Sandra Masin's Blog

The Omnibus Higher Education Finance Bill, S.F. 1236 was the main bill of the day.  This bill increases state spending on higher education and 80% of that increase is allocated to tuition relief.  This is the first increase in funding to higher ed since 2008.  It includes new reporting requirements for both the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges & Universities system (MnSCU) to hold both institutions accountable for budgeting practices and expenditures of public dollars.

We started H .F. 1444, the House Tax Bill, at Noon and finally voted around 8:50 P.M..  And that was in spite of the fact that we finished the amendments around 3:00.  We have some members that like to deliver lectures rather than making relevant comments. The vote was 69-64.

The bill does pay back the $854 million IOU to Minnesota’s schools through a temporary income tax surcharge on the wealthiest 0.5%of Minnesotans (those with a taxable income greater than $500,000 per year for joint filer). It eliminates corporate loopholes that allow corporations to shelter profits overseas and eliminates other subsidies that are outdated, ineffective, or currently unaffordable.

The Omnibus Transportation Finance Bill was also taken up and passed 101-30.  It is a fairly moderate bill due to financial constraints.  It does include $1.7 billion over the biennium for state road construction.  It  does broaden the authority of counties throughout Minnesota to impose an annual wheelage tax of $10 by an annual vote of individual county boards.. Dakota County has been using the revenue from the wheelage tax to do maintenance projects like overlays.

After lengthy debate, we passed H.F. 630, the Education Finance and Policy Bill, by a vote of 83-50. The bill fully funds all-day kindergarten and increases Early Learning Scholarships by $50 million. The bill includes a plan to create the world’s best workforce.

We worked on four bills today.  The main bill was H.F. 1233, the Health & Human Service Omnibus Finance Bill and that took about nine hours of discussion. The vote was 70 yeas and 64 nays.  It does give a 3 % raise to staff in nursing homes and a 2 % raise to long-term care givers, their first increase in four years.  These are the people that take of  our elderly and disabled, and the salaries are fairly minimal, even though we entrust our most vulnerable citizens to their care.

Another bill was H.F. 779 and this is the bill that sets up the rules for the Minnesota Health Exchange.

Today we heard H.F. 1184, the State Government Finance and Veteran Affairs Omnibus Bill. This took hours and the final vote was 73 yeas and 56 nays. The state government legislation covers departments like Minnesota Management & Budget and administration.

My understanding is that the Veterans Affairs portion fully funds requests from the Governor Dayton and the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs. I think we have an obligation to do the best we can for our veterans.

House File 671, the Omnibus Public Safety Finance Bill was passed on a 122-7 vote. This bill funds a School Safety Center. 

H.F. 1160, the Omnibus Judiciary Finance Bill passed today on  71-59 vote.  This bill includes a provision to protect Minnesota’s vulnerable adults by increasing and strengthening provisions in law related to the appointment,  background studies done of guardians and conservators, and the mandated reports required of them.

The main bill today was the H.F. 976, the  Environment, Natural Resources and Agricultural Finance Omnibus Bill.  It took a good deal of time to discuss the many parts of this legislation.  The primary focus was water, particularly trying to protect drinking water.

We worked on six bills today.

H.F.  588, the bill on nurse staffing, has received a lot of attention this year.  The bill has changed since its introduction, the version today is a compromise agreed to by the Nurses Association and the Hospital Association.

This bill requires hospitals to develop core staffing plans for all of their units, and then submit these plans to the Minnesota Hospital Association.  The MHA will then publish these plans on the Association’s Hospital Quality Report website.

In addition, the Department of Health is required to convene a working group that will use the staffing plan information and other available data to study the correlation between nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes. This bill passed on a 73-58 vote.

We went through several non-controversial bills this afternoon,

H,F. 369 was passed 132-0.  This bill concerns community property: adopting the Uniform Rights of Death Act.  Minnesota is a non-community property state.  According to the Uniform Law Commission, this act preserves the rights of each spouse in property that was community property before the spouses moved to the non-community property state.

Monday’s activities concentrated on two bills.  H.F. 729, the Omnibus Jobs & Economic Development Finance Bill passed on a 75-57 vote and took about five and half hours of discussion.  This legislation substantially increases funding for the Department of Employment & Economic Development’s job creation efforts. It dramatically increases funding for the Trade Office , which helps Minnesota businesses increase their exports to foreign markets  and also helps MN businesses learn how they can start selling to foreign markets. It includes programs to address skill gaps.  This is a heavy duty bill to address jobs.

The other bill was H.F. 1069 that ratified labor agreements for five groups of state government employees.  It  covers compensation plans for Fiscal Years 2012-2013.  This passed 83-49.