Month: October 2022

When they reported on the condition of the Great Lakes earlier this year, the Canadian and U.S. governments told a now-familiar story about the status of Lake Erie.

“Poor,” the binational study found, both on measures of the impacts of nutrient runoff and the harmful algal blooms that this pollution can cause. And binational researchers warned of other areas with nutrient-related impairments — Green Bay in Lake Michigan, Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, and Hamilton Harbour and the Bay of Quinte in Lake Ontario. Even some short-lived blooms in Lake Superior (whose overall status on these indicators is “good”) have been observed in recent years.

How are Great Lakes states and provinces working to curb the nutrient runoff and related blooms?

For three years, a group of lawmakers has been exploring that question, as part of the work of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus Nutrient Management Task Force. (CSG Midwest provides staff support to the caucus.)

Their review shows a greater emphasis on policies that target agricultural activity and practices (a source of much of the nutrient runoff), but that focus little on new regulations and more on a mix of incentives, technical assistance and new partnerships for farmers.

‘Engaging and incentivizing’

Agriculture contributes to excess nutrients in surface water when fertilizer use, animal manure and soil erosion are not managed responsibly. Conversely, certain farm practices help keep nutrients from leaving the field and entering waterways.

“One of the key takeaways is the importance of engaging with and incentivizing agricultural producers to adopt best practices,” says Wisconsin Sen. André Jacque, chair of the GLLC task force.

One option for states: encourage farmers themselves to lead the way. Wisconsin’s Producer-Led Watershed Protection Program is an example of this approach. Since 2015, legislative appropriations have provided grants to groups of farmers who take on water quality initiatives, using evidence-based methods best suited for their local watershed.

Milwaukee River Watershed Clean Families is one of the producer groups that has received a state grant through this program. Among its activities: conducting farmer-to-farmer outreach on practices to prevent nutrient runoff, partnering with the county on a long-term demonstration plot to experiment with cover crops and different seed types, and events to raise awareness about water quality.

Since the program’s first year, the amount of state funding has grown from $250,000 to $1 million a year; in all, 41 farmer groups are participating.

Voluntary programs grow in Michigan, Minnesota

Simple reporting and local flexibility are part of the appeal of Wisconsin’s program. In Michigan, regulatory assurances help attract involvement in a long-running, voluntary conservation program: If a participating farmer adopts a state-recommended conservation plan, he or she gets certain statutory protections against penalties and fines in the event of accidental discharges.

Since the Michigan Agricultural Environmental Assurance Program began, more than 1 million acres of farmland have been enrolled.

“[It] provides farmers with on-farm demonstration projects and technical assistance to apply conservation practices to their specific farms,” notes Michigan Sen. Dan Lauwers. Along with this up-front assistance, participants get increased access to cost-share programs (nutrient management practices often have up-front costs, but long-term savings), and at the end of the process, they receive a “environmentally verified” sign for their property.

Similarly, Minnesota’s Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program allows producers to promote their farm as being protective of water quality. Under the program, a mix of technical and financial assistance goes to farmers seeking certification. Once a field is assessed and a site-specific plan is developed, any number of conservation practices may be implemented. Among the most common: the use of cover crops, adoption of a nutrient-management plan, improvements in tile drainage and irrigation water management, and the construction of grassed waterways.

The Minnesota Legislature requires that regular evaluations be done on the program’s effects. The most recent study found that 216 million pounds of soil have been kept on Minnesota fields annually, and 76.2 million pounds of sediment and 47,878 pounds of phosphorus have been prevented from entering the state’s waters every year.

A separate analysis has found economic benefits for participating farmers as well: profits that were 6 percent higher compared to non-certified farmers, as well as better debt-to-asset and operating expense ratios. These benefits have been shown over three years of study.

As of April, 1,197 farms totaling more than 845,000 acres had been certified and had added 2,414 conservation practices. Minnesota expects to have 1 million acres enrolled by the end of this year.

Ohio’s ‘incremental improvements’

Ohio has been ground zero for the problem of nutrient pollution in the Great Lakes, and the state’s H2O initiative marks an unprecedented effort to address it. For the current biennium budget, legislators allocated $120 million to incentivize farmers to adopt one or more practices proven to protect water quality.

H2Ohio originally focused on 14 counties in northwest Ohio, an agriculture-heavy area where nutrient pollution from farms gets to Lake Erie via the Maumee River and contributes to harmful algal blooms. The program now encompasses land in the entire Western Lake Erie Basin. Thus far, close to 35 percent of cropland in that basin (in Ohio) has been enrolled in H2O.

