Clara Bates
Reporter | The Missouri IndependentClara Bates covers social services and poverty for The Missouri Independent. She previously worked for the Nevada Current, where she reported on labor violations in casinos, hurdles facing applicants for unemployment benefits and lax oversight of the funeral industry. She also wrote about vocational education for Democracy Journal. Bates is a graduate of Harvard College and a member of the Report for America Corps.
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Jessica Bax is the new director of the Missouri Department of Social Services. -
Robert Knodell has been hired to be the next city manager of Poplar Bluff after 3 years leading the Department of Social Services. -
The officer whose testimony led to Kurtis Watkins' 25 year sentence had a history of racist social media posts and a mistaken identification of another Black man that led to his death in custody. -
The aid was intended to be distributed during summer break, to help vulnerable kids avoid a drop-off in nutrition while they were out of school. -
The Children’s Division is almost fully staffed now — a “remarkable turnaround” from the hundreds of vacancies it had in recent years. The backlog is now down 80% since earlier this year. -
The backlog, which has left daycare providers on the brink of closure, was originally supposed to be resolved by the end of July. -
Around this time last year, a quarter of nursing homes hadn’t been inspected in at least two years. Now the number is closer to 3%, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data. -
Foster kids are being housed in hospitals, people are waiting for months in jail to be transferred to psychiatric facilities, daycares are struggling to remain open and low-income kids are losing Medicaid. -
Missouri has removed roughly 136,000 kids from its Medicaid rolls since June 2023. But the state's worst-in-nation processing delays make it difficult to re-enroll — causing many to miss doctor’s appointments and critical prescriptions. -
The lieutenant governor is next in line to be governor, breaks ties in the Missouri Senate and sits on various boards. -
Some Missouri day care centers have been forced to shutter as state subsidy payments remain backlogged due to glitches in a new system. -
A majority of Missourians sent to restrictive nursing homes because of mental illness would be better served in a less restrictive setting, a year-and-a-half federal investigation determined.
