The Washington County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday decided on their leadership team for the year. Commissioner Karla Bigham will serve as board chair, and Commissioner Bethany Cox will serve as vice chair.

Washington County Commissioners Karla Bigham, left, and Bethany Cox (Courtesy of Bigham and Cox)

Bigham, elected in 2022, is serving in her second term on the county board; she previously served from 2015 to 2018. She also served in the Minnesota Senate, the Minnesota House of Representatives and on the Cottage Grove City Council.

Cox, elected to the board in November 2024, worked as director of development at the Wild Rivers Conservancy of the St. Croix and Namekagon from 2019 to 2024.

The board also recently approved staff and board pay increases. By a 4-1 vote, the board approved pay increases last month for County Administrator Kevin Corbid, Sheriff Dan Starry and County Attorney Kevin Magnuson for 2026; Commissioner Michelle Clasen was the “no” vote in each of the three motions.

Corbid will earn $259,284, a 6 percent increase over last year’s salary. Magnuson will earn $240,466 and Starry $230,605, both 6 percent increases.

The board members voted unanimously to give themselves 3 percent raises; each commissioner now makes $88,051 a year.

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By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he wants to block large institutional investors from buying houses, saying that a ban would make it easier for younger families to buy their first homes.

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Trump — who has been under pressure to address voters’ concerns about affordability ahead of November midterm elections — is tapping into long-standing fears that corporate ownership of homes has pushed out traditional buyers, forcing more people to rent. But his plan does little to address the overarching challenge for the housing market: a national shortage of home construction and prices that have climbed faster than incomes.

“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post as he called on Congress to codify his ban.

Last month, Trump pledged in a prime-time address that he would roll out “some of the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history” this year. The president said he would discuss housing and affordability in more detail in two weeks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an event known for attracting CEOs, wealthy financiers and academics with a global focus who often run contrary to Trump’s populist rhetoric.

The president has in the past floated extending the 30-year mortgage to 50 years in order to lower monthly payments, an idea that has been criticized because it would reduce people’s ability to create housing equity and increase their own wealth.

With Trump’s proposed ban, the challenge is that institutional investors are only a tiny sliver of homebuyers, accounting for just 1% of total single-family housing stock, according to an August analysis by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C. The analysis defined these investors as owning 100 or more properties.

The analysis notes that institutional ownership varies nationwide, reaching 4.2% in Atlanta, 2.6% in Dallas and 2.2% in Houston. But these investors tend not to dominate neighborhoods, even if they’re generally more concentrated in lower and middle-income communities.

The larger challenge has been a shortage of new construction, such that Goldman Sachs in October estimated in October that 3 million to 4 million additional homes beyond the normal construction levels would need to be built to relieve cost pressures. Mortgage rates also climbed in the inflation that followed the coronavirus pandemic, causing monthly payments on home loans to increase dramatically faster than incomes.

Still, Trump said last month that an increase in new construction would create a dilemma as it could cause existing home values to drop and that would come at the expense of many existing homeowners’ net worth.

“I don’t want to knock those numbers down because I want them to continue to have a big value for their house,” Trump said. “At the same time, I want to make it possible for young people out there and other people to buy housing. In a way, they’re at conflict.”

By MORIAH BALINGIT and CHARLOTTE KRAMON

Even with two incomes, Charity Pallum said she and her husband would not be able to afford child care for their 1-year-old twins. But because of federal child care subsidies, both Pallum, a teacher, and her husband, who works at a car dealership, are able to work full-time.

Now, the Trump administration is increasing the reporting burdens for states to access the money. If Pallum’s family were to lose that support, her husband might have to stop working, putting a pinch on their family budget.

“I guess our plans are, ’We’re just going to see how this goes,’” said Pallum, a teacher living in Ada, Minnesota.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on the $12 billion Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes care for 1.4 million children from low-income households, has rattled child care providers and families that rely on the aid money. Citing unspecified allegations of fraud, Trump administration officials are requiring states to provide extra documentation before receiving the money.

It’s unclear if or when child care providers and families like Pallum’s would feel the pinch. Some states, like Minnesota, also invest state resources in child care programs, which could insulate families from any impacts.

Child care centers are bracing for scrutiny and possible cuts

The administration announced last week that state officials will be required to provide additional information to receive the federal child care money. On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a “freeze” that will require officials in five Democratic-led states to provide even more exhaustive documentation.

The department said it also would withhold other federal safety net money for those states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York — including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which supports low-income parents with children under 18 with direct payments and by providing them with child care.

The administration has not released information about the fraud allegations that prompted the new scrutiny.

HHS said in a statement that it “identified concerns that these benefits intended for American citizens and lawful residents may have been improperly provided to individuals who are not eligible under federal law.”

The actions raised fears of payment delays and disruptions for the beleaguered child care industry, which has been struggling under staff shortages, long waits for subsidy programs and the effects of the Trump administration crackdown on immigration.

“Child centers are always living on the margins. Our staff are never paid enough. We can’t charge families enough privately to cover what staffers make,” said Jeanie Harris, executive director of programs at First Learning, a group of child care centers in New York state. “So we’re always living on the margins, especially with the subsidy programs, and any change or hit our reimbursements is going to be a house of cards.”