“[It] has made incremental improvements in the watershed, just as other programs the task force has endorsed have in other watersheds,” says Ohio Rep. Michael Sheehy, whose legislative district encompasses the Maumee River watershed. “Much more needs to be done to achieve the goal of 40 percent nutrient reduction by 2025.” (That is the target set by the U.S. and Canadian governments, as well as Michigan, Ohio and Ontario.)

As part of the H2Ohio plan, Ohio’s soil and water conservation district offices lead local efforts to help farmers implement the best management practices. Counties in the Maumee River watershed each have a localized phosphorus target to help ensure accountability, and district offices are developing individualized nutrient-management plans to reduce the most phosphorus runoff at each location.

Local experts, support make implementation possible

These state-supported programs typically include a series of conservation measures for farmers to take, and one of the more common science-based practices is the use of cover crops. Planted after harvest, cover crops sequester carbon in the soil while reducing soil erosion and nutrient runoff from fields during fallow seasons.

“Evidence largely suggests cover crops do not raise yields or returns in the first years of adoption,” notes Carl Zulaf, a professor of agricultural economics at The Ohio State University.

As a result, only 5 percent of U.S. cropland had cover crops in 2021. To encourage a large-scale adoption, Zulaf says, a sizable national subsidy is needed.

At the state level, Illinois provides a $5 per acre premium discount on crop insurance to producers who plant cover crops; in 2022, the incentive will apply to 100,000 acres, double the previous years’ allocation. Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin also offer this premium discount.

But financial incentives alone often are not enough.

The support of local experts — specifically, talented staff in local conservation districts — is essential to provide farmers with up-front and ongoing technical assistance, the Great Lakes task force found. Additionally, these experts can help with accountability in state-funded programs. (Are the conservation plans on farms being properly and fully implemented? Is water pollution being prevented? Is water quality improving?)

Legislatures can strengthen this assistance by providing a dedicated funding source for these offices.

Joined by leading policy experts and scientists on the Great Lakes, state and provincial legislators came to Chicago in September for a weekend devoted to learning about how and why to protect the largest freshwater system in the world.

They also selected a new two-officer team to lead the binational, bipartisan Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus starting in 2023. Wisconsin Sen. André Jacque is the GLLC’s incoming chair, Illinois Sen. Laura Fine the incoming vice chair.

The GLLC is unique in its composition and focus. Counting legislators from all 10 jurisdictions of the Great Lakes basin (eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces) as members, the GLLC’s mission is to strengthen the role of state and provincial lawmakers in policies that impact the Great Lakes and the region’s other water resources.

The group’s Annual Meeting is central to this mission, providing a forum for legislators to exchange ideas and innovations with one another and leading experts. This year’s topics included controlling the spread of invasive species, reducing nutrient pollution, cleaning up Areas of Concern, and addressing the problem of PFAS contamination. The meeting also featured a session on the impact of climate change in the Great Lakes region.

For the past several years, Illinois Rep. Robyn Gabel and Minnesota Rep. Jennifer Schultz have led the caucus as its chair and vice chair, respectively. Gabel led this year’s meeting in Chicago.

However, the caucus regularly rotates its two-officer team, and at the September meeting, members elected Sen. Jacque and Sen. Fine as chair and vice chair, respectively. Their terms begin in 2023. Additionally, the caucus has an Executive Committee made up of legislators from all 10 jurisdictions.

CSG Midwest provides staff support to the caucus, which also receives financial support from the Joyce Foundation, the Erb Family Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The 2023 GLLC Annual Meeting will be held Sept. 8-9 in Québec City.

Caucus membership is free and open to all legislators from the Great Lakes states and provinces.

Summary of select sessions from 2022 meeting and five takeaways for legislators »

Overview of some of the state programs explored by GLLC’s Task Force on Nutrient Management »

Become a GLLC member »

Visit the GLLC’s Annual Meeting page  »

For 33 years, October has been recognized as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Progress has been made over that time in reducing instances of domestic abuse against women and men. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2003, there were more than 1.48 million known victims of domestic abuse in the country, or 6.2 people for every thousand people ages 12 and older. Last year, that number was around 911,000, or 3.3 people for every thousand.

Despite the positive turn, understanding how to successfully reform abusers has proven to be elusive.

One place where such programming for domestic violence offenders can and often does take place: state correctional facilities.

