Note: This is a two-part blog post. This first post covers the Senate hearing broadly. The second post, found here, goes into detail about the differences between the two main Senate and House bills implementing child protection task force recommendations. That post also includes discussion from the Senate committee hearing when relevant.
Senate Committee Hearing Overview
On Monday, January 26, the Senate Committee on Health, Human Services and Housing heard SF 4, the companion bill to HF 191, which was heard in a Health and Human Services Reform Committee hearing last week. (You can watch the Senate hearing here/listen here, and watch the House hearing here/listen here.) Both bills would implement several recommendations from the Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children. Senator Kathy Sheran, the author of SF 4 and Task Force member, said that SF 4 was the first bill on making reforms to Minnesota’s child protection system, stating that more bills will come later.
Senator Sheran introduced her bill during a short presentation to the committee, during which she mentioned that several individuals have spoken out about reactionary policymaking based on a single case. To that, Senator Sheran said,
“This is unfortunate and inadequate characterization of our work, and of the hard work of the children’s defense organizations who have been trying to get our attention over many sessions. It is unfortunate that it took the death of Eric Dean to get movement on a long-standing concern about the need to improve our system, that’s expressed from many of our reporters, our teachers, the courts, and those working very hard with increasing cuts to their funding to protect vulnerable children…If the reporting of Eric Dean’s death and the missteps along the way to this horrific outcome causes us to look harder, good for the press and good for the Governor for initiating this effort to improve our efforts to protect vulnerable children in situations where they have no power or ability to assert themselves.”
She mentioned her concern over how much child protection funding has been reduced over the years, how different tax capacities in counties affect the county child protection system’s ability to provide services and resources, and how children can have different outcomes based on the child’s race.
Senator Sheran also talked about the strengths of Minnesota’ child protection system, especially compared with other states. Like Representative Kresha last week, Senator Sheran mentioned the need for more resources for workers to do their job, to not “cast blame,” and to have a strengths-based approach and have families be a part of the solution. In instances where that cannot happen, Senator Sheran iterated the need to intervene on behalf of children and said that in the future, the legislature needs to look at Minnesota’s foster care system to see where the gaps and inadequacies are.
One of the testifiers, Stacy Hennen of Grant County and the President of Minnesota Association of County Social Service Administrators (MACSSA), said that counties would like to be considered a full parter in seeking substantive changes, but that counties need resources in order to implement these reforms. She asked that the state consider its level of support for child protection services. Senator Carla Nelson asked about additional costs that might be incurred, based on this bill. Hennen responded that since the goal is to make sure that screening is more accurate and consistent, there would need to be a higher level of training for staff, and sending staff to training is expensive because it takes time away from the agency and increases workloads elsewhere. Additionally, screening in more reports would require more staff to respond to reports and adhere to timelines. Hennen also pointed out that county attorneys and law enforcement might feel that there is an increased cost.
After lengthy discussions, the bill ultimately passed as amended and was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.