Priorities?
The Strib had another piece on the gaping void that the "shutdown' has left in Minnesotans' lives.
Example: Minnesota runs a state chilcrare referral agency. It has 19 offices across the state:
Many parents ready to hit the job market after a break with baby are on their own. Fifteen of the 19 child-care referral agencies across Minnesota no longer are fielding parent requests for referrals, said Ann McCully, executive director of the Minnesota Child Care Resource and Referral Agency. And the other four are open only for child-care assistance clients.
About 500 families a week typically contact the agencies, looking for licensed child care, she said.
Likewise, day-care providers who need emergency loans -- for such things as a broken fence or a malfunctioning air conditioner -- are out of luck. That loan program isn't up and running, either.
"We've normally about 100 staff across the state," she said. "At least three-quarters have been laid off or shifted to 10 to 25 percent time. It's a huge cut. That's what's so scary to us."
So we see that a program to
refer parents to childcare providers, and process loan applications for providers, employs
100 people. Not to
license the daycares, mind you, just refer and process. 19 Offices, 100 people. Leave aside for a moment whether this is a great use of state money; doesn't it seem reasonable to think that they could do the same job with a fraction of that staff? Say, one referrer and one processor for each office?
By the way, I've used the program. They charge for the referrals. It's not free, not even super-cheap. In exchange for the money ($20, if I recall correctly), you got a list that was frequently about 50% accurate; many of the providers on the lists I got had left the business or weren't accepting new kids. Which isn't the program's fault - but it seems like a stretch to think that you need five people in an office to produce a referral list that two people could do equally well. And, "shutdown" aside, the service is still being provided for people on welfare, which are the people everyone's worried about the "shutdown" harming!
What am I missing here?
This part made me do a double-take:
John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association, told Stringer that without state permits to carry oversized loads, trucks wouldn't be able to remove debris after a storm or bring materials to major development projects.
You need a
state permit to clean up after a storm?
Are Minnesotans such a government-whipped bunch of hamsters that they'd let debris sit in piles after a major storm for want of some bureaucrat's stamp?
No, forget I asked. I'm afraid of the answer.
Posted by Mitch at
July 6, 2005 07:28 AM
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It's now $50, Mitch. We asked for the list to try and find a lower cost daycare for our younger child. When we received the list last year, out of a total of something like 86 day care providers listed, about 8 were commercial businesses (as opposed to home daycare). Out of the rest of the home daycare providers listed, only 2 had any vacancies. Neither gave my wife any warm fuzzies and we ended up keeping our youngest in the daycare he was at.
Other than that, we've used the library twice in the last couple years for audiobooks for a road trip, and that's really the only dealing with, or usage of, "optional" state services we've had in the last several years.
I'm liking the lighter traffic.
Posted by: FJBill at July 6, 2005 08:59 AMNote that the permits aren't being granted for OVERSIZED loads. That can be a hardship for construction crews and whatnot, but it isn't a serious one (the guys I know often "forget" about the permits anyway).
As to cleanup after disasters, well, I lived through the cleanup after Andrew in south Florida and I *never* saw an oversized load go in an out of there. It's just about impossible to get them into a housing development, and even in the commerical areas they told me oversize loads were frowned on as too unwieldy. The MTA is blowing smoke and trying to drum up sympathy.
Posted by: nerdbert at July 6, 2005 10:17 AMLemme get this straight: The pseudo-shutdown is in its THIRD business day....and we have pictures of the "victims" of this shutdown on the Capitol steps, with signs pleading for people to buy baked goods to help them survive?
Good God, they are STILL getting checks NOW, to pay them for their last week or two of work! How can they be living in trash cans ALREADY?
And the StarTrib prints the picture on Page 1, above the fold. Yeah...heh...heh..."unbiased"...heh...heh...
Posted by: BigD at July 6, 2005 12:16 PM500 requests a week for 100 employees. That's 1 request per employee each day. And they said government workers were lazy...
Posted by: Marcus at July 6, 2005 03:50 PMThe stand-out line for me was: "Likewise, day-care providers who need emergency loans - for such things as a broken fence or a malfunctioning air conditioner - are out of luck." (emphasis mine)
Posted by: R-Five at July 6, 2005 07:52 PMMitch,
Can somebody PLEASE PLEASE put together a scrapbook of all the Star Tribune photos relating to the shutdown? Then years from now we can pull it out, set our grandkids on our knee and show them the horrors we endured during the Great Government Shutdown of '05":
"See here honey? This man can't get into the DMV! Look at his poor son."
"Here we have some poor woman begging for food. She can't even feed her family. Oh, the humanity! I can't look at any more"!
Posted by: Rob at July 6, 2005 09:00 PMYou insult hamsters with that statement. I know for a fact that my hamster would be out there chewing on the debris, trying to get it out of the way, state permit or no. He's a feisty little bastard.
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