Can prison-based interventions be effective in reducing recidivism and preventing future, sometimes fatal acts of abuse?

Policymakers, correctional leaders and experts on domestic-violence prevention continue to grapple with this question in many states, including Nebraska and Iowa.

2 tragic deaths in Nebraska

For years, Doug Koebernick, inspector general of the Nebraska Correctional System, has recommended that the state consider reinstating domestic violence intervention programming in prisons.

It has not existed for incarcerated individuals since 2015. In the inspector general’s latest annual report, he noted that department clinicians had recommended domestic violence programming for more than 500 people in Nebraska’s prison system. Without the availability of such programs, interventions occur post-release, or not at all.

The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services has cited at least two reasons for not offering services: a lack of evidence supporting their efficacy, and the availability of more-effective interventions in community settings for parolees.

However, in multiple annual reports, Koebernick has pointed out that parolees’ participation in these community-based programs apply only “if it is a condition of their parole, or [if they are] participating in work release,” and that “people who wait until reaching community corrections to undergo treatment might already have regular access to their domestic partners.”

Such was the case for Hailey Christiansen and Brooke Koch, two Nebraska women murdered by intimate partners who had previously abused them and had been incarcerated. The two women’s stories helped inspire the successful passage this year of the Domestic Abuse Death Review Act (see sidebar article).

Koebernick acknowledges that the model of intervention training previously used in Nebraska prisons — known as the “Duluth Model” — had limited success. National studies, too, have raised questions about the value of this model in preventing future domestic violence.

Nonetheless, Koebernick believes the state should evaluate if non-Duluth models could be useful in Nebraska. One possible alternative already is being employed in a neighboring state.

New intervention in Iowa

In 2010, the Iowa Department of Corrections began a pilot project to assess whether a new intervention model could change the behavior of convicted domestic abusers.

Today, that same model — a revised version of the Achieving Change Through Values-Based Behavior Program, or ACTV — has replaced all previous domestic assault programming. It now operates in multiple prison settings.

Earlier this year, Dr. Amie Zarling, a developer of the ACTV model, published the results of an experimental study examining differences in the outcomes of two sets of Iowa Department of Corrections offenders: those who took ACTV-based intervention classes vs. participants in the Duluth Model.

The 338 men evaluated were all first-time (convicted) domestic abusers; they took part in the programming outside of prison while on probation.

Her study sums up the differences in the two types of interventions this way: “Instead of examining how one’s thoughts about women originated or replacing the thought ‘She shouldn’t treat me this way’ with a more positive or egalitarian thought, [the ACTV model] encourages behaving with respect toward one’s partner even when having that thought.”

That is not to say that the ACTV model teaches participants to suppress feelings of toxic masculinity.

“If a man’s belief that he is superior to women comes up, ACTV addresses that; it just doesn’t automatically assume that is the thing shaping the men’s behavior,” says Zarling, a psychologist and associate professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University.

She also stresses that the concepts behind the Duluth Model are not wholly wrong or that ACTV is wholly right, but that more empirical research is needed.

Her study showed mixed results.

In terms of participants who acquired a domestic abuse charge one year following their treatment, there was not a significant difference between Iowa’s ACTV and Duluth participants. (Zarling notes the number of transgressors was low and that “it’s really hard to find differences between groups when the outcome measure has such a low base rate.”)

Conversely, data collected from administrative records and female victim reports show that ACTV participants had fewer violent and nonviolent criminal charges and engaged in fewer acts of intimate partner violence after treatment when compared to those in the Duluth group.

“I think this indicates we might be on the right track,” Zarling says. “There have been very, very few successful, randomized controlled trials of domestic violence programming, and I feel very proud of that.”

She adds that subsequent studies and funding for them — such as the grant she received from the federal Office on Violence Against Women — are still needed, as are the resources necessary to train programmers

Nebraska is taking a deeper dive into domestic violence-related deaths to understand and prevent them

When he first began working on a bill to create an administrative body to examine domestic abuse-related deaths, Sen. Tom Brandt says, Nebraska was one of nine states that did not have such a review team in place. The absence of one made it more difficult to identify patterns of behavior and implement preventive measures. (A 2021 report from the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative also found that Illinois and Wisconsin had no or limited-activity review teams in place.)

Working with victims’ families, advocacy groups and others, Brandt developed the framework for a State Domestic Abuse Death Review Team. Run out of the attorney general’s office, the team would investigate contributing factors to these deaths and provide recommendations for change. Members would be privy to a large number of records associated with individual cases, including, when applicable, information from the state prisons.

