Star Tribune
Minnesota nursing board considers firing its executive director after licensing, discipline delays
The Minnesota Board of Nursing set an emergency meeting Thursday to consider replacing its executive director amid complaints of delayed licensing approvals and disciplinary actions.
Kimberly Miller became director of the nursing board in August 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. That crisis and the fall 2022 nursing strike flooded the board with licensure and temporary permit requests. But complaints and the board’s own budget request suggested problems beyond those events.
While Miller “took the brunt of the COVID mess” her leadership resulted in multiple complaints from workers, many of whom quit, and even clashes with board members, said David Jiang, who resigned from the board in August 2022 to attend law school in California. Jiang in his resignation letter to Gov. Tim Walz faulted the board for a lack of oversight, and allowing Miller to handle the staffing problems she helped create.
“It’s been over a year since we’ve been aware of these issues and its always been punted,” Jiang said in an interview Wednesday.
The Star Tribune in January reported that nursing school graduates weren’t getting cleared by the board to take their licensing exams, delaying their start dates at hospitals and clinics and contributing to the statewide nursing shortage.
ProPublica and KARE 11 in April reported on the board’s delayed disciplinary actions that allowed nurses accused of dangerous practices to stay on the job. The two media outlets first reported on Tuesday that the board had scheduled the emergency meeting.
Internal documents provided by former nursing board staff showed that delays started with the use of a single, tightly-controlled email account for multiple board activities. Questions and complaints to that inbox would sit for 30 to 60 days before they were assigned to appropriate board staff. In some cases, board staff would be pressing nurses with second or third requests for information that had already been filed to the inbox.
“The delay in responding to practice questions is unprofessional and reflects poorly on the Board,” said one email from a board staff member to Miller.
The board’s most recent biennial report showed that the time to resolve disciplinary complaints had increased to 250 days, and that last June there were 320 complaints that remained unresolved after more than one year.
Eric Ray quit his job as a discipline program assistant shortly after Miller took charge of the board. In a recent email to the Star Tribune, he said the delays are even worse than reflected by the statistics. The timeline doesn’t start until Miller codes complaints for investigations, Ray said, and many of those complaints sit for weeks in the board’s inbox.
Ray said it “is truly alarming from a public safety standpoint” and that a handful of disciplinary cases remain unresolved after five years.
The Minnesota Office of Management and Budget had received and reviewed multiple complaint about Miller, but spokesperson Patrick Hogan said privacy laws prevented elaboration on them. Nursing board president Laura Elseth confirmed Thursday’s meeting but said state privacy laws prevented her from discussing the “nature of complaints” against Miller.
Walz had requested funding increases to maintain the nursing board’s current level of service, including $237,000 per year to add three staff members.
“The Board is not able to meet consumer and applicant expectations for timely licensure processing,” the budget stated.
The nursing strike led to a doubling last year of “licensure by endorsement” applications by nurses in other states who were seeking to move to Minnesota or provide temporary nursing care for short-staffed hospitals and clinics. However, state officials expect that demand to continue this year, as burnout has caused a nursing shortage statewide and a continued need for contract and temporary nurses to cover shifts in Minnesota.
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings