This week the Center’s research director Marnie Werner talks about the Center’s newest publication, “A quiet crisis: Minnesota’s child care crisis.” The number of in-home family child care providers has dropped precipitously in the last ten to twenty years, and it causing problems not just for families but for their employers as well.

Minnesota’s child care crisis

One of the highlights of Farm Fest every year is its educational panels, featuring everyone from scientists and government officials to candidates running for office talking about the big topics in agriculture. This week, the man who organizes those panels, Kent Thiesse, joins us to give us a preview of who will be there and what they’ll be talking about. Farm Fest takes place Aug. 2-4 at the Gilfillan Estate near Redwood Falls.

Farm Fest 2016

Fred Nolan, executive director of the Minnesota Rural Education Association, joins us this week on RuralMN Radio to talk about a tax relief measure that has gotten caught up in the activity of the recent legislative session. The bill, which would provide tax relief for ag land when it comes to school facility bonding, was included in the tax bill and passed by both houses, but fell to a pocket veto. Now farmers and school districts are waiting to see what happens.

School funding, ag land and the special session

We talk with Brad Finstad, CEO of the Center for Rural Policy and Development, to discuss just what happened at this year’s shortened legislative session, where rural Minnesota is at, and what might happen next.

A look at the 2016 session

The Center’s research director Marnie Werner joins Jim to talk a little more about broadband. One of the points that came out of the research behind our Broadband 101 articles was the idea that communities should have latitude when it comes to deciding what kind of technology to use to bring broadband to their homes and businesses, and that the state should be cautious about setting too many restrictions at too high a level.

Broadband 101: Local latitude

The Center’s CEO joins us again this week to talk about the legislative session so far. Some of the other issues that are hot at the Capitol are broadband, local government aid, and because it’s a bonding session, infrastructure in general. It’s a short session, an election year, and adding to the pressure, construction workers are waiting to get into the Capitol to get their work done. So expect the unexpected.

The legislative session so far, pt. 2