State Roundup

Lansing
House GOP calls for savings from merger of depts.
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s House signaled it won’t try to block the proposed merger of the state’s Community Health and Human Services departments, but it will seek cost savings as a result.
A budget approved for Community Health on Tuesday by a House Appropriations subcommittee included around $2.2 million less for administrative costs. That signals the House Republican majority will let the merger advance but demand increased efficiencies.
The merger, proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder in a recent executive order, could be stopped if a majority of both the Senate and House voted for disapproval before it takes effect April 10.
Neither chamber’s Republican majority appears interested in that tactic for now, despite intense questioning of DCH Director Nick Lyons about the merger during a joint committee hearing last month.

Kincheloe
State plans to reopen U.P. prison
KINCHELOE, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Department of Corrections plans to reopen the Hiawatha Correctional Facility after making security upgrades at the Upper Peninsula facility and to close a nearby prison.
The department determined that it was less expensive to upgrade security at Hiawatha Correctional Facility, which closed in 2009, than to make similar changes at the nearby Kinross Correctional Facility, The Evening News of Sault Ste. Marie reported.
The Hiawatha prison will take on the Kinross name when it reopens, which will likely happen in October, department spokesman Chris Gautz told The Associated Press on Tuesday. No layoffs are planned.
The idea for the changes came from the warden at the current Kinross Correctional Facility, who looked the costs, Gautz said. Kinross has a larger perimeter area to secure, meaning fencing upgrades would cost a lot more, but the department will keep the facility if needed for the future.
Infrastructure and security enhancements for the Kinross Correctional Facility were conservatively estimated at $10.6 million, department officials said, while the cost to reopen Hiawatha Correctional Facility was estimated at less than $8 million.
Utility costs also are expected to be lower at the reopened facility, about $1 million a year compared with $1.7 million per year. The Kinross facility is a former barracks that wasn’t designed to house prisoners; the Hiawatha facility currently is used as a training site.
As part of the changes, officials plan to reopen two closed housing units at the Chippewa Correctional Facility, which is in the same area, Gautz said.

Kalamazoo
Vaccination rates for school kids edge higher
KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — State numbers say vaccination rates for Michigan schoolchildren are edging higher.
The Kalamazoo Gazette reports 92 percent of Michigan kindergartners were fully vaccinated in the fall of 2014 compared with 91.9 percent in fall 2013.
Jennifer Smith, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Community Health, says officials have “definitely focused our efforts in the last few years on educating our communities about the values of vaccines.” The state is awaiting numbers from some schools.
State officials have expressed concern about Michigan’s vaccine waiver rate for school children whose parents opted them out of immunizations for highly contagious diseases such as measles and whooping cough.
The state says about 5.2 percent of Michigan’s kindergartners had vaccination waivers in the fall of 2014 compared with 5.8 percent in fall 2013.

East Lansing
MSU involved in new gamma-ray observatory
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University researchers are studying high-energy gamma and cosmic rays coming from extreme forces in the universe at an observatory in Mexico.
The East Lansing-based school is among 14 U.S. and 10 Mexican universities collaborating at the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory. The facility is the newest tool available to visualize interplanetary events, such as black holes, dark matter and exploding stars, and learn more about the nature of high-energy radiation.
The observatory will continuously monitor a wide field of view to observe two-thirds of the sky every 24 hours.
Michigan State professor Jim Linnemann says the new survey instrument will allow researchers to examine an unbiased view of the sky in high-energy light.
The facility is located more than 13,500 feet above sea level near Puebla, Mexico.

Hancock
Hospital to pay $4.4M in federal settlement
HANCOCK, Mich. (AP) — A northern Michigan hospital has agreed to pay the federal government more than $4.4 million to settle allegations that its home health care agency submitted false claims to Medicare.
The settlement was the result of a self-disclosure to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services by Portage Hospital, LLC, in Hancock. The federal agency claimed services provided by a staff physical therapist to Medicare home health care patients weren’t medically necessary, lacked adequate documentation and didn’t qualify for payment.
The agency alleged the therapist failed to establish patients’ homebound status and need for therapy services.
U.S. Attorney Patrick A. Miles, Jr. says the hospital should be commended for disclosing the matter and helping to protect the integrity of federal health care programs.
Hancock is on upper Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula.