Dear Neighbors,
The legislative session adjourned a couple days ago, and I want to give you a quick update from how things finished in St. Paul. We passed some great bills, but just missed a number of other great provisions.
Middle-Class Tax Relief
I’m happy to report the House and Senate passed a tax bill that contains some much-needed long-term tax relief for people. The bill passed on a bipartisan vote of 123-10, and is now at the governor’s desk. Farmers, recent college graduates, military veterans, small businesses, middle-class families, teachers, and more will equally benefit from the proposals.
Our current large budget surplus indicates that we are overtaxing our citizens. I’m pleased to see these provisions that will allow Minnesotans to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets where they can choose how to spend it rather than the government making that choice for them.
Education Bills
A number of my provisions were included as part of the supplemental budget bill we passed over the weekend. One of my bipartisan bills, which provides extra funding for Reading Corps (an excellent early intervention reading program) was included, along with more funding for my teacher loan forgiveness provision that I authored last session. In addition, I am happy to report that a bill I co-authored, which will help special education teachers by cutting the state’s portion of special education paperwork in half, also made it into this bill. As a former teacher, it’s very gratifying for me to be a part of legislation that helps our students and teachers.
Bonding and Transportation
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news from session. On Sunday, we passed a bonding bill in the House which included $700 million of funding for roads and bridges throughout the state. In a political maneuver to get more funding for Southwest Light Rail (a very controversial issue), the Senate DFL majority failed to pass the bonding bill.
This is especially unfortunate for our area, which was set to receive almost $7.5 million for Riverland Community College’s Albert Lea campus, funding for sewer infrastructure renovation in Albert Lea’s Stables neighborhood, and extra transportation dollars that would have gone directly to our small cities and townships. It was incredibly disappointing for me to watch the Senate put politics before people in those last few minutes of session. A train that would service less than one percent of Minnesotans has prevented funding for the 99 percent of Minnesotans who rely on roads and bridges to travel both in the Twin Cities and throughout the state.
Coming Up
Because the Senate failed to pass the bonding and transportation bill in the final minutes of session, we may have a special session to agree on these needed bills. If you have any questions about this process or any of our bills, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you.
Enjoy the warm weather!
Peggy