Court Opinion

ID: 9576281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:22:38.355133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:04:16.387330
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent. The question is not whether the commissioner can validly, though unfairly, enforce Minn.Rule 9500.1258, subp. 1M(8) (1987), requiring 6 hours per week of GED instruction against Mary Mammenga, but whether she is “completing a secondary education program” so as to be eligible for general assistance benefits under Minn.Stat. § 256D.05, subd. l(a)(10) (1988).
The legislature enacted Minn.Stat. §§ 256D.01 to 256D.21 to provide general assistance (GA) “to persons unable to provide themselves with a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health and who are not otherwise provided for under the laws of this state or the United States.” Minn.Stat. § 265D.02, subd. 4 (1988). There is no requirement that such persons reside in or near one of the population centers of the state.
Mary Mammenga, age 46, lives in rural Minnesota. She has claimed throughout this litigation that she is entitled to general assistance eligibility under § 256D.05, subd. l(a)(10) because she is “completing a secondary education program.” She was enrolled in the only secondary education program available to her, the G.E.D. program in Fairmont, Minnesota, which provided two hours of weekly classroom in*793struction.1 She made a indeed, continued the program to completion. Nonetheless, Mammenga’s GA benefits were terminated because the Department of Human Services, through Minn. Rule 9500.1258, subp. IK, interpreted the statute to mean only those persons completing high school are eligible to receive GA benefits under § 265D.05, subd. l(a)(10). Since Mammenga was not attending a “high school” but a GED program, she was further excluded from benefits under § 256D.05, subd. l(a)(12) because her GED program did not meet the six-hour requirement of Minn.Rule 9500.1258, subp. 1M(8). good effort” and,
The Commissioner’s narrow interpretation of § 256D.05, subd. l(a)(10) equating “secondary education program” with “high school” conflicts with the fundamental purpose of the GA act as expressed in the statutory language.
Nothing in chapter 256D requires that GA benefits should be extended only to those people who are unable to hold a job because of time restraints. Clause 10 of subdivision 1(a) quite clearly envisions participation in secondary education programs other than traditional high school with no hint of a minimum time commitment to satisfy the requirements of GA eligibility.
Persons without a secondary education, whether evidenced by lack of a high school diploma or lack of a GED certificate, are severely disadvantaged in obtaining employment. The legislature intended GA benefits to be provided to such disadvantaged adults who are willing to remove the barrier to employment by obtaining a high school diploma or its GED equivalent. As respondent rightly notes, “the Legislature could not have intended to deny a minimum subsistence compatible with decency and health to individuals such as respondent Mammenga who in good faith are doing everything within their power to complete the only programs of secondary education available to them.”
Because the plain words of Minn.Stat. § 256D.05, subd. l(a)(10) mean more than high school, because the scope of Clause 10 is not limited to attendance in high school and because the commissioner’s rulemak-ing on GED programs operates to arbitrarily exclude most poor persons in rural Minnesota from establishing GA eligibility by pursuit of a GED program, I would hold the Department of Human Services Rule limiting GA eligibility under Clause 10 to those attending high school to be unreasonable.

. A survey of the availability of GED classroom instruction throughout the state revealed that the majority of rural GED programs provided less than six hours of weekly classroom instruction.