Missouri’s welfare agency has a new leader. Deborah Scott is a 20 year state employee who’s worked for the departments of education and health, and for the last five years at the department of social services. She moves up from deputy director to lead more than eight-thousand employees who handle welfare, child protection, and other programs. She says she supports the governor’s plan to overhaul medicaid…entirely. Blunt says this is a critical time for the Department. The legislature has voted to kill the medicaid program in two years. Blunt says Scott and her department will have to take the lead in creating a new, innovative, and financially sustainable medicaid program. Scott says it’s too soon to say if any of the 90-thousand people cut from medicaid last year should be reistated. She says the agency works hard to catch medicaid providers who cheat but she says the legislature needs to pass a new law on provider fraud. The House has refused to accept a proposal approved earlier this year by the state senate.
USDA Declares 85 Counties Disaster Areas
Federal agriculture officials have granted Missouri’s request to declare 85 counties disaster areas, because of the lingering drought. The declaration by the United States Department of Agriculture makes farmers living in those counties eligible for loan-interest emergency loans to help offset losses due to the drought. Farmers in the counties listed in the disaster declaration have eight months to apply for loans to help cover actual losses. Applications can be made at Farm Services Agency offices. Governor Blunt had asked that 96 counties be included in the declaration.
Governor Blunt on Armed Teachers.
Three school incidents in the past week….Noel, where a pistol was found in a locker; Warrenton where a student was arrested after reportedly saying he wanted to turn his school into another Columbine; Joplin, where a student fired a shot into a school ceiling… Governor Blunt thinks some people took something he said in Joplin earlier this week and ran with it—wrongly. He does not favor arming teachers. But he says the general topic is worth talking about…and maybe some weapons should be available in schools to some teachers properly trained to use them. Governor Blunt says he does NOT favor arming all teachers. But he says the idea of having weapons accessible to properly-trained teachers is worth talking about. He says those who think guns lead to a violent society will not agree with him but those who think access to weapons can be part of a solution to a violent situation created by society would more readily be willing to discuss the matter. Blunt says Missour’s schools are safe, and parents can send their children to school confident the children are going into a safe environment. Missouri has about 520 school districts….meaning about 517 districts have NOT had gun problems in the last week.
National Guard Sergeant Killed In Iraq
A Missouri Army National Guard sergeant has been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The Guard says Lee Roy Parrish of Lebanon died of injuries suffered October 7th. Parrish was a member of the 110th Engineer Battalion, headquartered in Kansas City. Another member of the 110th, Specialist John Edward Wood of Humboldt, Kansas, was killed in the same explosion. Parrish had been mobilized since August of last year. His unit went overseas in November 2005. It provides convoy security and works to remove roadside bombs set along routes in Iraq.
Mental Health Task Force Nears Recommendations
A broad range of recommendations are being considered as the Mental Health Task Force begins work on the recommendations to reduce the abuse and neglect of mental patients and to better investigate cases that do occur. Recommendations include; pursuing national accreditation of the state’s six habilitation centers, creating the equivalent of the Child Fatality Review Board to review all deaths of adult mental patients, making public the non-confidential aspects of abuse investigations and improving the recruitment, hiring and retention of Mental Health Department staff. Task Force member, Natalie Woods, wants the final report to shy from recommendations to downsize habilitation centers, which she insists runs counter to a commitment to provide choices for mental health care. Task Force member Steve Renne with the Social Services Department says open records have benefited his department and will benefit the Mental Health Department. He says closed records create suspicions. The task force hopes to have final recommendations to the governor by the end of next month.
Related web sites:
Mental Health Task Force
