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(08/26/09 4:51pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana expects to receive an initial shipment of more than 800,000 doses of swine flu vaccine in mid-October with additional dosages expected to arrive weekly, state officials have told local health officers. Pregnant women and K-12 students and staff in schools are among the priority groups to receive the vaccines, which likely will need to be administered twice to be effective.
(08/09/09 10:29pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – Adults and adolescents years removed from common childhood diseases should receive booster vaccinations against whooping cough to avoid spreading the potentially deadly disease to infants, health officials and immunization advocates say.A booster vaccine that provides protection against whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria will be required of all students attending Indiana schools in grades 6 through 12 beginning next year, said Kristen Ryker, a preventable disease immunologist with the Indiana State Department of Health.Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, causes 10 to 20 deaths per year in the United States. It caused two deaths of infants younger than 6 months old in Indiana as recently as 2006, the Indiana Adult Immunization Coalition said in a recent report.The disease is most severe in infants, and about half the children under age 1 who get it need to be hospitalized, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. About one child in 10 who gets whooping cough also contracts pneumonia, and about 1 in 50 have convulsions.It takes three vaccinations during a child’s first year to provide full protection.Adolescents and adults also catch whooping cough, albeit with milder symptoms, and put younger children around them at risk, said Dr. Roland Grieb of Terre Haute, the immunization coalition’s former chairman.“The reservoir for whooping cough is frequently adults and teenagers,” Grieb said. “It may be that people say, ‘I’m not at risk and I’m not going to get sick,’ but we put others at risk.”From only about 1,000 reported cases nationwide in 1976, whooping cough has become more common, with more than 25,000 cases in 2005, the coalition said. In Indiana, after only about 100 cases in 2003, the state had more than 350 reported cases in 2004, a peak of 396 in 2005, and 280 in 2006.Indiana had 271 cases last year and 127 through the first seven months of 2009, Ryker said. The disease occurs year-round.“What we are seeing is not unexpected,” Ryker said, noting the cyclical nature of the disease.Whooping cough, which is spread by bacteria, is one of the most common vaccine-preventable childhood diseases, according to the CDC. It spreads through coughs and sneezes, and many children who contract it caught it from older siblings.At first its symptoms are like those of the common cold, with sneezing, runny nose, fever and a mild cough. After one or two weeks, coughing spells can turn more severe, occurring violently and rapidly, until all air has left the lungs and the patient must inhale with a loud “whooping” sound.About 94 percent of children in Indiana are properly vaccinated, but the effectiveness wanes over time, Grieb said, leaving adolescents and adults vulnerable. The coalition said Indiana had about 100 cases in 10- to 19-year-olds in 2004 and 2005 and more than 80 in 2008.“After a certain length of time, immunity does wane and people become susceptible again,” said Dr. Joan Duwve, medical director for the state health department.Adults and adolescents should receive a booster shot called “Tdap” – for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis – that became available in 2005, Grieb said. However, many adults don’t stay current on the boosters, which are recommended every 10 years.“Adults usually get a tetanus booster when the occasion arises that they need it,” Grieb said.The Tdap vaccine is covered by Hoosier Healthwise, the federal Vaccines for Children program and the Healthy Indiana Plan medical savings account for low-income adults, Ryker said.
(08/05/09 11:50pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – A new report says nearly a million Indiana workers lack the education needed to become gainfully employed or to move into better paying jobs but have little financial aid available to obtain the skills they need.The report by the Indiana Institute for Working Families said most state financial aid programs are designed for traditional students ages 18 to 24, leaving low-income adult workers unable to afford more schooling or training.Since 2000, Indiana has lost about 200,000 high-paying manufacturing jobs for which little advance training was needed, and those jobs have been replaced by lower-paying positions in the service sector, the report said.“As a result, we have more and more families struggling to maintain economic self-sufficiency,” lead author Sarah Downing said in an interview Monday.The report said more than a high school diploma is needed for 37 of the “Hoosier Hot 50 Jobs” – high-wage occupations the Indiana Department of Workforce Development predicts will have the largest growth in the state by 2016.Most of Indiana’s state student financial aid programs target low-income traditional students up to age 24 who are still supported by their parents, she said.“However, Indiana dedicates only a miniscule amount of its financial aid dollars (2.23 percent) directly to the needs of working adult students,” the report stated.Workforce Development and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education announced last week that the state received $31 million in federal stimulus funding to award up to $3,000 per year, or $6,000 during two years, for tuition, books and fees for an associate degree or vocational training program – part-time students included.
(01/23/09 3:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – An Indianapolis Planned Parenthood clinic caught in controversy after an undercover video exposed broken rules on reporting sexual abuse also received a state reprimand for sloppy abortion record-keeping.Indiana Health Commissioner Judith Monroe threatened to go to prosecutors if the clinic kept filing official terminated pregnancy reports without such required information as the types of procedures and the medications used. A copy of the Aug. 27, 2008, reprimand obtained Thursday by The Associated Press said a state audit of the clinic’s records submitted in 2007 found 278 were incomplete.“Future Terminated Pregnancy Reports that lack required information will be referred to the Marion County Prosecutor,” Monroe said in a letter to Dr. Michael King, who performs abortions at the Indianapolis clinic, one of three in the state where Planned Parenthood provides abortions.A Planned Parenthood of Indiana spokeswoman said it has resubmitted the records, but a State Department of Health spokeswoman said some cases remain unresolved.Indiana Right to Life, which disclosed the reprimand in a news release, said the Indianapolis clinic in some cases did not reveal either the procedure used or the length of gestation for the aborted fetus.“It raises concerns, when you see both of those factors omitted on the same report,” said Mike Fichter, president and CEO of the anti-abortion group.Indiana law restricts abortions after the first trimester to fetuses that are not viable, unless the mother’s health is endangered, and requires such later-term abortions to be performed in hospital settings.Fichter said some of the Indianapolis clinic’s reports also did not disclose the age of the mother, as required by law. He provided a copy of one report that said the mother had only an eighth-grade education, raising questions about her age. Indiana law requires women younger than 18 to get consent from a parent or a judge before they can have an abortion.Fichter said his group is reviewing reports for all four of the abortion clinics in Marion County, and it has plans to do so for five other clinics across the state.“We found hundreds of incomplete terminated pregnancy reports for all of the abortion clinics in Marion County,” Fichter said.
(01/09/09 2:57am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – Think you know what time your mail arrives each day? Guess again.The U.S. Postal Service is reviewing all of its city routes nationwide and changing some of them to cut costs because mail volume is dropping during the recession.Nationwide, the changes are expected to affect as many as 50 million addresses on 85,000 urban routes. Rural routes already get reviewed each year.“It should be pretty seamless to customers, except they could possibly see a difference in delivery times,” said Al Eakle, a USPS spokesman for the Indiana District.The route reviews began last month and should be finished by the end of February, Eakle said Thursday. Customers, depending on where they live, might already be seeing changes as parts of some routes are consolidated into others.Some letter carriers are saddened by the changes. Bloomington’s Darlene Meyer said she has watched children grow up, kept an eye on homebound customers and returned escaped pets during the nine years she’s delivered her route.Meyer’s is one 2,700 urban routes under review in the Indiana District, which includes about 670 post offices and covers the entire state except for part of southern Indiana.Eakle said the economic downturn affects the Postal Service just as it would any enterprise because businesses have reduced mailings to cut expenses. Through the first eight days of 2009, mail volume in Indiana fell 15 percent to 482 million pieces, compared with 567 million pieces during the same period last year.
(11/12/08 3:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – Descendants of World War I flying ace Harvey Weir Cook celebrated the Veterans Day dedication of a new passenger terminal bearing his name, a belated consolation for the removal of his name from the airport that he helped develop more than 60 years ago.Indianapolis International Airport, renamed from Weir Cook Airport in 1976, dedicated the $1 billion terminal Tuesday with more than a dozen members of the Cook family and others who sought to restore his name in attendance.“We all took it hard,” said Harvey Weir Cook III of Columbus, Ohio, who was among the dignitaries who ceremoniously cut a red ribbon to open the new midfield terminal. “It’s a great honor to have my grandfather recalled this way.”Cook, a native of the Hancock County town of Wilkinson east of Indianapolis, shot down seven German planes as a captain with the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I. He returned to military service in World War II as a lieutenant colonel in 1942 and died in a plane crash the following year in New Caledonia, in the South Pacific.The development of the new terminal sparked an effort by family members, veterans groups and others to return the Weir Cook name to the entire airport, but a compromise with airport leaders resulting in naming the new structure the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal Building. The main road serving it is also named after the flying ace.“The compromise was good,” said Christy Broady, the Wilkinson resident who led the effort, and choosing to dedicate it on Veterans Day was appropriate. “That’s the best. They couldn’t have chosen a better day. We’re recognizing them all, not just Weir Cook.”The new terminal, which has a new gateway off of Interstate 70 west of Interstate 465 and the old terminal, was to receive its first arriving passengers later Tuesday. The first departures from the new terminal were scheduled for Wednesday.The new terminal’s baggage claim area features a display honoring Cook, with memorabilia including his medals, a pair of goggles, personal letters, a pilot’s license and other items.Margaret Locke of Ligonier, a granddaughter of the war hero, said honoring him by naming the new terminal after him was “very special.”“We’re very glad to see this again,” Locke said. “I’m going to miss the old airport (terminal), though.”
(05/11/08 10:54pm)
INDIANAPOLIS – Three-week-old Kevin fussed in mother Melissa Lankey’s arms until she started singing softly to him, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The newborn began dozing within seconds.\n“That’s kind of our little song. It usually calms him right down,” Lankey said.\nLankey did not sing the tune in the baby’s bedroom. She was behind bars at the Indiana Women’s Prison, where a new program allows some inmates to keep their newborns in their cells for up to 18 months.\nThe program debuted last month, becoming the sixth in the nation in a growing trend among state prison systems.\nNew York has had prison nurseries for more than a century; Washington, Ohio, California and Nebraska started ones in recent years, and West Virginia is preparing to launch one, too.\nThe programs come at a time when the nation’s female inmate population is rising.\nThe Bureau of Justice Statistics shows the number of women in prisons and jails jumped from more than 163,000 in 2000 to nearly 210,000 in mid-2006, fueled largely by an increase in drug convictions that carry mandatory sentences.\nMany of those inmates are mothers who experts say benefit from staying with their children, even if it’s behind bars.\nThe Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, whose nursery program Indiana modeled, has seen 14 of its 128 participants re-offend, an 11 percent recidivism rate compared with the institution’s rate among all inmates of about 30 percent, spokeswoman Elizabeth Wright said. New York also has seen a drop-off, said Linda Foglia, spokeswoman for that state’s Department of Correctional Services.\nIndiana hopes for similar results with its program, funded through a $122,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.\nThe Wee Ones Nursery at the 136-year-old Women’s Prison is open to up to 10 imprisoned mothers who are the legal guardians of their children, have never been convicted of violent crimes, and have less than 18 months left on their sentences.\nThe nursery staff includes a pediatrician and a nurse. Inmates who serve as nannies must have committed nonviolent offenses and have reading levels of eighth grade or higher; they also must complete a parenting class.\nThe mothers receive courses on postpartum care, child development, shaken baby syndrome and other topics.\n“We hope that we’ll continue to make the family the unit that it should be and strengthen those that are going back out into the community,” prison Superintendent Zettie Cotton said.\nSome critics contend keeping a baby in prison punishes the child for the mother’s offense. When West Virginia’s House of Delegates debated creating a nursery program last year, opponents warned it might harm the children involved.\nBut studies show the children benefit from the contact, said Mary Byrne, a Columbia University nursing professor who is conducting a study of 100 children born at the adjacent Bedford Hills and Taconic Correctional Facilities in Westchester County, N.Y.\nByrne said children separated from their inmate parents run higher risks for emotional and behavioral disorders, school failure and trouble with the law. The babies born to mothers in prisons generally are better off staying there with them, she said.\n“The outcomes are promising, if the prison nursery programs have the appropriate resources,” Byrne said.\nSerena Garduza said the Indiana nursery, an extension of the medium-security facility’s Family Preservation Program, gives her infant son a better shot at success in life than she had.\nGarduza, 31, grew up in foster care after being taken away from her mother, with whom she has lost touch. She stayed in school only until the ninth grade. On probation for theft and receiving stolen property, she was sent to the prison last December after testing positive for cocaine and gave birth to Ramerio, her fifth child, four weeks ago.\nGarduza and Ramerio now share a cell with a lone window barred by rounds of razor wire – a stark contrast to the crib, bright white curtains and stenciled moon and stars on the powder blue cinder block walls.\n“I know I’m in prison and all that, but I kind of put my mind out of it,” said Garduza, who’s due to leave prison this summer. “When he’s with me, I really don’t feel like I’m incarcerated.”\nThe program recognizes that people make mistakes, said Jennifer Pope Baker, director of the Women’s Fund of Indiana, which picks up parts of the costs of the nursery and the Family Preservation Program. Clothing, diapers and other items are donated.
