The first bills are in the hopper! Senate Bill 2 of the 2020 Session revisits an issue that fizzled in the 2019 Session, an effort to support a centralized mental health crisis hotline. In last year’s Session, an interim committee on mental health services tried to direct the Department of Social Services to expand the state’s 211 service to help prevent suicide, domestic abuse, and child mistreatment. The 2019 Legislature ran around the bush a couple times on funding that proposal before finally passing 2019 SB 8 with a new statute saying DSS “may cooperate with and support with a fifty percent match rate for each county in the development and maintenance of a statewide centralized resource information system accessible to any resident of this state.”
Fully funding that hotline would have cost $800,000; DSS has poured more money than that ($975,387, according to this morning’s check of the state checkbook) paying a Minneapolis ad agency to tell the world that We’re On Meth™. 2020 SB 2 seeks to draw DSS’s attention back to providing actual social service by replacing may with shall in the hotline statute created by last year’s bill.
However, SB 2 removes the fifty percent match rate, leaving the door open for DSS to say to the counties, “Yay, great idea! We support you!” and consider such moral support to fulfill SB 2’s new mandate.
If the Legislature is serious about improving hotline resources for folks with mental health crises, they’ll need to bring some amendments to put our money where their mouth is on Senate Bill 2.
Sigh. As usual, all hat and no cattle. Look, ma, we’ve got a bill, but no money! As always, when someone asks, how are we going to do something good and practical without money, the response is always “Let it be a challenge to you.” While hiring more staff for the governor.
Yep, do more and more with less and less. Soon, we’ll be doing everything with nothing.
With Economic Oaf’s farm crisis taking such a toll on farmers and small towns, while his usual manifestations of craziness stress out so many people, the need for mental health services is way up. Suicides are climbing along with addictions. If Klueless Kristi and the SDGOP really want to “be on” something, funding adequate mental care is a very good first choice.
New Ideas for the South Dakota Legislature … It’s not always known where South Dakota is headed but it’s certain California will get there first. Read some new California legislation.
– To be more specific, 870 laws were enacted in last year’s California regular session, according to a state report. But some of them — like Assembly Bill 420, which established a cannabis research program — went into effect immediately, while others won’t go into effect until later.
– The state’s new rent cap, a major step meant to address the housing crisis, is one of those.
– There are a lot of unsettled questions about the rollout of the state’s landmark gig labor law which stops corporations from labeling Uber and Lyft drivers as contract labor. Companies who employ truck drivers have been exempted for a year. (freelance journalists and photographers won’t be temporarily exempted.)
– One of the most contentious and closely watched debates over a piece of legislation last year ultimately resulted in some of the nation’s toughest standards for the use of force by the police. It requires that officers use deadly force only “when necessary in defense of human life.”
– If someone is barred from having a gun in another state, they’re not allowed to have one in California, either.
– Californians must have health insurance, according to a new individual mandate, essentially replacing the Affordable Care Act mandate eliminated by the Trump administration. Penalties won’t go into effect until 2021, however.
– Starting in 2021, the state will have to have a standardized system for issuing, tracking and, in some cases, reviewing medical exemptions from vaccinations. But starting on Jan. 1, doctors who issue five or more exemptions in a calendar year will be subject to review.
– California’s minimum wage increased to $13 an hour for employers with 26 or more workers and $12 an hour for employers with fewer. Lots of cities also bumped up their minimum wages.
– Democratic state lawmakers gathered on Monday to unveil the broad contours of a California Green New Deal, which they said would accelerate the state’s climate goals and help narrow inequality.
– Berkeley became the first city in the country to ban natural gas in newly constructed low-rise residential buildings. Bellingham, Wash., is talking about going even further: banning natural gas heating in existing homes, too.
– Big salad is coming: At Sweetgreen’s Culver City headquarters, the company’s leaders talk about making the fast-casual salad chain into a “food platform.” Sweetgreen’s hexagonal, compostable bowls have become status markers.
– A Kansas-based developer wants to build $1,000-a-month “affordable” housing pods in San Francisco’s Mission district. They would also be underground.
– In Los Angeles, PragerU is making easily digestible videos in hopes of offering members of Generation Z a right-wing alternative to what its acolytes see as a world bent on educating them to be liberals. And it’s growing.
– A newly introduced bill would make California the second state to ban flavored tobacco, which one of the bill’s authors calls “death bait.”
– Impossible Foods’ follow-up to the Impossible Burger will be Impossible Pork, coming first in sausage form to Burger Kings in five states.
Media Matters has a harsh appraisal of the nasty and dishonest Prager U.
is.gd/74XUVI
New Ideas for the South Dakota Legislature – It’s not always known where South Dakota is headed but it’s certain California will get there first. Read some new California legislation.
~ Starting this year, routine pediatric visits for millions of California kids will include screening for toxic stress. That could involve questions about sensitive topics like divorce or a parent who struggles with alcoholism.