What’s on your mind, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Ryan Foley’s August 3 story for the Associated Press was disturbing on several levels. A “Serious Mismanagement Report” described a “decade of dysfunction” at the Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast Iowa. Between 1999 and 2010, “78 construction projects costing a total of $3.4 million were approved there in violation of federal laws meant to protect archaeological resources and historic sites.” Also troubling: National Park Service officials have suppressed the report’s publication and recently denied that it existed. They have commissioned another team to write a separate (less critical) review of Effigy Mounds operations. National Park Service deputy regional director Patricia Trap delivered some unintentional comedy when she said, “I’m not denying some serious mismanagement […] But also there were actions taken along the way that were actually appropriate management.” I’m so relieved to know that Effigy Mounds officials handled some matters appropriately in addition to the seventy-eight projects that failed to comply with federal law.

Iowa Public Radio’s Morning Edition with Clay Masters interviewed Foley about the mismanagement and next steps at Effigy Mounds. Click through for the audio and transcript.

The Des Moines Register published a front-page piece by Grant Rodgers on August 5 about the “uncertain future” for Iowa’s regional drug courts. Those courts steer defendants into treatment rather than prison, turning lives around at lower cost than incarceration. “Yet despite their popularity among prosecutors, judges and community leaders, several Iowa drug courts have experienced sluggish legislative funding – so much so that they now are in jeopardy,” Rodgers reports. What a classic case of penny-wise and pound-foolish budgeting by state legislators who brag to their constituents about fiscal responsibility. With an ending balance (surplus) of at least $300 million expected for Iowa’s budget in the 2016 fiscal year, it’s ridiculous that the drug court in Council Bluffs will shut down on October 1, with courts in Burlington and Ottumwa “at risk of closing” later this year.

The front page of today’s Sunday Des Moines Register features a depressing must-read by Tony Leys about former residents of the now-closed Iowa Mental Health Institute at Clarinda, which “cared for some of the frailest and most complicated psychiatric patients in the state.” Of the eighteen people who lived in the Clarinda facility earlier this year, eight

were transferred to four traditional nursing homes, all of which are rated “below average” or “much below average” on a federal registry. The four facilities are in the bottom 29 percent of Iowa nursing homes for overall quality, according to the Medicare registry. Two of those eight patients died shortly after their transfers.

I’ve enclosed excerpts from all of the above stories after the jump, but I recommend clicking through to read the articles in their entirety.

From Ryan Foley’s August 3 story for the Associated Press, “National Park Service buries report on effigy mounds scandal”:

The National Park Service has shelved a blistering internal report that details a “decade of dysfunction” as the agency allowed dozens of illegal construction projects to cause significant damage to an ancient Iowa burial ground that Indian tribes consider sacred.

Titled “Serious Mismanagement Report,” the document blasts the park service’s failed stewardship of the Effigy Mounds National Monument from 1999 to 2010 and says the case should serve as a wakeup call for agency employees at all levels to avoid similar violations.

Last week, NPS deputy regional director Patricia Trap told a resident who requested a copy of the 15-page report that it didn’t exist. She later told The Associated Press that it did exist but hadn’t been “agency approved.” She said the document will contribute to – but be replaced by – another review that is looking at the root causes of problems as well as what went right during that time. […]

The report says 78 construction projects costing a total of $3.4 million were approved there in violation of federal laws meant to protect archaeological resources and historic sites. The construction of boardwalks, bridges, roads and a shed damaged land around the mounds, and many had a “complete lack of compliance” as employees failed to conduct the mandatory environmental reviews and tribal consultation.

The report was written by a four-person review team led by National Park Service special agent David Barland-Liles, who conducted a lengthy criminal investigation into the violations. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cedar Rapids declined to charge then-superintendent Phyllis Ewing and monument maintenance chief Tom Sinclair with violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act in 2012 after concluding the agency’s “weak and inappropriate initial response” undermined a criminal case and would make them sympathetic defendants, the report reveals.

