaining their independence.
Leaver says the F.C.C. funds allow them to help the rural hospitals and others to connect to the system. They expect to have 28 hospitals hooked up in the next 90 days.
Leaver says the individual users will pay $120 a month to be connected to the system. He says as they develop the system, the members will make up a council that will determine the cost. The Iowa Hospital Association has developed a similar network. Leaver says the goal is to eventually share between systems.
He says two things have to happen before they can do that, first he says they need to develop a single patient identifier system so they know for sure which patient they are talking about.
Secondly, Leaver says they need to create a "continuum of care document" that defines what information will be passed, so it can be confidential, patient privacy is protected and the information is relevant. This is the first multi-state network to be created under the F.C.C. program. You can find more information on the Health Network here .
Grassley says his stance on gay marriage is clear
April 14, 2009 By
Senator Chuck Grassley annoyed some fellow Republicans last week by not voicing immediate support for an effort to thwart same-sex marriage in Iowa. Grassley reportedly said he’d first need to think for a month before offering his opinion about an effort to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage.
Grassley tells Radio Iowa, his feelings on the issue should be clear. Grassley says, "I think everybody, conservative or liberal, knows where I stand on the issue of gay marriage."
He says his record on the issue is already established. "I voted for a constitutional amendment within the last three or four years that defined marriage as between a man and a woman," Grassley says.
"Prior to that, I voted for a bill that’s called The Defense of Marriage Act that is now the law of the land and was signed by President Clinton." He says it’s the absolute right of Iowans to change the constitution. "Iowans ought to have their say," Grassley says. "They ought to be able to decide."
Grassley says, "I wonder why we even have to defend marriage considering the fact that it’s been the foundation of our society, meaning the family, and the family, meaning one man and one woman, have been the foundation of our societies for six-thousand years."
Earlier this month, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the state law that defines the only legal marriages in Iowa are those between a man and a woman.
Based on that ruling, the first same-sex marriages are expected to be held in Iowa starting April 27th. Grassley says his comment about waiting a month to voice his opinion on the issue was in reference to plotting strategy for how best to move forward.
"It doesn’t take me a month to make up my mind that I disagree with the Supreme Court case because I’ve done that years ago," Grassley says. "Not necessarily anticipating how the Iowa Supreme Court would rule, in fact, I’m kind of shocked how they would rule."
Grassley says he was hesitant to comment on the same-sex marriage issue initially as he was accused of meddling in state legislative affairs a few years ago by statehouse Republicans after it seemed he was trying to tell them how to vote on an ethanol bill.
Governor goes to bat for DHS chief
April 14, 2009 By
Governor Chet Culver and dozens of Iowans who work in human services agencies gathered today for a statehouse news conference, urging Republicans in the Iowa Senate to vote to confirm Gene Gessow as director of the Iowa Department of Human Services.
"I just want to say thank you to everybody here. It really is one of the most extraordinary days of my life…Unusual for me, I am actually speechless," Gessow said, as one supporter stood behind Gessow holding up a red poster that said, "Confirm Gessow."
The governor nominates the directors of state agencies, but 34 of the 50 state senators must vote to confirm those people for the posts. Governor Culver, who is a Democrat, says the senate’s Republican leader told him last week none of the 18 Republicans in the senate will vote to confirm Gessow to be Department of Human Services director.
"We’re hoping with all the support of the individuals that we can make a strong case that his confirmation is critically important," Culver says.
The governor describes Gessow as the right man for the top job in the largest agency in state government. There are more than 5700 employees in the Department of Human Services, directly serving over 800,000 Iowans who qualify for a variety of welfare benefits or who are disabled. The agency’s current budget — a combination of state and federal money — amounts to over $4.6 billion and Culver says he needs an experienced hand running the department.
"We are working hard to encourage people to contact Republican senators and that will involve…prominent Republicans across the state," Culver says. "They’re sending emails and making phone calls directly to state senators."
But Senate Republican Leader Paul McKinley says Republicans have "grave concerns" about Gessow.
"And those concerns stem from a failure of him to be forthright about the Atalissa issue," McKinley says. Atalissa is the eastern Iowa city where several dozen mentally retarded men who worked at the West Liberty meatpacking plant lived in a "bunkhouse" that was shut down earlier this year. The only heat in the building was provided by space heaters and state officials say the men were malnourished and hadn’t been to a dentist in years. The Department of Human Services and other state agencies were criticized for failing to shut the place down years before when complaints first surfaced.
McKinley accuses Gessow of being less than honest when he testified before a legislative committee investigating the Atalissa case.
"The one thing we know from the citizens of Iowa, they’re extremely frustrated and what we need is much more transparency in government," McKinley says. "We need much more honesty and much more openness from officials in state government."
John Severtson of Clear Lake leads the Iowa Association of Community Providers and runs Opportunity Village, a non-profit group that provides residential care for about five-hundred mentally retarded and disabled Iowans. "At Opportunity Village and our organization, specifically, we’ve found Gene to be very responsive to our ideas and very willing to listen," Severtson said at today’s news conference.
Severtson spoke by phone with Republican Senator Merlin Bartz yesterday, but didn’t sway Bartz. Bartz intends to vote against Gessow.
"He was disingenuous with the Oversight Committee in regard to the Atalissa situation," Bartz says. "And in Gene’s talking points that he shared with the Human Resources Committee there are some philosophical chasms that I don’t think we could ever overcome, such as wanting to license all child care in the state of Iowa, such as wanting to extend Medicaid benefits to illegal aliens."
If all 18 Republican senators vote against Gessow, he will not be confirmed for the job.
Palo offers incentives to lure people back after flood
April 14, 2009 By
Last June’s floods devastated a number of eastern Iowa cities and towns. In Palo, city leaders say up to 400 of the town’s roughly 1,200 people moved away.
They’re now talking about offering incentives for people to move back to the Linn County town. But, people like Mary Shakespeare feel like they should get something for staying put.
She and her husband, George, have lived in Palo for 36 years and just recently finished cleaning up their flooded home. “I realize we need more people,” Mary said, “but we can’t forget about the people that did stay.” The Shakespeare’s say it’s not right to offer new homeowners incentives when flood victims are still hurting. Mayor Pro-Tem Paula Gunter says the city has to do something to get people to move back.
“We’re losing some of our tax base with the flood and the number of houses being demolished, so we just want to grow Palo,” Gunter said. Three million dollars of assessed property value will vanish after all the flood damaged homes in Palo are demolished. That’s why the city is talking about offering six months of free sewer service and the Rebuild Palo group wants to offer a $3,000 grant to people who build new homes in town.
Palo’s city council will vote on the free sewer service proposal at its next meeting.
Council members said they’ve already done a lot to help their current residents including lowering property taxes, offering free flood debris dumpsters and providing a free month of sewer service.
Revenue Department wants more time to send out next year’s refunds
April 14, 2009 By
The Iowa Department of Revenue is asking state lawmakers to help them deal with staff cuts by allowing them to take longer to send out next year’s taxpayer refund checks without paying interest.
The Department’s Jim McNulty says they have enough personnel to get out all of this year’s checks — but they want to push back the date where they start paying interest on returns next year.
"Currently we have until the first day of the second calendar month following the date of payment or the due date of the return to pay interest on refunds," McNulty says, "so for most taxpayers if they file by April 30 we don’t have to start paying interest till June first."
McNulty says the change would push back the date when they would have to start paying interest to July 1st. McNulty says it would give them an extra thirty days to issue refunds without having to pay interest.
McNulty estimates the change would save the department about $240,000. The proposal is part of a bill which also seeks to put new caps on some business tax credits to save the state money.
