Daily Digest: Kids in trouble

Good morning and welcome to Wednesday. It's another busy day, so let's go directly to the Digest.

1. Nearly 40,000 Minnesota children were suspected of being abused or neglected in 2016, 25 percent more than 2015, state officials said Tuesday in a worrisome report that also noted a huge jump in maltreatment investigations. The data posted by the Minnesota Department of Human Services didn't explain the increases in detail but said the spike likely came from "increased awareness about child protection issues, changes in how reports are reviewed and a growing opioid crisis." Children in struggling families — those stressed by poverty, unemployment and addiction who lack social support — are particularly at risk, the department said. (MPR News)

2. The state’s top tax collector is warning that spending cuts in House and Senate budget bills could result in long delays in processing tax returns and refunds. Minnesota Department of Revenue Commissioner Cynthia Bauerly told reporters Tuesday that the tax-filing season is going well, with 88 percent of the 2 million filed returns processed, and another 900,000 returns expected in the coming days. But Bauerly is concerned about next year. She said the Republican-backed bills to fund state government operations over the next two years would result in deep cuts and the loss of about 200 employees. The chair of the House state government finance committee isn't buying it. (MPR News)

3. A statewide effort to alleviate Minnesota's chronic shortage of psychiatric beds by freeing up space at state mental hospitals would be thrown into jeopardy under budget proposals before the Legislature, the head of Minnesota's largest state agency warned Tuesday. During a visit to a community mental hospital in Baxter, Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper said a proposed $600 million reduction in the human services budget would force the state to reduce staffing and capacity at state-operated mental facilities, reversing a year of progress in expanding access to treatment for psychiatric patients. (Star Tribune)

4. On a 5-2 vote Tuesday, the St. Paul school board chose Joe Gothard, superintendent of Burnsville-Eagan-Savage schools, to be the new St. Paul superintendent, pending contract negotiations. Gothard, 45, has been Burnsville superintendent since 2013 and previously was a principal and assistant superintendent in his hometown Madison, Wis. St. Paul increasingly is losing students to charter schools and schools in neighboring districts, and the lost revenue associated with falling enrollment has exacerbated budget problems. Gothard inherits a projected $23 million gap between revenues and expenses next year. (Pioneer Press)

5. Republicans pulled out a victory in Kansas in the first of four U.S. House special elections to replace GOP congressmen named to top jobs in President Donald Trump's administration, but the next contest for a seat in Georgia could be tougher to hold. The margin of victory Tuesday for Kansas Republican Ron Estes in the 4th District special election was seven percentage points compared to a 31-point margin in November, when incumbent Mike Pompeo was running before he was appointed Trump's CIA director. In a further warning sign for Republicans, Estes narrowly lost the district's most populous county around the city of Wichita to his Democratic opponent James Thompson, a political newcomer. Trump won that county by 18 points. (AP)

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