Legislative Update: Omnibus Week

Dear neighbors,

We came off of legislative spring break with more energy than ever and are working to pass many omnibus finance bills out of the Ways & Means Committee and on to the House Floor. This is the point of session where, especially in a divided legislature, our committees package all of their priorities into one bill so that they can better negotiate with the Senate. We’ve heard hundreds of bills in our 31 committees in the House since the start of session in February. You could say that this week is the start of the second act in the three-act play of legislative session, with the finale being bills signed into law. I’ll take a second in this e-update to detail to you the pieces I’m most excited about in each of our big bills.

Agriculture - Supporting Small and Emerging Farmers

• The bill makes significant investment into sustainable agriculture and climate solutions, the Forever Green initiative, soil health, pollinator habitat support, and plastic regulation.
• The bill would make farmers’ lives easier and includes emergency funding for bird flu, meat processing grants, and meat testing support.
• The bill invests $2.6 million for culturally appropriate services and technical assistance to immigrants and BIPOC farmers and businesses.

Climate - Swiftly Transition away from Harmful Fossil Fuels

• Invests $20 million in funding for a new Innovative Finance Authority for new energy technology start-ups and for advancements in creating tomorrow’s energy grid.
• Helps consumers and consumer advocates keep energy costs down through proceedings at the Public Utilities Commission and financial securitization.
• Appropriates $10 million per year for homeowner solar panel installation credits, $4 million per year for homeowner energy storage credits, and $5 million for income eligible homeowners to upgrade their outdated and unsafe electrical panels which will help thousands of Minnesotans upgrade their electrical panels.
• Appropriates $500,000 for UNIDOS and New Justice Project to train people of color, low-income communities, and immigrants in energy jobs.

Commerce - Protect Students, Ensure Fair Business Practices

• Creates student loan advocates in the Department of Commerce that will help borrowers resolve issues they are having with schools, student loan servicers, or anyone connected to the student loan process.
• Invests in additional funding to the auto-theft prevention program to curate an equipment library for local police departments as well as fund overtime requests.
• Adds five additional peace officers to the Commerce Fraud Bureau with expanded jurisdiction.

Early Childhood - Ensuring a Great Start for Minnesotans

• Provides early learning scholarships to more than 20,000 children starting at birth, prioritizing low-income and vulnerable children (homeless or highly mobile, incarcerated or teen parents, or those in foster care) and expanding income eligibility to 200% of poverty.
• Supports caregivers and teachers in many other ways, including grants to family, friend, & neighbor providers, bonuses to those who work with infants, and “Grow Your Own” grants to help caregivers and teachers attain a credential or degree.
• Continues to strengthen state infrastructure around early care and learning, including through research and data collection on the early-childhood workforce, development of a model to fund the true cost (rather than artificially-low market rates) of high-quality care, and investments in IT and data-sharing.

Education - Addresses Disparities

• Addresses Minnesota’s racial disparities in school discipline by increasing the use of non exclusionary discipline and preventing the suspension and expulsion of students through grade three except in certain situations.
• Makes significant investments in mental health support. The bill provides dedicated funds to hiring around 1,100 student personnel, so that students have greater access to counselors, social workers, psychologists, and nurses.
• Invests in special education and English learner cross-subsidies. The investment in special education cross-subsidy would reduce the cross-subsidy by about 50% of its current level, and the investment in the EL cross-subsidy would eliminate it by 2026.
• Creates an Ethnic Studies requirement for graduation, and invests in relevant curriculum.

Environment - Historic Investment into Environmental Justice

• House Democrats are committed to providing stronger protections for residents of environmental justice areas.
• Protects Minnesotans from harmful “forever chemicals” such as PFAS
• Requires greater accountability from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to protect people and communities in environmental justice areas.

Health - Promote Health in Underserved Communities

• Changes Medical Assistance (MA) eligibility for children under 21 so they have 12 months of continuous coverage. This is anticipated to keep an additional 15,888 children per month on MA.
• Expands health care access with MinnesotaCare buy-in and by eliminating out of pocket costs in public health care programs.
• Includes my proposal to create a disability services task force. There are too many structural barriers when applying for state help, this would ensure that advocates within the disability community have a voice in how the state provides for them.
• Rebuilds our health care and caring workforce by expanding loan forgiveness programs for health professionals and increasing funding for mental health and caring workforce. Adds acupuncturists to the health professional education loan forgiveness program in Minnesota, a common sense addition that I’ve worked on with constituent and acupuncture advocate Bonnie Bolash.
• Includes my proposal to make our Tribal Medical Cannabis program more accessible.
• Includes my proposal to eliminate “white bagging”- a process where insurers mandate drugs be dispensed via their third-party specialty pharmacies, disrupting the patient experience and impairing the delivery of optimal patient care as directed by their physician.

