Dear Neighbor,
We are reaching the point in the 2016 session when the focus shifts from committee work toward bringing bills to the floor for votes of the full House.
As I mentioned in a column I submitted to area newspapers this week, the House recently unveiled its supplemental spending targets. While this is not a budget year, mid-biennium adjustments often are necessary. Also, many requests for additional funding have been made this year because of our anticipated $900 million surplus. Those proposals will come to the floor in a series of omnibus bills. Click here for the full column.
One bill that did come to the House floor this week was the Fireworks Freedom Act, which would allow for and audible devices such as firecrackers and bottle rockets to be sold and used from June 1 to July 10 each year. Local governments would have the latitude to charge annual license fees to retailers or altogether prohibit them from being sold. The governor has vetoed fireworks legislation in previous years, so we'll see what he does this time around.
A press conference took place this week to highlight a House proposal to improve Internet connections in Greater Minnesota. In addition to an influx of federal money for high speed internet, the state will continue its Border to Border Broadband program and provide funding in addition to the $10 million allocated last year. Our proposal this year is in the $20 to $30 million range.
I had a bill pertaining to the buffer initiative heard in the Property Tax Division Wednesday. When the fiscal note to my bill arrived, it turned out to be pretty expensive, but it illustrates how turning productive farm land into grass buffer strips can affect local property taxes. The fiscal note said the cost for the state to pay the current amount of property tax on the land that would be converted into buffer strips was over $15 million for a two-year period.
The other way to proceed with the tax issue on these strips is to have our local assessors re-classify the land, estimated at 110,000 acres statewide, from productive farm land to a much lower classification such as pasture land or even waste land. That would considerably lower the amount of tax the farmer pays on the land, but at the same time shift the same amount onto others in the taxing district.
I don't know the fairest way to address this situation, but I have long felt that if this is a benefit to the state, then the state should assist with some of the costs that farmers are having to shoulder.
Look for more news, especially on the supplemental omnibus budget bills, as soon as next week. I will pass along more regarding the omnibus ag. bill and some investments in animal health and disease prevention the House proposes in an upcoming update.
Sincerely,
Paul