House panel OK’s finance bill that sponsor says aims to tackle a Minnesota ‘workforce in crisis’

Legislation to distribute $16.75 million in onetime fiscal year 2025 funding among more than 40 organizations and municipalities for job training programs and other workforce development initiatives was approved Friday by the House Workforce Development Finance and Policy Committee.

“Our workforce is in crisis,” said Rep. Hodan Hassan (DFL-Mpls), who sponsors HF5205. She added that the bill is an essential part of the solution to fixing the workforce shortage affecting all parts of the state.

As amended, the supplemental finance bill was sent to the House Ways and Means Committee. The committee vote was mostly along party lines, with Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar (R-Fredenberg Township) the only Republican supporting the measure.

[MORE: Bills included in the workforce development finance bill]

More than two-dozen representatives from organizations that could be funded by the bill testified Friday, each a variation of “Thank you for the money.”

Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Moran thanked the committee for the $500,000 the bill proposes to send to four organizations in the county providing job training for underserved youth.

“One of the best social service programs that we can do and have is a job, and preparing people for great jobs and livable-wage jobs,” said Moran, a former House member.

Jalilia Abdul-Brown, executive director of Change Starts with Community, echoed those comments in describing how her organization provides job training to reverse the trajectories of at-risk youth in north Minneapolis.

She described what she meant by at-risk youth: those committing carjackings, thefts, and gun crimes and discussed a pilot program providing job training for 23 youths on probation that resulted in jobs for all students, with no recidivism. The result, she said, was a 40% decrease in crime in the West Broadway area of north Minneapolis.

“We always say the best violence prevention is a job,” she said.

Committee staff said the plan is to merge the workforce bill with the amended economic development supplemental finance bill in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Two amendments

Rep. Jay Xiong (DFL-St. Paul), the committee chair, successfully offered an amendment that would double the $1 million appropriation to Brooklyn Park for a biotech innovation district.

The change is offset by removing a $1 million appropriation to the Somali Community Resettlement Services for job training and job placement initiatives.

Calling it “accountability to the taxpayer,” Rep. Mark Wiens (R-Lake Elmo) unsuccessfully offered an amendment that would have required all grant recipients to report to the Department of Employment and Economic Development on how they spend grant money they receive, including the number of people served, the number placed in living-wage jobs, and the organization’s charitable giving ratio.

Xiong said the department already collects most of this information and makes it available on its website. And, he noted, the amendment would have a fiscal impact on the department that would need to be accounted for in the bill.