Map the Meal Gap

Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap project, shows hunger data for every county in the US. Food insecurity is closely linked with unemployment and poverty and it is well-documented that some racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., including American Indians, African Americans and Latinos, are disproportionately at risk for food insecurity. The report also finds that about 29% of food insecure individuals are above 185% of the poverty line and are typically ineligible for most food assistance programs. The project reports two types of local data, 1. County-level food insecurity estimates by income categories and; 2. An estimate of the food budget shortfall that food insecure individuals report they experience.
http://feedingamerica.org/our-network/the-studies/map-the-gap.aspx

What Changes will Consolidating Juvenile Facilities Bring?

As the Division of Juvenile Corrections (DJC) begins the process of closing two juvenile correctional institutions (JCI) - Ethan Allen School for Boys and Southern Oaks School for Girls - and consolidating all functions at one facility – Lincoln Hills School for Boys and, on the same property the Copper Lake School for Girls – we will begin to see how these changes may impact other aspects of the juvenile justice system.  For sure, there are innumerable internal issues related to this change that DJC will be working to resolve – staffing impacts, facility modifications, program re-design, closing facilities, etc. – but counties may react by looking for additional alternatives to sending their youth so far from home.  Remember that roughly 70% of all JCI placements come from the southeast quadrant of the state.  An example of a system change that may move forward is the unanimous endorsement by the Milwaukee County Board to support a change in statute that would allow a juvenile judge to “sentence” a youth to a local juvenile facility (vs. the state JCI) for up to 180 days.  While this has a long way to go, and there would be concerns about “net widening downward”, this could create some flexibility to keep kids closer to home.  It will take a while for the system to adjust, but counties have proven already that they can develop local alternatives that redirect youth and keep the community safe for many of their youth. 

DHS Increases BadgerCare Basic Premiums and Freezes Enrollment

Basic's Problems Highlight Importance of Health Care Reform Act

The Department of Health Services (DHS) announced Friday that it has frozen enrollment for the BadgerCare Basic program, effective on March 18th. The Basic plan was created by DHS to be a non-subsidized option for coverage of childless adults on the waiting list for the BadgerCare Core plan, and it now serves about 5,300 people. In addition to freezing enrollment, the department is increasing premiums to $200 per month, form the current $130.

The increase in premiums is very likely to be the beginning of the end for this experiment in creating an unsubsidized option for low-income childless adults. The problem with the initial plan is that most low-income individuals can’t afford unsubsidized coverage, even for bare bones insurance. Without a subsidy or a mandate that creates a larger pool of people covered, the plan attracts sicker people, and the “adverse selection” pushes up the costs.  Increasing the premiums is likely to decrease participation among the healthier enrollees, exacerbating the adverse selection problem, so I doubt that the Basic Plan will survive very long.

Effects of the Budget Bills on Working Families

Wisconsin Council on Children and Families has released a two-page summary that describes the negative impact the state budget would have on working families. With cuts to education, health care, mass transportation, and important anti-poverty initiatives, the budget repair bill and the biennial budget proposal hits middle- and low-income Wisconsinites the hardest. Get a fuller picture by reading the summary here.

Medicaid Power Shift Would Minimize Public Input and Legislative Role

The budget documents released last Tuesday talk in broad terms about how the Walker Administration wants to change BadgerCare Plus and Medicaid to cut costs by about $500 million in the 2011-13 biennium; however, those summary documents provide no specifics. But if someone were to study the 1,345-page bill, surely they would find the details of the Governor’s plans, right? Actually, no; the biennial budget bill doesn’t say a thing about how coverage of children, parents, childless adults or pregnant women would be changed.

The lack of detail is extremely disappointing but it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has reviewed the Medicaid-related potions of the “budget repair” bill introduced by the Governor in mid-February. That bill, which was being fast-tracked through the Senate, contains an unprecedented shift in the power to rewrite the law from our elected lawmakers to an unelected administrator in the Department of Health Services (DHS). The Medicaid-related policies that have been established in the statute books over the last 15 years – including such things as income eligibility limits, other eligibility requirements, premiums, co-payments, and services covered – could all be rewritten by the DHS Secretary behind closed doors.

This blog post examines the sweeping and potentially unconstitutional shift of power, and it reads between the lines of the budget repair bill to surmise what the ultimate effect could be for some of the 775,000 Wisconsinites enrolled in BadgerCare Plus.

Moving Forward in Implementing Evidence-Based Practices

As momentum continues to grow around implementing best practices, evidence-based practices, research-based practices -- OK, so pick the term you want to use – the point is how do we use the body of research about what works to improve practice in the juvenile justice world?  And, how do we transition our systems from what we now do to what we should do – keeping the good things and losing the not-so-useful things?  One of the leading researchers, Mark Lipsey, talks about the barriers and hopes are for system change in a short video through Reclaiming Futures.  If you want to get a sense of where Wisconsin is trying to move, check it out – it’s consistent with initiatives through the Office of Justice Assistance, in partnership with the Southern Regional Training Partnership, to transform local systems and practices.

Ethan Allen School and Southern Oaks Schools to Close

The Governor’s budget introduced today includes the closing of two juvenile correctional institutions, Southern Oaks School (Union Grove; girls) and Ethan Allen School (Wales; boys), and moving those youth to one consolidated juvenile correctional institution, Lincoln Hills School (Irma). As everyone is aware, the population at the institutions has continued to decline in recent years, and it became no longer economically feasible to maintain three separate institutions. The budget proposal projects an average daily population of the three facilities to be approximately 340 in 2012-13 – down substantially from 466 in 2009-10. The budget includes daily JCI rates of $284/day in FY 2011-12 and $289 in FY 2012-13 – compared to an estimated $538 and $543 it would have cost to keep all three programs operating.

Ethan Allen will close as of the end of the fiscal year, June 30. The timeline for transferring girls from Southern Oaks will depend on making modifications to the Lincoln Hills property, so that the girls’ program can be operated separately from the boys.