(03/17/08 12:22am)
State officials say the rollout of the state’s new privatized welfare system is going well enough to expand it to a large swath of southern and western Indiana.\nSome advocates for the needy warn, beware.\nNext week, the Family and Social Services Administration and its private partners are expected to introduce call center services and other automation to welfare delivery in 27 counties arcing from the Ohio River to nearly Lafayette.\nThe expansion will mark a major milestone in the welfare overhaul that aides to Gov. Mitch Daniels began planning more than three years ago. It will mean – at least in FSSA’s eyes – that a pilot under way for five months in 12 northern counties has worked out most of its bugs.\n“I don’t think anybody – nobody – thought we would have near the number of phone calls into that call center that we have gotten,” FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob said.\nCritics, however, say the new system is so flawed in the 12 counties that they called last week for Daniels and the General Assembly to investigate and to halt the rollout in its tracks if necessary.\n“It’s a dam ready to explode,” said John Cardwell, chairman of the Indiana Home Care Task Force, a senior advocacy group.\nThe call center, a Web site and document faxing are aimed at giving welfare recipients more ways to apply or reapply for food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits received by about 1.1 million Indiana residents, or about one of every six. Another goal is to bring uniformity to welfare record keeping from county to county.\nRoob and his top aide on the welfare changes, Director Zach Main of FSSA’s Division of Family Resources, have said repeatedly they are not bound by timetables and will expand the rollout only when it’s ready.\nFor example, the expansion set for next week originally was due to occur in an area twice as large in January, but was scaled down and pushed back.\n“There are a variety of reasons why it’s taking longer, but we have always said, we’re going to get this right and we’re not going to do it fast,” Roob said in an interview last week. “We are changing a system that while brittle, is essential. We have to do it with great care.”\nA coalition of vendors led by IBM Corporation and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. operates the project’s service center in Marion. Call response times once as high as 9.5 minutes have fallen to two to four minutes since the phone staff was doubled to about 80 in mid-January, Main said.\nA glitch in the Web program stymied online applications until it was fixed earlier this month. Online applications then shot up 67 percent to 712 from 426 the week before, Main said.\nThe Marion service center, which also will serve other regions of the state, receives an average of 40,000 faxes and 40,000 documents in the mail each week from the 12-county pilot region, paperwork previously handled at county offices. A second service center is planned for Lake County.\nHelping the clients and the vendors is a volunteer network of 218 agencies in the pilot region that includes faith-based groups, food pantries, homeless shelters, attorneys and others who work with needy people. Main said FSSA has enlisted 169 more so far in the 27-county region coming on next.\nThe volunteer agencies, in some cases, have pointed out problems with the new system, including cases where clients have been denied benefits they deserve, Roob said.\nDespite the improvements Roob and Main point to, advocates for welfare recipients say many people have lost their benefits because of rejected paperwork, long wait times on telephone calls, a shortage of case workers remaining in county offices, and mounting appeals over denied benefits.
(01/10/08 5:00am)
Too bad the title "There Will Be Blood" was taken by that Daniel Day Lewis flick. In this shocking slasher film set to song, so much gore is spilled that the dripping red blood should get top billing.\nWhat might surprise some is that behind this murder and mayhem is a classic musical by Stephen Sondheim. But this is no "West Side Story," folks. The joyous story line and epic song styling of other musicals is absent in "Sweeney Todd," but with the pairing of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp for the nth time, it's no surprise that the dark humor and despair are done masterfully.\nDepp plays Benjamin Barker, a.k.a., Sweeney Todd, a barber convicted of a crime he did not commit. Sent away from London and his wife and daughter for 15 years, Sweeney has returned to Fleet Street, to the room above the meat-pie shop of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), to avenge the loss of his wife and daughter by any means necessary. The means just happen to be slashing the throats of his patrons. Oh, and there's something about the meat in those pies, as well.\nAs Mrs. Lovett, the baker of the worst pies in London, Carter is fair. Playing a weirdo with wacky hair seems to suit her quite nicely. Sacha Baron Cohen also makes a notable, if brief, appearance as a swindler and seller of magic hair tonic. But, as usual, it is Depp who commands the audience's attention. \nIn his complex channeling of Sweeney Todd, there are glimpses of the morose teenager he played in Edward Scissorhands, but Todd is far more sinister than I have ever seen Depp. Even as he carries the tunes beautifully and elicits laughter from the audience, a shroud hangs over his head that is at once disturbing and endearing -- making a movie that is worth your time and money, even if you aren't the "musical type."\nDon't be intimidated by the compositions. Aside from a few lame songs and a sappy side love story, you almost forget you're watching a musical, as the tunes are dark and humorous and Depp brings such a fantastic interpretation that this is a must-see and a no-brainer contender for Oscar gold.
