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.
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
The school said in its lawsuit that both Hugo and May Township consider the land rural residential zoning, and that the codes identify a school as a conditional use. Hugo officials have generally supported the LCA plan, granting a building permit in 2022 that allowed LCA to invest $2.1 million into the former Withrow school for renovations.
The school said in its lawsuit that the existing septic system is failing and needs to be replaced, regardless of expansion plans.
The school said it notified neighbors of the property in 2022 and again in 2023 about its land purchase. About 50 residents in total attended those meetings, and just two expressed concerns over the issues of traffic and lights, according to the suit. The school met with the May Township board in May of 2023, and minutes from that meeting show that the board had no concerns beyond lighting at the time, according to the suit. The board asked if the school could use “down lighting” for its athletic fields and the school said it would.
In June, Hugo City Council approved a conditional use permit for the school, but the May Township board voted to extend the decision deadline to early August.
The suit says it was at a subsequent meeting in July that May Town Board Chairman John Pazlar objected to the plan for the first time, saying “the main concern, based on public comment, is to keep Town of May rural.”
The school said its plans for the May Township portion of its property had been submitted eight months prior to the July meeting, and that its plans met requirements of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
