Dear neighbors, I hope you and your family are doing well after our first big snow of the year! Here’s an update on work I’m doing at the moment. Advocating for Our Community I recently joined several Dakota County legislators to ask the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) about federal funds that could be used to support local projects. According to the reply we received from Commissioner Margaret Anderson Kelliher, local governments are expected to receive additional funding from the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure bill. While it’s too early to predict how much federal funding Dakota County will get or how it’ll be distributed, my colleagues and I will keep advocating for our community and the important projects in our area. Advocating for Our Environment I’m looking forward to the next meeting of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR), a bipartisan group that reviews environmental projects. We’re meeting tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. to hear reports on projects that were completed this year and to discuss legislation that will be introduced next session. If you’d like to tune in, you can watch the entire meeting on the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund’s Facebook page. The agenda and other documents are available here. OLA Releases New Report The Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) – a nonpartisan agency that aims to strengthen oversight and program effectiveness – released a new report last week. They found that internal controls designed to ensure state entities accurately and consistently determined eligibility, calculated, and paid military salary differentials to state employees, as required under state statute, weren’t adequate. These findings will help legislators improve the process in the future. If you’d like to share ideas or feedback with me before the 2022 legislative session begins, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can email me at rep.rick.hansen@house.mn or call (651) 296-6828. Sincerely, Rick Hansen
State Representative |