(09/11/07 5:25am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A surge in testing children for lead poisoning prompted by toy recalls likely will have the unintended but greater benefit of revealing lead paint in homes and other household sources, Indiana’s health commissioner said Monday.\nRecalls of toys by Mattel and other distributors has prompted thousands of Indiana parents to test their children for lead poisoning, Dr. Judy Monroe said. Blood tests have turned up unsafe levels of lead in 2 percent to 4 percent of the roughly 1,600 children tested in the state’s most populous county, Marion.\nWhile investigators still are determining the sources of the lead poisoning, most likely it will be paint chips and dust from the interior of homes and other household sources, but not toys, Monroe said.\n“Our No. 1 problem with lead is still old houses, and Indiana has a lot of old houses,” Monroe said in an interview with The Associated Press after testimony she was prepared to give a legislative study commission was postponed Monday.\nLead poisoning can cause damage to the kidneys, nervous system and brain and, in young children, behavior and learning problems. Lead poisoning often goes undetected because its initial symptoms, including abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, irritability and sleeplessness, are similar to common ailments.\n“I think this has raised some really good awareness around the problem,” Monroe said. “Lead poisoning is the No. 1 environmental hazard for children under age 7.”\nThe lead poisoning tests have been prompted by a series of recalls by Mattel and other companies and distributors after they discovered some toys made in China had paint that contained lead.\nThe recalls and publicity about them prompted Monroe’s Indiana State Department of Health to urge local health departments to make lead poisoning tests more available. A testing van in Marion County checked some 500 people at one toy store and 180 people at another location. Hamilton County reported tests by appointment are scheduled through Nov. 21. Montgomery County tested 134 kids in three hours one day, compared with 221 the entire previous year.\nThe recent spike in testing for lead exposure is most pronounced in rural counties, where testing until now has lagged behind urban counties but where the presence of older homes may create a significant threat, said Dave McCormick, director of the Indiana Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at the health department.\nOf all the homes in Indiana, more than 2 million, or 71 percent of the total, were built before 1978, when the federal government outlawed lead-based paint for residential use. Nearly a quarter of Indiana’s homes were built before 1950.\nAlso, it’s much easier for lead to enter the body through paint chips or dust than by chewing on a toy with lead-based paint, McCormick said.\n“The primary purveyor of lead poisoning in children is going to be a house with ... lead-based paint. It’s not going to be a toy,” McCormick said.\nThe surge in testing is likely to continue. Mattel is the world’s largest toy maker, and smaller companies now also are feeling pressure to recall toys that might be contaminated with lead in paint, McCormick said.\n“We keep hearing there’s more to come,” McCormick said.
(07/26/07 4:00am)
Don't be fooled, it's just Fruit Loops inside the Krusty O's box, but holding that sweet, sweet packaging you'll recognize "The Simpsons Movie" as the biggest promotion of the summer. Eleven 7-Eleven stores throughout the country have turned into Kwik-E-Marts, selling Apu's wares. Squishees (Slurpees in a new cup), Buzz Cola (which tastes remarkably like RC) and pink-frosted donuts. Sadly, no Laramie cigarettes or Duff beer since it's a kids movie. \nBloomington's 7- Eleven isn't completely Kwik-E-Marted, but employee Monique Swaby said they still have squishees and Krusty O's, despite one family stocking up with 10 boxes. They're all sold out of Buzz Cola.
(04/24/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – The “In God We Trust” license plates that have quickly become a fixture on Indiana roads came under a legal attack Monday by the ACLU, claiming the law authorizing them is unconstitutional for favoring that message over those on other plates.\nThe lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court claims the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles gives preferential treatment to motorists wanting the plates, which also feature the American flag, because they don’t have to pay the $15 administrative fee that the agency collects on sales of most other Indiana specialty plates.\nThe BMV charges the administrative fees in addition to other costs of up to $25 whose proceeds support the causes of the groups or universities promoted by other specialty plates.\nThe lawsuit filed on behalf of plaintiff Mark E. Studler by the Indiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union names the BMV and its commissioner, Ron Stiver, as defendants.\n“It amounts to a promotion of the plate. The plate is a statement,” said ACLU-Indiana attorney Ken Falk. “There is a cost in Indiana to obtain a general specialty plate and to express oneself in that manner, but there is no cost for an ‘In God We Trust’ plate.”\nBMV spokesman Greg Cook said he could not comment on pending litigation.\nThe administrative fees are split among the agency’s governing BMV Commission, which receives $9, and road-maintenance funds, which receive $6, Cook said.\nThe 2006 legislation creating the plates specified the state could charge no more for them than the cost of its standard plates.\nThe legislation’s primary author, Rep. Woody Burton, R-Greenwood, noted the BMV has distributed more than 515,000 of the “In God We Trust” plates in less than four months. They became available Jan. 1.\n“It seems unfortunate that someone that doesn’t like it would keep others from having it,” Burton said.\nUnlike other license plates that promote ideas or causes such as the arts, the Indianapolis Colts and service groups, the “In God We Trust” plates do not benefit any faith group or other organization, Burton said.\n“It is not a special-interest plate,” he said. “It is a stock item. It’s the motto of the country. It’s on the dollar bill.”\nTo express his support for Indiana’s environment, Studler pays $40 more than normal registration fees for an “Environment” specialty plate, the complaint said. Of the total fee, $25 goes to a state trust to buy land for conservation and recreational purposes; the remaining $15 goes to administrative costs.\nThe complaint said “it is not reasonable to charge Mr. Studler administrative fees that are not assessed against persons who purchase the ‘In God We Trust’ plate.”\nFalk said Studler was one of more than 10 people who have approached the ACLU with objections to the new license plate including the disparity in fees compared to other specialty plates. They allege that the BMV is encouraging customers to choose the new plates over the other standard plates bearing the state’s Web site address, www.in.gov.\n“We’ve received numerous complaints, many of them saying it’s violation of separation of church and state, others complaining about the disparity, and about the encouragement,” Falk said.\nCook of the BMV said the “In God We Trust” plates cost the agency $3.69 each to produce, compared with $3.19 each for the standard plate with the Web address.\nHowever, since the BMV is replacing the latter with a new standard plate in 2008, the popularity of the “In God We Trust” plate might result in agency savings next year. Customers receiving the “In God We Trust” plates this year will need to receive only renewal stickers the next four years rather than new license plates, Cook said.\nHowever, the BMV does not promote the “In God We Trust” plate, which generally is available only through license branches and not through mail-in or Internet renewals, Cook said.\nThe “In God We Trust” plates currently appear on less than half as many cars as those bearing the standard plates, Cook said. That ratio does not include trucks and recreational vehicles.
