April 2025

On Friday, March 28, Senate Democrats released their budget targets for the 2025 legislative session, which outline spending increases and cuts across various state programs. It includes reductions in health and human services, education, environment, energy, and transportation.

Beginning April 14, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is installing LED chevron signs along curves on highways in in Kandiyohi, Lac qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Pipestone, Redwood, Renville, and Yellow Medicine counties. Chevrons are being installed to provide enhanced safety for drivers. The chevrons have simple LEDs powered by a solar panel. They are generally illuminated all day unless it is cloudy for an extended period.

For the month of April, WRAP would like to discuss sexual assault, awareness, and prevention. Since 2001, the month of April has been coined as the National Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) and has helped to make huge strides to bring awareness and a voice to survivors of sexual assault. Statistically, every 68 seconds someone in the United States is sexually assaulted, which is a total number of 531,810 people that were sexually assaulted in the year 2022 alone. The state of Minnesota reported at least 8% of 8th graders experienced sexual assault, and the numbers double to 16% in the 11th grade for experiencing sexual violence. 34% of reported youth survivors stated their abusers were family members and a staggering 93% of youth survivors reported they were violated by someone they knew. Recent statistics show that by adulthood one out of every five females have experienced completed or attempted rape and one out of every four males have been sexually assaulted during their lifetime. As alarming as these statistics are, it is estimated that only 21.4% of sexual assaults have been reported. Many survivors of sexual assault do not report the crime for multiple reasons which could include fear, embarrassment, shame, cultural barriers, or lack of resources to get help.