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Home | Politically Connected | State Politics
Key group absent from vets home debate
As legislators consider bills on expansions and upgrades, a council charged with outlining a vision hasn't been named.
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Even as state officials are looking at how to begin helping aging veterans who still live at home, the Legislature is taking up bills to invest millions of dollars in a new veterans nursing home and rebuild parts of the flagship Minneapolis Veterans Home.
Notably absent from the emerging debate is a new advisory council that Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced three months ago he would appoint to chart a new course for the five state-owned veterans homes after he dissolved the previous governing board and moved the homes to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"This is when we really need that group," state American Legion Commander John Cox of Mahtomedi said before a legislative hearing on veterans homes bonding requests. "We're talking about millions of dollars and possibly conflicting goals without a real plan for where we're going."
Pawlenty changed leadership of the homes on Nov. 19 after years of periodic regulatory and care problems at the Minneapolis facility. That change -- and a plan to provide help to frail veterans still living at home -- were among recommendations from a commission that Pawlenty named to study problems at the Minneapolis home.
But that placed the homes in an agency with scant nursing home experience and led by a deputy commissioner for veterans health who took over two months ago.
"We're doing our best, but we're starting kind of at ground zero," said Veterans Affairs Commissioner Clark Dyrud, who began his career in the 1970s as a security guard at the Minneapolis home and was an ex officio member of the governing board that Pawlenty dissolved. "We're fast learners, but we're still learning."
'There is no long-range plan'
Dyrud has faced sharp questions from legislators about whether his department's $42 million in bonding proposals for the homes fit the department's long-range plans for serving veterans.
On Tuesday, after testifying at a Senate Agriculture and Veterans Budget and Policy Committee, Dyrud acknowledged that "there is no long-range plan."
Work has not started on one because the advisory council, which would advise Dyrud, has not been appointed, he said.
The sticking point has been finding a physician or nurse practitioner to sit on the nine-member board because none of the 32 applicants has that qualification and the governor's office has not yet found a volunteer, Dyrud said.
Still, the Senate committee on Tuesday approved the department's bonding request of $7 million to upgrade the five homes; $1 million to tear down a crumbling board and lodging building on the Minneapolis campus; $26 million to replace that building with a state-of-the art nursing home, and $8 million to upgrade the existing Minneapolis nursing home's ventilation system.
It also approved a request for $8 million as the state's 35 percent share to build a new $22.6 million veterans nursing home in Willmar, and a competing bill for a similar home in Montevideo, 37 miles away. Under the Montevideo proposal, local fundraising would pay the state's share of the building cost, with the federal government paying the rest.
Those proposals will face strong competition from efforts to finance other big-ticket items, including the state's transportation system.
"Here's where that advisory health council could really help," Cox said.
"Here we are with legislators trying to figure out whether to build new veterans homes and we don't even know yet what kind of services we need," he said. "It's very frustrating."
Warren Wolfe • 612-673-7253
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Current state office holders
Governor: Tim Pawlenty
One of only a few prominent Republicans to win a competitive re-election contest in the Democratic sweep of 2006, Tim Pawlenty is widely seen as politically shrewd and naturally likable.
- Lt. Governor: Carol Molnau
- Secretary of State: Mark Ritchie
- Attorney General: Lori Swanson
- State Auditor: Rebecca Otto
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