(04/23/07 4:00am)
Two years can make a huge difference.\nWith great fanfare, Gov. Mitch Daniels held a news conference to accept a ceremonial, oversized check that included $12.7 million in federal grants for programs serving homeless people around the state. That was 2005.\nBut when Indiana received its latest federal homeless funding, it had little to celebrate. Funding plummeted to $3.57 million, or just 28 cents on the dollar compared with 2005, to feed and house homeless Hoosiers, train them for jobs and provide other services.\nAs state officials and advocates prepare their request for the next round of funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, some say the state needs to start putting money toward affordable housing if it expects to bring home a greater share of the federal grants.\n“It should be a call to action for all of us, but especially the state of Indiana, to make an investment in people who are most vulnerable and most at risk,” said Michael Reinke, executive director of the nonprofit Indiana Coalition on Housing and Homeless Issues.\nHe said at least 60,000 Indiana residents are homeless at some point in a year’s time.\nOthers see it differently. Rodney Stockment, who has a key role in preparing the state’s request for the limited HUD homeless funds, said homeless programs seeking federal grants need to find other money – not only from the state but from their home communities, foundations and other sources – so Indiana’s application scores better.\n“When it’s a limited pot of money, it’s very competitive,” said Stockment, community services manager at the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority.\nHUD announced Feb. 20 that it was distributing more than $1.2 billion in Continuum of Care grants to thousands of local programs across the nation. Besides the $3.57 million received for programs across Indiana, Indianapolis collected $4.28 million after submitting a separate application. Emergency shelters received an additional $3.05 million.\nBut none of eight new projects proposed for Bloomington, Fort Wayne, Evansville, Gary, Kokomo, South Bend, Bloomington and other communities received HUD approval, and 37 existing programs that had come up for renewal received only a single year of funding rather than the normal multiple years.\n“It’s been really very disappointing to us,” said Linda Baechle, executive director of the YWCA of St. Joseph County, which was seeking $393,750 over three years to add six apartments to the eight it now has for women with chronic mental illness, developmental delays or physical disabilities.\nStockment, Reinke and program heads like Baechle say Indiana’s funding dropped for a number of reasons:\n–Many of Indiana’s homeless are families, but HUD places more priority on those considered “chronically homeless” – single individuals with disabilities such as mental health problems who have been homeless for at least a year. They comprise 10 percent to 20 percent of the homeless population but use half of all services.\n–Indiana does not score well when it comes to leveraging other sources of funding to complement HUD funds. Indiana was prepared to match 92 cents for every $1 of HUD funding, but HUD required $2.\n–Indiana needs more affordable housing for low-income families and individuals.\nReinke’s coalition, which helps prepare the state’s application to HUD, reported last week that many people resort to homeless programs because the state does not have enough affordable housing. In the first three months of the year, more than 3,200 heads of households entered programs across Indiana. Of those, 30 percent had stayed the night before with friends or family, 19 percent had been in their own or rented homes, and 11 percent had come from a jail, hospital or substance abuse treatment center.\n“While many people think of homelessness as a personal crisis, there is a statewide lack of affordable housing with dire consequences,” Reinke said.\nUnlike its four neighboring states, Indiana does not put any money toward affordable housing, he said.\nLegislation that would have generated millions of dollars in such funds each year cleared the Indiana House of Representatives 62-36 this session but did not receive a committee hearing in the Senate, and it appears dead. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeb Bardon, D-Indianapolis, said it died in the Senate because builders and real estate agents objected to a provision that would increase county recording fees for mortgages and deeds to raise the housing funds.\nSo now it’s back to the drawing board. Stockment said he has enlisted the Chicago-based nonprofit Corporation for Supportive Housing to help Indiana on its new application, which is expected to include more than 60 projects seeking HUD funding. The corporation helped Chicago score well in the last round.\nBut Baechle and other program chiefs know that getting all the funds Indiana needs won’t be easy.\nChristian Center Rescue Ministries in Anderson doesn’t take HUD funds because it bars them from proselytizing, Executive Director Scott Richards said, but if other HUD-funded programs shut down, he’ll feel the impact.\nHis agency houses 54 men, women and children and will serve an estimated 60,000 meals this year.\n“We didn’t get hit by the torpedo, but we’re standing on the same boat,” Richards said.