Higher Ed - Historic Investment in Students

• Invests $32 million to cover tuition and fees for students attending 2-year colleges from families making under $75,000. Awards up to half the cost of tuition and fees for students from families making $125,000.
• Increases the State Grant award for roughly 72,000 students. 44% of Minnesota students receive a state grant award, with 59% of students of color receiving an award.
• Doubles the Minnesota Indian Scholarship awards to help cover the full attendance for more students.
• Makes historic investments in tribal colleges and support for Indigenous students.
• Reforms the Board of Regents to allow for more BIPOC representation.

Housing - Housing as a Human Right, and Path to Homeownership

• Provides $50 million for a three-year pilot program establishing a first-generation homebuyer downpayment assistance program.
• Provides Deeply Affordable Housing using Housing Infrastructure Bonds to increase the amount of affordable housing units to cost burdened households.
• Implements policy changes to reduce the number people evicted and the impact on one’s record.

Human Services - Provide for the Hungry and the Homeless

• Revitalizes the state’s disability, substance use disorder, housing, and older adult workforce by incorporating multiple strategies to retain and attract the workforce.
• Helps Minnesota families by investing in food security funding, investing into community resource hubs, and modifying the SNAP gross income limit.
• Invests in child welfare, behavioral health, homelessness, and disabilities and older adults.

Judiciary - Fairness for All

• Provides salary equity between public defenders and prosecutors, ensuring that both sides have fair representation. 
• Supports Civil Legal Services.

Labor -  Protect Workers

• Prohibits non compete agreements and no poach clauses which serve only to limit worker mobility and keep wages low. The restrictive compacts are disproportionately harmful to low-wage and low-mobility workers.
• Provides protection for more of Minnesota's workers.
• Creates Veterans Employment Liaison position for newly discharged service members.

Legacy - Invests in the Health and Recreation of Our Communities

• Invests $159 million for 46 programs into the Outdoor Heritage Fund. 81,000 acres of wildlife habitat will be impacted.
• 6% Increase in the Parks and Trails and 8% increase in the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. 
• Appropriates $47.4 million for the Clean Water Fund for several things like testing for pesticides and chemicals, lead service line replacement, and the Conservation Corps programs with youth.

Public Safety - Ensuring Safety in Our Communities

• Provides huge investments in a holistic approach to community public safety that balances funding for community and law enforcement.
• Includes proposals that mitigate the long term harmful effects of run-ins with the law and to remove barriers to turning your life around and moving beyond past mistakes, particularly for disproportionately impacted BIPOC communities.
• Establishes an office for Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls and creates a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives reward find.

State Government - Ensuring that Government Works for the People

• Improves Minnesota’s technological infrastructure now and into the future through modernization and security upgrades of the state’s software and IT systems.
• Implements and expands policy changes to further secure our state’s elections and protect our election workers.
• Includes my proposal to establish a commission to develop, design, and recommend to the legislature a new official state flag and seal and retire the existing one.
• Includes my proposal to allow suburbs to be eligible for certain equity investments.

Taxes - Targeted Tax Help for those who need it

• This “tax bill with a cause” uses targeted and significant tax cuts to benefit families, workers, and senior citizens in Minnesota. 
• $3,000 credit for each child under 5 years old, allowing for more money to go to the significant costs of raising a child.

Transportation - Getting Where We Need to Go

• Focuses on ensuring Minnesota can maximize the federal funds the state is receiving from the federal infrastructure bill (IIJA). Provides matching funds to leverage federal IIJA funding, including establishing financial and technical assistance for localities to seek federal funding.
• Invests in further transportation system electrification and improvements to address climate impacts.
• Reduces transit fares in the Metro to no more than $1 in July and August.

Workforce - Invest in Our Communities

• Makes big investments in equity and economic opportunity for small business owners and BIPOC Minnesotans.
• Appropriates $35 million for grants for small businesses that continue to struggle because of COVID, inflation, or other economic challenges. The appropriation would support grants to about 1, 200 bars, restaurants, salons, gyms, and other small businesses in Minnesota.
• Provides support for Main Street Revitalization to redevelop parts of the state with the greatest development needs, including parts of the Twin Cities damaged by civil unrest.

That’s all of the omnibus bills! If I missed something that you’ve been excited about, let me know, and I can include information on it in the next e-update.

Happy Earth Day! 

More than a billion people in 190 countries celebrate Earth Day. Many of them use this opportunity to plant a tree, bike to work, or make lifestyle adjustments. These may seem like small changes, but together, they can make a big impact! At the Capitol, I'm proud to support legislation that addresses the climate crisis and preserves Minnesota’s environment and natural resources. Here is some more information on this important day and 10 ways you can make a difference!

State of the State

Governor Walz delivered his first in-person State of the State Address since 2019 yesterday, and highlighted many of our shared priorities. This picture is from my seat on the House Floor. His message was clear: the state of the state is strong, and Minnesota is moving forward. You can watch his speech here. 

Keep in Touch

As always, thank you for your attention to this rather lengthy e-update. I appreciate having such an active and diverse district. Please continue writing to me to express what you’d like to see happen at the Capitol. You can reach me at rep.mike.freiberg@house.mn, or simply reply to this email.

Sincerely,

Mike Freiberg

State Representative