Summer unemployment benefits included in education finance bill headed for House Floor

Legislators played a three-shell game with their omnibus education finance bill this week.

One shell was ultimately chosen, sending the bill to the House Floor.

Since Monday, three separate education finance bills have shuffled through three different committees, all with the same language, all with the same bugaboo: the elimination of summer unemployment insurance for hourly and temporary school employees.

Rep. Cheryl Youakim (DFL-Hopkins), co-chair of the House Education Finance Committee, sponsors all three bills: HF1388, HF1049 and HF2433.

The House Education Finance Committee laid over HF1388, as amended, Monday after hearing a walkthrough and taking public testimony. The meeting was scheduled to ensure there was public testimony taken on the bill.

The House Taxes Committee heard HF1049, as amended, Tuesday morning because a finance bill with tax implications needs to have a hearing in that committee.

The final game-winning bill, HF2433, as amended, was approved by the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday afternoon and sent to the House Floor.

[MORE: Standoff over hourly, temporary school worker benefits could imperil education funding bill]

Leadership agreement

A provision of the bill would fund the summer unemployment insurance program for hourly and temporary workers with a one-time $30 million emergency appropriation in fiscal year 2026. School districts would need to provide the funding one year later before the program is eliminated for the 2028-29 school year.

House Education Finance Committee Co-chair Rep. Ron Kresha (R-Little Falls) told the House Taxes Committee his hands are essentially tied.

“What you have in front of you now, these are the parameters we were given by leadership,” he said. “We were told three things: You had a $40 million target. The READ Act was for that. We had a zero target overall. And we had a 2028 repeal for the UI. That was given to us by both of our leaderships.”

Estimated unemployment aid disbursements for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 are $102 million of the original $135 million allocated for the program. That leaves $33 million in the fund for fiscal year 2026 when estimates for summer-term unemployment insurance costs are $63 million.

Unsuccessful amendment

All three bills shared another similarity: a DFL-introduced amendment that would continue the unemployment insurance program after the 2028-29 school year and beyond. The amendment was not approved in all three committees, failing by party-line votes every time.

Proponents of the underlying bill say school districts can’t afford the cost of unemployment insurance without state aid or making cuts elsewhere and the program needs to be eliminated.

Kresha called the unemployment insurance mandate “imperfect” and offered that, under the bill’s language, schools could use their basic supplemental aid to pay hourly workers through the summer to avoid them having to apply for unemployment benefits.

“My vision is not that we fight against UI, but that we give the opportunity for employees not to file for it in the beginning,” he said.

DFLers said they aren’t supportive of an omnibus bill with the cut to unemployment insurance.

In Tuesday’s tax committee meeting, Rep. Aisha Gomez (DFL-Mpls) said hourly school workers “make up the fabric of our schools” and they need to be taken care of.

“Across the state of Minnesota, in every school, in every single one of our districts, hourly school workers are like the people who fill in all of the gaps, who are on the front lines, who make education possible in our buildings,” she said.

— Session Daily writer Rob Hubbard contributed to this story.