(03/26/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mitch Daniels withdrew virtually all of his highway bypass toll-road proposals Saturday, telling legislative leaders they had proven too unpopular with the public.\nDaniels, however, asked lawmakers to still consider an approximately 10-mile section of the proposed Illiana Expressway in northwest Indiana, between Interstate 65 and the Illinois state line.\n“It is clear to me that we are far from the degree of consensus that is necessary before the embarking on major public works projects of high local impact,” he said in letters to House Transportation Committee Chairwoman Terri Austin, D-Anderson, and Sen. Thomas Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.\nThe unusual Saturday announcement from the governor’s office signaled he was conceding defeat on his two toll-road proposals in the face of opposition that he initially had acknowledged March 15. A series of public meetings since then on the proposed 75-mile Indiana Commerce Connector around part of Indianapolis showed the opposition remained as strong as ever.\n“The overwhelming sentiment was opposition to this proposal or a complete and thorough study,” Austin said Saturday. “Additional information was needed before it moved forward.”\nEven the portion of the Illiana Expressway that Daniels still wants considered might be relegated to a legislative study committee, she said.\nAustin said the governor’s retreat on the toll-road proposals gives lawmakers “an opportunity to take a more in-depth look at mass transit in Indiana,” such as commuter trains. She is sponsoring a bill that would require the Indiana Department of Transportation to study the feasibility of mass transit in six different regions of the state.\nThe GOP-led Indiana Senate had approved a bill to give Daniels the authority to seek private funding to build the toll-roadway projects, but the legislation faced a rocky road to passage in the Democratically controlled House of Representatives.\nAt a House hearing on mass transit that Austin helped organize last week, some lawmakers said privately that the meeting was only intended to divert attention away from Daniels’ toll-road proposals.\nTwo state representatives from northwest Indiana said earlier this month that residents of that area opposed the Illiana Expressway, which would stretch 50 miles from the Illinois state line to Interstate 94 in Porter County. A legislative forum sponsored by Citizens Against the Privatized Illiana Toll Road drew a crowd of about 1,000 people.\n“The people of the affected areas have spoken clearly enough to persuade me that these ideas are, at best, premature,” Daniels said in his letters Saturday.\n“By contrast, an Illiana bypass from I-65 west seems to be broadly supported and can, I hope, be given the chance to move forward,” the letters said.\nThe Associated Press left telephone messages Saturday seeking comment from Wyss and the House Democratic leadership.\nWhen Daniels announced the Commerce Connector proposal in November, he said the state could collect about $1 billion by allowing a private entity to pay to build and operate it as a toll road looping east and south of Indianapolis. That money could help the state pay for the I-69 extension from Indianapolis to Evansville, he said at the time.\nDaniels’ press secretary, Jane Jankowski, said Saturday’s announcement will not affect the I-69 project, construction of which is due to begin in fall 2008.\nThe state has $700 million in the bank from the Indiana Toll Road lease to pay for its share of I-69 construction from Evansville to the Crane area west of Bedford, she said, adding the Daniels administration will have to find new ways to come up with additional funding.
(03/19/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – The outsourcing of much of Indiana’s welfare safety net reaches a key milestone Monday when more than 1,500 workers leave their state jobs to join a group of private vendors with a 10-year contract designed to streamline the way people receive benefits.\nThose former employees of the Family and Social Services Administration still will help people apply for and continue receiving food stamps, Medicaid and other aid, but not as state case workers. They’ll now be employees of Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc., a partner in the IBM Corp.-led group calling itself the Hoosier Coalition for Self Sufficiency.\nAt stake is the smooth, uninterrupted delivery of benefits depended upon by 1.1 million children, seniors and needy and disabled people, or one of every six Indiana residents. The administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels has wagered $1.16 million on a successful outcome, making the contract one of the richest in state history.\nNot everyone shares the administration’s confidence, especially after Texas abruptly canceled a similar contract last Monday. The Food and Nutrition Service, the federal agency that oversees the food stamp program, imposed new demands on FSSA last week so it can better monitor the progress of the IBM coalition. Advocates also are watching closely to make sure the privatization doesn’t leave gaping holes in the safety net for vulnerable Hoosiers.\n“It really does behoove everyone in Indiana to look at this carefully as it unfolds,” said Patti O’Callaghan of Lafayette, president of an advocate network called the Indiana Coalition for Human Services. \nExtensive meetings and letters among FSSA and federal officials and IBM coalition staff have led to safeguards aimed at preventing big problems in the new public-private welfare eligibility partnership. Those safeguards include a more detailed contingency plan at the request of the Food and Nutrition Service, with various scenarios anticipating things that can go wrong.\n“Specifically, the plan must include a contingency to respond rapidly if the state or FNS determine the number of state merit staff is not sufficient,” the federal agency’s Midwest regional administrator, Ollice Holden, wrote in a letter dated Wednesday to FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob. FSSA has since told Holden that it has such a backup plan in place.\nFederal law says only state merit staff can authorize food stamps. Two-thirds of the about 2,200 FSSA employees involved in that work last week no longer will work for the state come Monday morning. About 600,000 Indiana residents receive food stamps.\nLosing state case workers emerged as a huge problem in the Texas privatization. FSSA has tried to head off that problem by guaranteeing the state workers jobs with its private partner, a step Texas did not take.\nZach Main, director of FSSA’s Division of Family Resources, said his agency has learned from Texas’ mistakes and won’t repeat them. Most importantly, he said, Indiana’s outsourcing involves only collecting the documents needed to verify a client’s eligibility for welfare programs. The Texas program also called for installing a new computer system and major program changes.\n“In our analysis, Texas took too big a bite of the apple. They were attempting to change too many parts of the system at one time,” Main said in a prepared statement.\nHowever, a union representative for the affected FSSA workers said Indiana risks making a similar mistake as Texas by cutting loose too many state merit employees.\nDave Warrick, executive director of Council 62 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, also said that many departing FSSA employees have little confidence that the new system will adequately take of clients.\n“They don’t see how the structure that they’re creating is going to work,” Warrick said. “There’s a lot of worry.”\nUnder the new system, the IBM coalition will collect rent receipts, medical records and other data and make recommendations to state workers on the benefits a welfare client should receive. The state will roll out the new system in a 12-county region surrounding the city of Marion, Ind. beginning Sept. 10.\nWarrick expects a high turnover rate among the workers leaving FSSA to join ACS, which also employed Roob as a vice president before he became FSSA secretary. In the past, the turnover among state case workers has been as high as 35 percent, although worker rolls have been much more stable in recent years, he said. Many FSSA employees felt they had no choice but to take the ACS jobs for now.\n“It’s not the same job they were doing,” Warrick said. “I know of case workers who are taking what is offered right now with ACS, but they are out there looking because they are not happy with what has happened with their jobs.”\nCelia Hagert of the Austin, Texas-based Center for Public Policy Priorities said FSSA cannot guarantee its former case workers will remain in the system and be available to be rehired by the state if need be, as Main is counting on.\n“You just can’t plan for what your work force is going to do,” Hagert said.
