By Rep. Paul Anderson
The Minnesota Dept. of Human Services recently conducted a series of three meetings around the state to take feedback on new recommendations pertaining to licensed family child care homes. I attended the meeting in St. Cloud Nov. 26 where a large group of day-care providers expressed their concern with the proposed regulations. At the heart of the matter are statistics that show more infants have died in the past ten years while at in-home facilities than in institutional centers. However, more children, approximately 90,000, receive care in family day care than in public centers, who host about 60,000.
The new regulations deal mainly with infants, those under the age of one year, and deal primarily with how they are allowed to sleep. For example, blankets would not be allowed in cribs, and infants would not be allowed to sleep in carriers such as car seats.
Most of the comments from the audience were against the new regulations, with one common theme being that day care providers were not included in the study group that put the recommendations together. Other comments included the hope that language would be clarified, and that, if adopted, the new regulations would mean more infants moving to unlicensed day care facilities.
The new recommendations have not been adopted yet. Following these stakeholder meetings and with other input, the Dept. of Human Services will put its final proposal together and have it introduced at the Legislature, where it will be acted upon.
Congratulations to Glen and Sadie Frericks of Melrose, who were named last week as Minnesota’s dairy producers of the year. The announcement came at the Midwest Dairy Expo, held last week in St. Cloud. The Frerick’s operation, known as the Blue Diamond Dairy, milks around 65 cows in a tie stall barn and also features an automatic calf-feeding system. Glen and Sadie have two children with one more on the way. It truly is a family operation, and we wish them the best.
While on the subject of dairy, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture pegged the cost of producing milk at $20.56 per hundredweight in October. That’s the first time in history the figure has gone over $20. While the price most producers received for their milk was right around that mark several months ago, it has drifted lower recently. And with commodity prices remaining high, most dairy cash-flows are extremely tight, if not negative, right now.
I recently attended a conference on the environment where information was presented concerning water levels on the Great Lakes. A professor from the University of Wisconsin used graphs to show that, historically, water levels on our five inland Great Lakes have followed precipitation levels pretty closely. However, since around the year 2000, the water level on Lake Michigan, for example, has dropped by around five feet, and that drop hasn’t mirrored precipitation records. We are in a dry period now, but going back 12 years, rainfall amounts have been more normal.
He also showed numbers indicating average temperatures have increased during that time. It’s about one degree, which doesn’t seem like much; however water temperatures have gone up by about four degrees during that same period. It’s his theory that warmer water temps cause less ice to be formed on the lake, which means an earlier ice melt in the spring and more time for evaporation. Whatever the reason, it is cause for concern.
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