Star Tribune
Hennepin County Board split on hospital system budget, some frustrated over ‘lack of transparency’
The Hennepin County Board split Tuesday over the 2024 budget for the hospital system commissioners oversee, with several saying they were frustrated by a lack of transparency over how the spending plan will affect caregivers.
The $1.5 billion budget for Hennepin Healthcare Services, which runs Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) and several clinics, was approved on a 4-2 vote, but only after some commissioners said they wanted more oversight of worker benefits and the pay of top leaders.
Caregivers at the county’s safety-net hospital have repeatedly told commissioners that recent changes made by leadership to their health insurance will mean higher premiums and less comprehensive coverage. Workers say the changes will make it harder to attract new caregivers to HCMC, which is already understaffed and struggles to meet patients’ needs.
Jeremy Olson-Ehlert, a registered nurse and union leader at HCMC, said he was glad to see the County Board push for more transparency from Hennepin Healthcare about its finances. He noted the County Board’s actions Tuesday wouldn’t fix the current benefit changes that workers were unhappy about.
“You gotta start somewhere,” Olson-Ehlert said.
Commissioners Angela Conley and Jeffrey Lunde both voted against approving Hennepin Healthcare’s budget, saying they wanted more information about the health care system’s financial situation.
“I don’t know how you can cut benefits and recruit staff,” Lunde said.
The County Board has oversight of Hennepin Healthcare and approves its annual budget. The county also provides about $28 million in annual funding for uncompensated care.
Jennifer DeCubellis, Hennepin Healthcare CEO, has told the County Board the hospital system faced a $127 million budget gap and had to make changes to benefits rather than cut elsewhere. Employee benefits remain among the best in the region, she said.
The spending plan was approved after a majority of commissioners backed changes from Board Chair Irene Fernando that stipulated Hennepin Healthcare provide more information about benefit changes and the impact on employees. The County Board also needs to be told before top leaders receive pay increases.
In a statement, DeCubellis thanked the County Board for approving the 2024 budget and its partnership with Hennepin Healthcare. She emphasized the serious financial challenges of the health care sector and the ongoing struggle to attract and retain caregivers.
“Health care financing is broken. The funding it takes to deliver the provision of care doesn’t adequately make it to provider organizations as it should,” DeCubellis’ statement said. “This is not sustainable.”
Marion Greene was the only commissioner to vote against the increased oversight, saying the changes were unnecessary because the county is already responsible for overseeing Hennepin Healthcare.
“We need to exercise the powers we already have,” she said.
Caregivers in several unions who work at HCMC were critical of DeCubellis recently receiving a 15% pay raise. She will earn roughly $1 million in 2023. The health system’s board has said DeCubellis’ pay is competitive.
Board OK’s 2024 county budget
The County Board also approved a $2.6 billion tax and spending plan for 2024 that includes the biggest hike in property taxes in more than a decade.
The 6.5% increase in the property tax levy will raise about $60 million in new revenue that will primarily go to workers’ wages and benefit costs. Property taxes are the county’s biggest source of revenue and will raise about $991 million next year.
The impact on homeowners depends on where they live, the makeup of the local tax base and other levies on the books. The owner of a median value home, which is $391,600, will see an increase of about $38 annually.
Star Tribune
Biden calls out Musk over a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked in the US illegally
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk for hypocrisy on immigration after a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked illegally in the United States. The South Africa-born Musk denies the allegation.
”That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here. No, I’m serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t in school. He was violating the law. And he’s talking about all these illegals coming our way?” Biden said while campaigning on Saturday in Pittsburgh at a union hall.
The Washington Post reported that Musk worked illegally in the country while on a student visa. The newspaper, citing company documents, former business associates and court documents, said Musk arrived in Palo Alto, California in 1995 for a graduate program at Stanford University “but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his startup. ”
Musk wrote on X in reply to a video post of Biden’s comments: ”I was in fact allowed to work in the US.” Musk added, ”The Biden puppet is lying.”
Investors in Musk’s company, Zip2, were concerned about the possibility of their founder being deported, according to the report, and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa. The newspaper also cited a 2005 email from Musk to his Tesla co-founders acknowledging that he did not have authorization to be in the U.S. when he started Zip2.
According to the account, that email was submitted as evidence in a now-closed California defamation lawsuit and said that Musk had apllied to Stanford so he could stay in the country legally.
Musk is today the world’s richest man. He has committed more than $70 million to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other GOP candidates win on Nov. 5, and is one of the party’s biggest donors this campaign season. He has been headlining events in the White House race’s final stretch, often echoing Trump’s dark rhetoric against immigration.
Trump has pledged to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.
The only debate between DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and GOP challenger Royce White started Sunday on the street outside WCCO Radio.
As White approached the building, he loudly called some two dozen flag-waving and cheering Klobuchar supporters a “whole lot of commies.” The 33-year-old provocateur and podcaster also told them to thank Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney — who endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris — because there was “no chance in hell” that Harris would defeat Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
Klobuchar, 64, had arrived moments earlier, smiling and wishing “good morning” to her supporters. Once inside, the two took questions for an hour from moderator Blois Olson. Their tone was generally polite with White often interrupting a Klobuchar response with, “rebuttal,” indicated he wanted to respond.
The senator repeatedly raised White’s claims on X, formerly Twitter, that “The bad guys won in World War II” and that there were “no good guys in that war.” She called that stance offensive to veterans.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives at WCCO Radio for a debate with Royce White in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 27. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii)
Klobuchar, who is seeking a fourth six-year term, portrayed herself as a pragmatist. She opened by saying that we live in “incredibly divisive times politically” but that she has listened and worked with Republicans to bring down shipping costs, drug prices for seniors and to help veterans and push for more housing and child care.
“Courage in this next few years is not going to be standing by yourself yelling at people,” she said, her opening allusion to White’s rhetoric, which she said is often vulgar.
White, a former NBA player, is a political novice, but a close ally of Steve Bannon, the jailed former chief strategist for Trump and right wing media executive. Last summer, White won the state GOP endorsement to run against Klobuchar.
“Our country’s coming undone at the seams. I think we can change that,” White said in his opening statement. He said he threatens the status quo, decried the “permanent political class” and referred to the two major parties as the “uniparty.”
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted ”missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be ”over 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