Brandt initially thought his bill would only get a hearing, and not pass, as it was getting late into the Unicameral’s 2022 session. However, during that hearing, another senator, Wendy DeBoer, asked to include the measure in her own omnibus priority bill, LB 741. “That happens like zero times — that somebody asks to include somebody else’s bill,” Brandt says.

LB 741 passed unanimously and was signed into law in April. The result: Brandt’s vision for a Domestic Abuse Death Review Team is now a reality.

A decade ago, during the Bakken oil boom in western North Dakota, then-Mayor Brent Sanford had a workforce challenge on his hands: employers in his hometown of Watford City, with a population of just 1,744 people at the time, were struggling to attract workers because little or no child care services were available.

Led by Sanford, the city collaborated with the local school district, county officials, the state and the business community to find a unique solution.

City officials identified land for a new child care facility and apartment complex for teachers and first-responders, and a mix of public dollars and business donations allowed construction to commence.

Within five years’ time, a facility with the capacity to serve up to 211 children had opened. Watford City has since grown to about 6,000 residents, and another child care center, with some financial backing from the county, is slated to open in 2024.

Today, Sanford is still immersed in addressing child care shortages, but now for the entire state as North Dakota’s lieutenant governor and Gov. Doug Burgum’s point person on the issue.

“The desire is there [to address the problem],” Sanford says. “It’s not like we have to get attention for it. It’s a matter of figuring out what’s going to be the best return on our investment.”

‘A real workforce crunch’

That task is, in part, up to the Early Childhood Council. Established by the legislature in 2021 (HB 1416), the group includes a mix of lawmakers, child care providers, stage agency heads and child care providers. Sanford serves as chair of the group.

In September, he and Burgum released a framework for 2023 legislative action to address the three obstacles that families typically face: affordability, accessibility and quality of services. While details are to be worked out, Sanford says, various elements of the plan would cost the state an estimated $70 million to $80 million over the next two years.

Ideas include expanding eligibility for families to get state assistance in paying for child care, establishing a state-level child care tax credit (similar to the existing federal credit) for low- and middle-income households, and increasing the rates paid by the state to qualifying child care providers.

Part of the plan also will focus on one of the lessons Sanford learned from his time as mayor and as council chair — the value of partnering with businesses to make work-based child care part of the solution to shortages.

“We’ve got a real workforce crunch with not having enough people for the jobs that are coming in,” Sanford says. “Having anything to offer in the way of child care is a good advantage, so for us to help narrow the gap is most effective.”

Part of North Dakota’s proposal envisions the state providing some kind of matching investment for employers who offer workers a child care benefit (a certain dollar amount to be spent on child care).

Additionally, Sanford says, new public-private partnerships with businesses need to be pursued, particularly to help parents and other wage-earners who work nontypical hours and need a nontraditional solution to their child care needs.

“There’s never enough day care,” Sanford says. “If employers are saying, ‘This is a problem for us,’ that makes a difference.”

North Dakota and many other states in the Midwest are looking for the broader business community to be part of the solution, with policy levers that include tax incentives and grants to build child care capacity.

‘Work that allows other work’

This year in Iowa, legislators established a nonrefundable state version of the federal Employer Provided Child Care Tax Credit.

The goal of the credit is to encourage businesses to establish and operate their own child care facilities, or to contract with existing providers to provide such services to workers.

Under HF 2564, which takes effect in 2023, businesses can get a credit of up to 25 percent for operating their own facility or up to 10 percent for contracting the services (same as the federal credit).

Iowa Rep. Jane Bloomingdale, who led legislative efforts on HF 2564, says mirroring the existing federal tax credit was a simple way to provide a state incentive because legislators didn’t have to re-invent the wheel.

“Right now, we have just a handful of businesses across the state that take advantage of the federal tax credit,” she adds. “I would love to see it make a difference quickly. I’m hoping that the state tax credit will get that to double in the first year and build from there.”

A total of $2 million will be made available to Iowa businesses.

Another strategy being used by Iowa: allocating state grants for individual businesses or employer consortia that commit to building onsite child care centers or providing the care via new partnerships with existing providers.

As of September, Iowa had awarded $75.6 million to 191 projects through the Child Care Business Incentive Grant. The result so far has been the addition of more than 10,700 new child care slots in Iowa.

In November 2021, Michigan launched what it has dubbed a “trishare” pilot program, with employers, qualifying workers and the state itself equally splitting the costs of building up child care capacity.

In different regions of the state, an organization has been tapped to serve as a “facilitator hub,” serving as an intermediary between employers, families and child care providers as well as providing overall management of the tri-share model.

In Kansas this year, lawmakers expanded the reach of a tax credit for employers: a credit equal to up to 50 percent of the costs of opening an onsite child care center, or 30 percent for providing a benefit for workers to access the care somewhere else in the community.

According to the group Kansas Action for Children, the credit previously had been available only to large corporations and financial institutions. This year’s HB 2237 opens up the tax incentive to small businesses as well. Up to $3 million in credits may be issued annually.

Illinois also offers businesses tax credits to offset the costs of starting up and operating a child care facility for workers, as well as a separate program for manufacturers that offer on-site services.

Wisconsin has been one of many states to direct additional federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to child care.

“[It’s] the work that allows all other work,” Wisconsin Department of Children and Families Secretary Emilie Amundson says.

A total of $10 million in ARP dollars has gone to Partner Up!, a grant program for Wisconsin businesses that buy slots at existing child care providers on behalf of their workers.

A ‘funding’ cliff ahead for state child care systems

Increasing the number of available child care slots is a central goal of these new state investments and public-private partnerships.

But states also need to be mindful of the need for more workers to provide the care for children, notes Cindy Lehnhoff, director of the National Child Care Association.

“Right now, we can’t find staff at the wages that providers can afford to pay,” she says. “If you don’t help providers directly, they can’t help their staff. The number one reason they can’t find staff, it’s a lot of hard work — physically and emotionally — for a little bit of money and no benefits or retirement.”

The ARP helped as it was the first federal support for wages in states that chose to use their funds for child care workers, but that assistance is coming to an end, Lehnhoff notes.

The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates the end of pandemic-related federal support for child care will leave states facing a $48 billion funding “cliff,” which, in the Midwest, ranges from $98.5 million in South Dakota to more than $1.6 billion in Illinois and Ohio.

Without sustained federal funding, Lehnhoff predicts, “we’ll probably go backwards.”

Across the country, child care traditionally has been viewed as a service to be delivered by the private market and paid for by individual families — as opposed to publicly funded K-12 schools or universities. As a result, child care subsidies for providers and parents have been limited or nonexistent.

In North Dakota, state involvement in child care will expand if legislators approve the plan unveiled by Burgum, Sanford and others.

Along with the tax credits and business partnership, that plan is likely to include scholarships and on-the-job training for future and current child care workers, along with new grants and quality-based incentives for providers.

But Sanford says there is an important distinction between child care and education: the latter is a constitutionally mandated function of state government, the former is a private-sector endeavor. A teacher gets paid by the state and a local school district; a child care worker does not. That won’t change in North Dakota, Sanford says.

In a bipartisan deal struck in advance of this year’s general election, Michigan legislators changed how some people can vote and when local election officials can begin processing absentee ballots.

The agreement came after protracted negotiations as well as disagreements over the future of Michigan’s election laws, including gubernatorial vetoes of bills previously passed by the Legislature. The governor and legislators ultimately found agreement on four bills: HB 4491, HB 6071, SB 311 and SB 8. Among the provisions in the law: allowing election clerks from counties with 10,000 or more people to begin some processing of absentee ballots two days prior to Election Day. Local officials have said pre-processing will help them manage big increases in the use of absentee ballots by Michigan voters; for example, more than half of the ballots cast in the state’s August 2022 primary were absentee.

Under the new law, clerks will be able to examine and verify the validity of ballots so that they are ready for tabulation, which still will occur on Election Day. According to the National Vote at Home Institute, most states in the Midwest, except for South Dakota and Wisconsin, allow for some pre-processing of absentee ballots, though how this is defined can vary considerably. The institute also notes that five states in the Midwest — Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Ohio — allow early ballots to be scanned into tabulators ahead of Election Day.

Other parts of Michigan’s new law aim to ensure the security of absentee-ballot drop boxes (an alternative to sending in the ballot by mail). Video monitoring and regular inspections of the drop boxes will be required, and new chain-of-custody rules are in place for the handling of ballots from these boxes.

In future elections, too, active-duty military members, who are stationed overseas, will have the opportunity to return their ballots electronically.

Lastly, for communities that struggle to find suitable polling locations, Michigan will allow in-person elections to be conducted at privately owned buildings.