Good morning, my friend!!
 The sun is coming up and I'm starting to get pretty pretty tired. Decided to combine these final two major bills into one email. Thank you for sticking with me through the night! Glad to keep you informed of what is happening here at the Capitol.
This session, we had one job to do - pass a budget.
The budget was a little later than it should be but there are so many great things in these bills for Shakopee and Minnesota that it was worth it!
The Education Bill is not exactly what we wanted but does an ok job of increasing funding to schools (almost keeps up with inflation) and has many good policy provisions for our future. The Ed bill passed 112-13.
- Increases general education funding 2% in 2020 and 2% in 2021
- Adds $91 million in funding for special education
- Early learning scholarships
One item I am particularly proud of is that my bill allowing schools to be reimbursed for transporting pregnant and parenting teens to programming. The legislature has tried to get this done for years and we got it accomplished this year!!
There are also many other great programs in the Ed bill that you can see at the link below.
One of our final bills today is the State Government Finance Bill!! It passed 77-49.
Since the 2011 Government Shutdown, our legislators have been working to pass a bill that would allow the the Minnesota Racing Commission (MRC) to continue operations during a government shutdown. That year, the shutdown severely hurt Canterbury Park and considerably harmed the remainder of Canterbury's season because the MRC needs to be operational in order for Canterbury to hold races.
Senator Eric Pratt and I worked very hard to get language in this bill to allow the MRC to continue running if there is a shutdown by using funds from their own racing fees. I am very excited to get this done for our community and great business in town.
The State Gov bill also frees up Federal money that has been held hostage all session by the Senate to protect our elections from cyber attacks. Minnesota is the last state to use this money.
You can see the provisions in the bills here --> https://www.house.mn/bills/SS2019bill.asp
Brad
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