DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa has exhausted its challenges to a lawsuit filed by a former state employee who said an agency fired him because of a work injury, and the costs to the state could top $1 million. The Iowa Supreme Court declined this month to hear an appeal from the state connected to a 2013 lawsuit filed by former Iowa Department of Natural Resources worker John Vetter. The move affirms a May 2017 ruling from the lower Iowa Court of Appeals that sided with Vetter.

Vetter alleged he was fired in 2013 after a work-related injury to his back. Following a 2015 trial, a district court judge ordered Iowa to pay more than $930,000. The state appealed. The judge is now determining final costs associated with the appeal. Vetter’s lawyers say new expenses like interest and attorneys’ fees have increased the total due to more than $1 million. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office declined to comment.

The Medicare Open Enrollment period is winding down and an expert says you should be sure to look and see if there might some changes needed in your plan. Julie Brookhart of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says open enrollment ends on December 7th. “This is the one time of year when all people with Medicare can make changes to their current coverage if they want to,” Brookhart says. “So, Medicare health and prescription drug plans, they can make changes each year to things like the cost of the premiums and the cost of the benefits.”

Brookhart says it is a good time to compare plans to see if a change could cost you less. “For example a person’s prescription drug needs may change over a year. They might find a more cost effective plan for the actulay drugs they take,” She explains. “So you need to pay attention to the annual notices of change you get for the current plan.” Brookhart says there is a lot of help available to walk you through the various plans. “You can either go to our website Medicare-dot-gov if you are computer savy, or have someone help you. You can also call 1-800-Medicare, which is 1-800-633-4227.And those customer service reps can also help you,” according to Brookhart.

She says there are some simple steps to take during the enrollment period to ensure that your plan is personalized to best address your health care needs. “Review your current plan and any mailings you get i the mail from your current plan to see if there is anything changing,” Brookhart says. “Think about what matters most to you. Do you need to switch because you have added new drugs or dropped some drugs from your current plan. Is there a specialist in your plan for a surgery coming up? You may need to switch for that reason alone.”  Brookhart says you can also check to see if you qualify for payment help based on your income. “There’s an extra help program that pays for some of your out-of-pocket drug costs. And these are for low-income single persons or couples,” Brookhart explains. “And you can apply for this extra help program through Social Security as they determine eligibility.”

More than 600-thousand Iowans are enrolled in Medicare.

(Radio Iowa)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Sioux City officials have found they were mistaken about a wastewater service charge to three neighboring cities. The officials thought they’d discovered the neglected charge during an audit and notified officials in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa; North Sioux City, South Dakota; and South Sioux City, Nebraska, that Sioux City would begin imposing the 7 percent charge.

Sioux City officials have since learned they were wrong. Utilities director Mark Simms told the Sioux City Journal Wednesday that additional research uncovered a nearly four-decade-old document that showed the service charge was folded into the existing rates. Simms says Sioux City has notified the other cities that it had made a mistake and would not be levying the charge.

The head of the state’s prison system says in the past decade, Iowa is one of just two states in the country where there’s been an increase in homicides, robberies, rapes AND aggravated assaults. Iowa Department of Corrections director Jerry Bartruff says at the same time, the number of paroled prisoners who commit another violent crime is “creeping up.” “So if you see an increase of crime in the community and an increase in crime of people that have been returned to the community, that tells me that we’ve got something that we need to do differently,” Bartruff says.

Bartruff says Iowa remains ‘fairly safe” and this data is “somewhat skewed” as PERCENTAGE increases “look huge” because Iowa’s population AND crime rate is small. However, the prison director says while there was a 10 percent DECLINE in violent crime in Iowa cities with more than 50-thousand residents last year — there was a 50 percent INCREASE in violent crime in Iowa cities with fewer than 10-thousand residents. “We think that we can be part of the solution, but this data us to say: ‘We’ve got to do something,'” Bartruff says.

Eighteen years ago, the Iowa Department of Corrections began collecting data on prisoners behind bars AND those who’d been released. Bartruff says in 2015, the data analysis was ramped up, to come up with a more precise reading on which prisoners are the best candidates for parole. The “ultimate goal” — Bartruff says — “is an Iowa with no more victims.” “We think with the things that we’re doing now…in 2027 we believe we can see a a reduced prison population, we can see recidivism reduced, we can criminal justice costs lowered and we can see a safer Iowa,” Bartruff says. “That’s where we want to go.”

There are nearly 83-hundred inmates inside Iowa prisons today. About 20-thousand people are on probation, with nearly four-thousand others being regularly monitored by a parole officer. Bartruff’s agency is also monitoring about 17-hundred other people who are awaiting a criminal trial.

(Radio Iowa)