Privacy law stops St. Paul from starting college funds for babies of unwed mothers

Jun. 27—St. Paul's efforts to provide newborns with college savings accounts are being hampered by a century-old state law that keeps birth records private if the mother is unmarried.

College Bound St. Paul enrolled only about 70 percent of the city's newborns in 2020, the program's inaugural year. They signed up nearly all newborns from legally married parents but only about 20 percent of those born to single moms.

State Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, said the antiquated statute is making it hard to reach families who could benefit the most.

"We want to make sure every child should take advantage of this program," he said in an interview. "If some of these records are not public, it gets very difficult to contact the family."

Pinto sponsored legislation that would have added the program to the list of government agencies that get special access to confidential birth records. It passed the Minnesota House with DFL support but failed in the Senate and was not included in compromise legislation.

Muneer Karcher-Ramos, director of the city's Office of Financial Empowerment, said they'll try again next legislative session when he expects to be joined by other cities looking to start their own children's savings accounts.

Until then, they'll continue to rely on advertising and a long list of nonprofits, government agencies and community ambassadors to recruit families into the program. Last year, most of the single moms who enrolled were referred by the state's Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program.

LITTLE ENGAGEMENT

Karcher-Ramos said that if all births were public, the program could auto-enroll every newborn and focus its outreach on getting families to engage with the accounts and with wraparound services.

Just eight families added their own funds to the low-interest savings accounts last year, and only about 7 percent ever logged on.

Although the initial deposit is just $50 for college, the city wants to use the program to steer families toward other services that support financial and physical health, such as vaccines, well-baby checkups and tax help.

"Just putting $50 in a bank, and then come back in 18 years and see what happened, isn't gonna change the world for our kids or for our city," Mayor Melvin Carter said in an interview for a first-year evaluation by the University of Michigan. "I think it's more about using the $50 as an excuse to build a relationship."

The program cost just under $500,000 for administration and outreach in year one. Another $364,000 went to seed and bonus deposits for 3,089 infants.

The city got help from state grants and private foundations, with each group contributing about $300,000 last year.

STATUTE DEBATED

Rep. Kaohly Her, DFL-St. Paul, who also works as Carter's policy director, said during a March legislative hearing that Minnesota is among the few states that makes birth records confidential if the mother is unmarried. The law presumably was meant to protect the women from embarrassment.

"Back in the day, there was a lot of shame on being a single mother," Her said.

The statute presents a particular challenge in St. Paul, where many couples are married in their cultural tradition but without legal certificates.

Bao Yang testified that as the mother of an infant, she learned about the program through WIC and was "really excited" to sign up. But between feedings and changing diapers, "it took me many months to actually enroll my baby."

Babies born to legally married parents, meanwhile, are auto-enrolled. Those parents are mailed a form they can use to opt out, which 19 did last year.

Republican lawmakers responding to Pinto's bill argued for preserving mothers' privacy.

"If she chooses confidentiality, why would we want to go against her wishes for $50 in a bank account?" said Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, who raised the specter of babies conceived by rape. "I can't believe what I'm hearing here."

The statute says information about single-mother births can be disclosed to the state health and human services departments and tribal agencies in order to enforce child support and administer government health care programs.

Rich Neumeister, an advocate for open records, sided with the Republicans on Pinto's bill, suggesting the college savings program isn't important enough to merit the same exception.

"It goes against the philosophy here in Minnesota we respect people's privacy," he said.

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