From the front-page Des Moines Register story by Grant Rodgers on August 5, “Some Iowa drug courts in jeopardy, advocates fear”:

The drug court in Council Bluffs that takes offenders from nine southwest Iowa counties is set to close Oct. 1. And advocates say two regional drug courts covering 14 southeast Iowa counties, as well as Burlington and Ottumwa, also are at risk of closing.

It’s a worrisome prospect at a time when local and national politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, have called for reforms aimed at reducing America’s prison and jail populations, particularly nonviolent offenders such as drug users. […]

“I’m not exactly the touchy-feeliest prosecutor in the world, but I have certainly seen it change peoples’ lives,” Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber said of the Council Bluffs drug court. “It has been able to intervene in their lives, break the cycle of addiction and turn people who were continual, repetitive problems for us into productive members of society.”

[…] The Council Bluffs closure and the uncertain future for the courts in Burlington and Ottumwa is a result of how [drug courts] now are funded and administered.

Parole and probation services in Iowa are under the control of regional departments of correctional services, divided over eight geographic districts. The districts’ money comes from the Legislature, but each has its own board and budget.

Drug courts rely on the districts to provide probation officers who can mentor and oversee participants and give administrative support.

The system doesn’t guarantee any statewide uniformity in the availability of drug courts, Wilber and others said.

One example of that funding instability happened this year, when a 2.5 percent salary increase went into effect July 1 for all Department of Corrections employees, but legislators funded only an eight-tenths of a percent increase in the department’s overall $381.6 million budget, said Brad Hier, deputy director of administration for the department of corrections.

That money wasn’t enough for all the districts to pay salary increases and maintain services at the same level, he said.

“I had to make a choice on whether to cut a program or people,” said Kip Shanks, the southwest Iowa district director who chose to close the Council Bluffs drug court in the face of a $240,000 shortfall.

From Tony Leys’s front-page story for the August 9 Sunday Des Moines Register, “Ex-Clarinda patients sent to range of nursing homes”:

Until this spring, [Karen] Wininger was one of 18 residents at a state program for elderly people with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. The program was housed at the Iowa Mental Health Institute at Clarinda, which Gov. Terry Branstad ordered closed earlier this year, saying it was outdated and inefficient. More than half the residents were sent to private nursing homes.

Supporters of the Clarinda program said it cared for some of the frailest and most complicated psychiatric patients in the state. Wininger was one of two residents who wound up at the Davis Center, a well-rated nursing home that specializes in handling elderly people with mental illness.

But eight others were transferred to four traditional nursing homes, all of which are rated “below average” or “much below average” on a federal registry. The four facilities are in the bottom 29 percent of Iowa nursing homes for overall quality, according to the Medicare registry. Two of those eight patients died shortly after their transfers.

[…]

Janice Scalise, the sister of one of five longtime Clarinda patients sent to the Perry facility, said state officials assured her it was a good place. But she is now working to have her sister, Carole, transferred to the specialized and more highly rated Bloomfield facility.

Scalise said her sister, who has schizophrenia and serious diabetes, has declined dramatically since being taken out of the Clarinda institution. Carole Scalise, 63, uses a wheelchair, and she has fallen several times while trying to get up in the middle of the night, her sister said. […]

Dean Lerner, who used to be Iowa’s top nursing home regulator, said he isn’t surprised that two of the 18 patients died shortly after transferring out of the Clarinda institution.

“That decision was made with great haste, and little to no regard for the health, safety and welfare of the people being transferred,” said Lerner, who was director of Inspections and Appeals under Branstad’s Democratic predecessor and remains a fierce critic of the current governor. “Transfer trauma is a well-studied consequence of moving frail elders, and anybody with even the slightest research and knowledge would know that and would make sure they accounted for it.”

Lerner said the Medicare nursing home quality rating system is imperfect but is improving. He said that families should be wary of moving a loved one into a nursing home that is rated poorly on the Medicare website – and that the state should have hesitated before sending former Clarinda patients to such facilities.