(02/28/07 5:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – AT&T will hire 425 people for previously-outsourced call-center jobs under an initiative to reinvest in the state after a sweeping telecommunications reform bill passed the Indiana Legislature last year.\nAT&T will create the technical support jobs for its national broadband operations at its state headquarters in downtown Indianapolis, George Fleetwood, president of AT&T Indiana, said at a Statehouse news conference Tuesday.\nThe union jobs will pay more than $40,000 annually in wages and benefits, he said.\nAT&T already has begun hiring managers for the call center, but full staffing might not occur until 2009, company spokesman Mike Marker said. The center is due to start taking calls in July.\nThe state will provide up to $1 million in training funds and income tax credits, and the city will provide more than $279,000 in personal property tax abatement to AT&T, which will invest more than $4.6 million in new equipment and other upgrades, state and local economic development officials said.\nThe call center jobs previously had been outsourced, but AT&T chose to bring them back in-house at Indianapolis because the passage of the telecom reform bill encourages the industry to invest in the state, Fleetwood said.\n“I think these jobs could have been placed anyplace in the country where we do business,” Fleetwood said. Of about 20 states that have tackled telecommunications reform in the last few years, Indiana has done so most comprehensively.\n“We at AT&T believe no one has done it better than Indiana,” he said.\nThe General Assembly last year approved legislation that frees telephone companies from state regulations and changes the way the cable industry works.\nSince then, in addition to Tuesday’s announcement, AT&T and Verizon have announced they would expand high-speed DSL Internet service to 102 rural communities, and Verizon and Comcast have said they will create 375 new jobs in the state. AT&T last month also launched an Internet television service in Anderson, Bloomington, Indianapolis and Muncie, among just 11 markets nationally, Fleetwood said.\nGov. Mitch Daniels and lawmakers also have said that Indiana consumers can expect to see lower prices for cable and other services.\nDaniels said AT&T had promised to invest more in Indiana if the reforms passed.\n“I’m just thrilled that their response has been not only so large and so fast, but, as George just said, stretches from our smallest towns ... to now the heart of our largest city,” Daniels said.\n“The single best thing that we can do is build the best sandbox in America, build the best environment and climate for companies of all kinds,” Daniels said.\nPeterson said cities and towns were grateful that the Legislature, AT&T and the Daniels administration considered their interests in the deregulation.\n“We really feel that we were not just listened to but respected and were able to have some meaningful input into the final piece of legislation,” Peterson said.
(12/01/06 4:22am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana would pay an IBM-led team $1.16 billion over 10 years for help upgrading programs for food stamps, Medicaid and welfare but would retain state control over eligibility decisions under a reform plan made public by Gov. Mitch Daniels on Wednesday.\nIBM also would create 1,000 new jobs in Indiana over four years -- including 850 in the first two years -- and provide more than $8 million in computer equipment and services to the state.\nThe Family and Social Services Administration also would spend $500 million internally on the plan.\nThe Daniels plan envisions improving the delivery of the public safety-net benefits system received by one in six Hoosiers by making it easier to apply through the Internet and telephone call centers. It also aims to use computers to drive the process with self-surveys instead of time-consuming interviews to ease case workers' paperwork and reduce error and fraud.\nIBM also would provide hardware, software and three researchers to upgrade a supercomputer on the IU-Bloomington campus. Purdue would share ownership of the upgraded supercomputer, which would also serve Indiana's life sciences industry. IBM also would establish a $2 million technology center on the Bloomington campus that could foster Indiana economic development and would provide up to 400 hours of free consulting services to the Indiana Economic Development Corp.\nThe proposal still needs approval from federal officials who oversee the benefits distributed to about 1 million children and needy, elderly and disabled Indiana residents. However, administration officials were confident they would gain that approval and begin the changes by late spring in a phased rollout expected to cover the entire state by late 2008.\nThe plan addresses the administration's desire to reform an increasingly expensive and error-riddled benefits system while trying to avoid pitfalls encountered by other states and guaranteeing jobs to FSSA workers whose duties are being outsourced.\n"There isn't going to be a perfect system, but this can only be dramatically better than what's going on," Daniels said in an interview with The Associated Press, which was given a copy of the plan before Wednesday's announcement.\nThe IBM contract would be one of the most expensive in state history.\nBut state officials said outsourcing improvements to the public benefits system would save Indiana $490.8 million compared with the estimated $2.1 billion cost of the upgrades. It would also save $341.6 million from what FSSA would spend by 2017 if it retained its current system, they said.\n"Saving taxpayers a half-billion dollars and cleaning up America's worst welfare system have to be number one," Daniels said when asked to assess the plan's benefits. "Bringing a thousand new jobs to the state of Indiana is a great event anytime it happens."\nFSSA's plan to outsource processing of benefits to private companies, first made public a year ago, has sparked concerns that Indiana might encounter some of the privatization problems as other states, including Texas, where some applicants' benefits have been delayed.\nResponding to those concerns, Daniels six months ago appointed a team of aides from outside FSSA to review the agency's plans. The team, led by Daniels' chief of staff, Earl Goode, examined problems in Texas and Florida, made significant changes to the FSSA plan and helped negotiate the contract with the consortium led by IBM.\nThat group also includes Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc., which employed FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob as a vice president before he took over the state's largest agency nearly two years ago.\n"This will be, I can assure, the best-maintained, the best-complied-with contract in state history," Goode said.\nUnder the plan, state employees would retain decision-making over eligibility for not only food stamps and Medicaid, but also welfare benefits, subsidized child care and non-Medicaid-related Hoosier Healthwise insurance benefits for needy families.\nAlso, out of about 2,200 current FSSA employees now performing the benefits work, the revised plan doubled the number that would be retained by the agency to about 700. The remaining 1,500 FSSA employees were essentially guaranteed jobs with the consortium for two years at no less than equal pay and benefits.\nEach of Indiana's 92 counties would retain an office where people could apply in person for benefits under the plan. The Internet, e-mail and telephone call centers would create greater access for benefit applicants and recipients.\nThe phased rollout would begin by late spring with 10 percent of the state's caseload centered on Grant County in north central Indiana, then in southern Indiana (25 percent), northwest Indiana (25 percent) and finally central Indiana (40 percent). No new phase would begin before the previous one was complete.\nThe 1,000 new jobs would be created by IBM at an Indiana customer service center whose location has not been determined yet.
