No Bonding Bill yet
The Senate Capital Investment committee is not scheduled to meet until April 8 and 9, when they will discuss transportation, Department of Human Resources and Department of Corrections bonding priorities. The Governor?Äôs proposal spends $990 million and The House proposal spends $1.340 billion. Sen. Stumpf, Chair of the Capital Investment Committee hasn?Äôt introduced a bill yet.
Gov. Dayton and legislative leaders have informally agreed to keep this year?Äôs bonding bill in the range of $850 million.
Minimum Wage in the Constitution?
Last Friday the Jobs, Ag and Rural Development Committee heard a bill that would allow for a constitutional question on November?Äôs ballot. The question would ask voters if they would support a minimum wage of $10 by Jan. 1, 2015, indexed with inflation each year. The bill had broad bipartisan opposition from testimony in Committee but passed on a party-line vote, and was re-referred to the Rules Committee. The House has indicated that they have no intention of taking up this bill.
The minimum wage conference committee met last Tuesday and again on Friday. The House made an offer earlier this week and the Senate may come back with an offer this afternoon. The sticking point in the negotiations is whether there are enough votes in both body?Äôs to pass a $9.50 minimum wage that includes some sort of inflation indexing. The House wants the indexing, the Senate has been resistant to include indexing.
New Senate Office Building controversy continues
The $90 million senate office building proposal that was inserted into the 2013 tax bill creates a lease-purchase agreement as a way to avoid funding that would normally be done in a bonding bill. Last week we learned that as part of the Capitol renovation project, the governor will gain an additional 62 percent of office space, the Senate will gain 38 percent, the House 14 percent, and 9 percent for the public.
The proposed new building will only have 44 offices which means almost half of the Senate will still have to office elsewhere. The House Rules Committee still needs to approve the project before construction can begin.
A second major tax bill?
The Senate Tax Committee continued to hear a series of mostly local interest bills this week. It?Äôs expected the committee will have a full schedule next week in advance of an anticipated second omnibus tax bill. While there is no timeline for a Senate proposal, the House late this week released the initial draft of their second major tax bill. The House is on a slightly faster pace to move something to the House floor. The House bill aims to provide citizens with $45 million in relief.
Additional funding for K-12 education
The K-12 Education Division considered and passed, on a divided voice vote, a Senate DFL supplemental spending plan for education. The legislation now needs to be considered by the full Finance Committee and the Tax Committee before it is rolled into an Omnibus Supplemental Appropriations bill covering all areas of the state budget.
Under the Senate DFL plan, spending would increase by $41.1 million in the upcoming school year (double that amount in the ?Äútails?Äù of FY 2016-17). This compares to the Governor?Äôs proposal of $1.1 million and the House DFL plan of $75 million. To put these amounts in perspective, the current total of K-12 spending for the upcoming school year is $8.2 billion in state aid and an estimated $2.4 billion in levies approved by local school boards.
The Senate DFL is not focusing the new funds on ordinary school classroom needs but on categorical formulas (such as English Language Learners and more free school lunches) and programs that fall outside of elementary and secondary grades (such as preschool scholarships). If the spending target was simply divided by the number of public school students (840,941) then the amount per pupil would be approximately $49. However, under the Senate DFL proposal, the average per pupil increase statewide to public schools will be just $8.49 with Minneapolis and St. Paul averaging $20.72.
An amendment to even further expand the school lunch program by making all students eligible for free lunches, regardless of household income, was considered at length and then changed to ?Äúencourage?Äù such an approach by schools rather than to mandate it.
Higher Education Funding
A supplemental budget plan affecting post-secondary institutions and students was released to the public by the Higher Education Division this week. This plan tracks closely with the Governor?Äôs proposal although it does spend $3.75 million more with a total appropriation target of
$25.75 million. The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU) system is the main beneficiary of the new funds ($17 million to help counter the effect of the two-year tuition freeze that last year?Äôs Legislature put into effect) while the University of Minnesota (UMN) system would receive $3.5 million for operations on the Duluth campus and $5 million for regenerative medicine research. An additional projected surplus in the State Grant financial aid program will be used to increase the number of eligible students and the amounts of the grants. This action will not require additional funding because it is a reallocation of funds already appropriated.
Victory for brew pubs
Last week the Commerce Committee passed the omnibus liquor bill to the Senate floor and contains provisions that allow small brewers and brewpubs to be open on Sundays and, allows for the sale of growlers on Sundays. A full repeal of the Sunday liquor sales will not be moved forward this year.
Payday loan restrictions
The Commerce Committee took up payday lending this week, and passed a bill that would limit the number of short-term loans a person could get each year to eight
and has a ?Äúcooling off?Äù period between loans. The next stop will be the Senate floor, and it is likely that consumer protection advocates and the industry will continue to negotiate the bill to continue to allow these products to be sold in Minnesota from trustworthy companies. At the same time the legislation moves towards protecting consumers from the cycle of debt that can occur (particularly with online short-term loan companies, which are already illegal in Minnesota).
Senator Michelle Fischbach encourages and appreciates constituent input and can be reached by phone at (651) 296-2084, by mail to G 15 State Office Building / St. Paul, MN 55155 or via e-mail at sen.michelle.fischbach@senate.mn.