Providers say they already face extensive regulations

Already, child care providers comply with extensive regulations to receive federal subsides. Dawn Uribe, who runs Mis Amigos Preschool with several Minnesota locations, said staff have to make sure kids sign in and out with the correct ID, and it can take a month to get paid for services. For years, inspectors have regularly visited to assess their records.

“There’s already so much oversight that goes into this so I don’t really understand how much more they can do,” Uribe said.

The legwork required to meet federal subsidy requirements has at times made Uribe question whether she wants to keep accepting children who receive subsidies. Ultimately, it’s worth it to ensure she can provide care to low-income kids who need it, she said.

“We’re doing the best we can, and it’s hard work,” Uribe said.

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Karen DeVos, who runs three childcare facilities in rural northwest Minnesota, is preparing her staff to pull records on the spot in case an investigator shows up unannounced. Daycare centers are regularly subjected to audits and attendance checks, she said.

“If we continue to view every provider as somebody who could be committing fraud, we are going to lose really valuable resources in our child care providers,” DeVos said. “There is only so much stress that people can take and not knowing every single day if somebody is going to knock on your door and accuse you of something is terrifying.”

Pallum said neither she nor her husband want to risk skipping paychecks if they lose the child care subsidy.

“We have responsibilities to our families and we have responsibilities to our work, and we want to maintain both,” said Pallum. With federal childcare funds, “we can give our twins a consistent schedule. They do so much for the twins and they do so much for us, just being consistent and being able to live up to our responsibilities as parents and as community members.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

A Mahtomedi man has been put on probation for 15 years for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl who was lured to his apartment by an accomplice who gave her crack cocaine and also assaulted the teen.

Michael Lewis (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Michael Lewis, 69, was sentenced Wednesday in Washington County District Court after entering a Norgaard plea to third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the teen’s June assault. Under a Norgaard plea, a defendant says they are unable to remember what happened due to drug use or mental health impairment at the time, but acknowledges there is enough evidence for a jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

Judge Juanita Freeman gave Lewis three years in prison, then stayed the sentence for 15 years in favor of probation. He was not ordered to serve additional days in the workhouse beyond the 152 that he’d already served since his arrest.

Lewis received the presumptive sentence under state sentencing guidelines, according to a spokesman for the Washington County Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Lewis’ accomplice, Billy Ray Wiley, looked for women and girls in the Twin Cities area, often approaching them near grocery stores or in the street in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He would offer them rides, drugs or money.

Wiley, 52, of Minneapolis, was convicted by a jury in November of two counts of sex trafficking and one each of first- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct after prosecutors said he brought the teen and a 20-year-old woman to the Mahtomedi apartment where they were given drugs and sexually assaulted. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 26.

According to the criminal complaints:

Officers on June 30 were called to the Piccadilly Square Apartments, a 62-plus housing community near Wildwood and Stillwater roads, on a report of a teenager dancing in the parking lot and screaming, “no no no.” The person who called said an unknown man dropped her off about four hours earlier.

A man identified as Lewis stepped out the front door of the apartment. The teen, later identified as the 14-year-old, pointed to him and said she was with Lewis and one of his friends. Officers spoke with Lewis, who said he did not know the teen.

Officers searched her purse and found several unopened condoms and drug paraphernalia.

Billy Ray Wiley (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

She was taken to the hospital, where investigators met with her and asked how she knew the man who brought her to the apartment. She said he was a “friend,” who she referred to as “Billy,” and she said he often drove around her Minneapolis neighborhood.

The teen told investigators in a follow-up interview several days later that “when Wiley picked her up, she knew she would be expected to engage in sexual acts in exchange for money and drugs.” She said Wiley had given her crack cocaine and brought her to the apartment, where she was sexually and physically assaulted by Wiley and the other man. She identified Lewis as the man inside the apartment after looking at a photo.

Earlier, on June 13, a 20-year-old woman reported to St. Paul police that a man, later identified as Wiley, picked her up while she was waiting for a bus on Lake Street in Minneapolis. She said he brought her to an apartment, where he physically and sexually assaulted her.

After the assault, Wiley drove her to downtown St. Paul. Once she got out of the car, she asked people on the street for help and they flagged down an officer.

She told police he recorded the sexual assault on his phone, and investigators later recovered the video and identified the location as Lewis’ apartment.

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Law enforcement obtained a tracking warrant and arrested Wiley on July 8 when he drove by the Piccadilly apartments.

Law enforcement also arrested Lewis, and drug paraphernalia was found in his apartment.

A 17-year-old girl was in the car with Wiley. She said that earlier in the day, in the area of Dale Street and University Avenue in St. Paul, Wiley “pulled up right next to her and asked her what she needed. He then gave her a cigarette and asked if she wanted to go for a ride,” the complaints said.

She said they drove around for several hours, and he “told her that she was pretty and had a nice body,” the complaints said. She said she told Wiley several times to drop her off, but he kept driving.

The teen also told officers “that many girls who are struggling with addiction hang around Dale and University” and “said that Wiley is known to pick up a lot of girls in the area,” the complaints said.