(11/10/06 4:34am)
Three Indiana Democrats set their sights on carrying change to Washington after helping their party take control of the U.S. House, a victory that left Rep. Pete Visclosky poised Wednesday to become chairman of a powerful appropriations subcommittee.\nRepublican Rep. Mike Pence, meanwhile, announced his bid to lead the new GOP minority with an appeal for a renewed commitment to the restrained federal spending and limited government that swept his party into power in 1994.\nVoters Tuesday returned Baron Hill to the southern Indiana seat he held for three terms through 2004 and also elected newcomers Joe Donnelly in the northern 2nd District and Brad Ellsworth in the southwestern 8th District.\nTheir victories, besides returning House control to Democrats, also gave the party a 5-4 edge in Indiana's congressional delegation.\nEllsworth, who voters elected by an overwhelming majority to defeat six-term incumbent Rep. John Hostettler, said work needs to be done immediately to dissolve a vicious partisan divide in Congress and build a consensus about Iraq.\n"Iraq is still first and foremost on everybody's mind," Ellsworth said. "I don't want to find that impossible to reach across the aisle."\nHill said voters sent a message they want a new course in Washington, with Congress providing more oversight of the Bush administration. Voters also want the two political parties to work more collegially on the war in Iraq and other challenges confronting the nation.\n"I don't believe we can leave Iraq right now, but we can't stay there indefinitely," Hill said during a news conference Wednesday at the Clark County Democratic headquarters in Jeffersonville, Ind. "And the president's message of staying the course is the wrong message because it tells the people of Iraq that we're going to be there forever."\nVisclosky stands to have a greater voice on Iraq policy as the third-ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, which oversees $400 billion and 30 percent of the federal budget.\nThe Merrillville Democrat, who has co-sponsored legislation with prominent war critic Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., on drawing down troop levels in Iraq, noted Wednesday's resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and pending recommendations by a commission headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana.\n"I hope there is an opportunity here and a change is expeditiously made," Visclosky said in a telephone interview from Washington.\nVisclosky stands to become chairman of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee, which controls more than $30 billion in spending for the Energy Department and other agencies. He has used his minority seat on the subcommittee to help win $9.5 million for an ethanol plant in Rensselaer, Ind., and said the nation must invest in new energy sources to end its dependence on oil.\n"This is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed," he said.
(09/24/06 12:34am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- NCAA Division I universities improved this year in considering minority candidates for head football coaches, but more progress is needed and resorting to civil rights laws might be necessary, the Black Coaches Association said Thursday.\nWith only 10 minority head coaches currently among more than 200 Division I-A and I-AA schools that are not historically black institutions, universities must appoint more minority coaches and more diverse search committees for vacant positions. Evidence shows the latter leads to more minority coaches being considered, the BCA said.\nIf that means applying Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race, so be it, BCA executive director Floyd Keith said in a teleconference with reporters.\n"I think we'll have to put a magnifying glass on searches," Keith said. "Change is not something that has been as quick as we'd like to see it."\nThe third annual report card, released Thursday, showed mixed results. While a record 12 of the 26 Division I-A and I-AA schools received overall grades of A, a record six schools also received F's, including five that received the failing marks for not reporting to the BCA on what steps they took to consider minority coaches. They included perennial Big Ten power Wisconsin and two other I-A schools, Rice University and Boise State University.\nAmong 414 coaching vacancies in Division I-A since 1982, only 21 blacks have been hired, a huge disparity given the number of minority athletes on the playing fields, the BCA said.\n"The BCA wants the best candidate to be chosen irrespective of race," said Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, in the report's forward. "With only five African-American head coaches in the 2005 season, college football is emphatically the most segregated position in all of college sport"
(06/01/06 2:12am)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Six sexual offenders including convicted child molesters and rapists sued the city Wednesday to block a new ordinance that bans them from coming within 1,000 feet of parks, pools, playgrounds and other sites when children are present.\nThe six, including a college student who has joint custody of his 7-year-old son and has completed probation for child exploitation, are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which filed the complaint seeking class-action status in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.\nThe six allege the new ordinance is unconstitutionally vague, violates their rights to vote and attend church and prevents them from freely traveling on streets and highways that may pass within 1,000 feet of the affected sites. They are seeking temporary and permanent injunctions barring the city from enforcing the new law.\n"It is virtually impossible to travel through the streets and interstate highways in Marion County without passing within 1,000 feet of a playground open to the public, recreation center, bathing beach, swimming pool or wading pool, sports field or facility," the complaint said. "Moreover, there is no way for a person to know if he or she is passing within 1,000 feet."\nThe ordinance cleared the City-County Council by a 25-2 vote May 15 and took effect immediately. It carries fines of up to $2,500 for violations.\nThe law includes an exception that permits sex offenders to visit those sites as long as they are with another adult who is not a convicted sexual offender.\nThe plaintiffs are identified only as John Does in the complaint. The father of the 7-year-old boy attends Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis and said he cannot travel to classes without passing within 1,000 feet of a banned site. He also works in an office within 1,000 feet of a city park with a playground.\nAnother plaintiff, a convicted rapist, attends a church that recently opened a recreation center. Both he and a third plaintiff say the new law prevents them from attending their polling places on Election Day.\nThe Associated Press left a message with the city's legal office seeking comment on the lawsuit.