Higher education committee approves lean omnibus bill

Rep. Gene Pelowski, Jr. (DFL-Winona) has done the math: this session, the House Higher Education Policy and Finance Committee heard 37 bills with fiscal notes totaling over $178 million. But as the committee approved its omnibus bill Wednesday that hits the budget of target of zero, the DFL lead wondered if all the hearings had been a waste of time, and several committee members expressed disappointment with the result.

Rep. Bud Nornes

The committee adopted the delete-all amendment to HF3237, sponsored by Rep. Bud Nornes (R-Fergus Falls), and several additional amendments, sending the bill to the House Ways and Means Committee. The Senate higher education target announced Wednesday is $47.7 million.

Rep. Kim Norton (DFL-Rochester) said that after the omnibus bill was presented in committee Tuesday, she left “depressed ... that we can’t spend any money lowering debt for our kids.”

The only student debt provisions in the bill relate to increasing awareness of existing federal loan forgiveness programs. The bill also includes provisions that would:

• expand eligibility for child care grants to include students in graduate or professional degree programs;
• direct the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system to develop a plan for a program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities at MnSCU campuses; and
• require the Education Department to establish “college ready” benchmark scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments.

Under the original bill, MnSCU would be prohibited from requiring students meeting the MCA benchmarks to take remedial classes. The committee adopted an amendment offered by Rep. Jason Isaacson (DFL-Little Canada) that would require only that MnSCU consider MCA scores in making remedial placements, which Isaacson said would preserve the authority of MnSCU institutions to determine student placement.

University would fund fetal tissue center, other proposals

The omnibus bill includes none of the University of Minnesota’s supplemental budget requests, and the committee adopted three amendments that would shift allocations within the university system to fund lawmaker proposals.

The committee adopted an amendment by Norton to reallocate some of the university’s operations and maintenance funding to establish a program at the Rochester campus to support students recovering from substance abuse or other addictive behaviors. The university supports the issue but is concerned by the funding mechanism, said Erin Dady, special assistant to President Eric Kaler.

An amendment by Rep. Connie Bernardy (DFL-Fridley) would require the university to fund oversight by the Office of the Ombudsman into clinical drug trials involving human subjects at the Department of Psychiatry, which the committee has scrutinized in depth this session. 

Nornes deflected concerns about potential costs, saying the university could make the case for additional funding next session, if necessary.

Finally, the committee adopted an amendment by Rep. Abigail Whelan (R-Anoka) representing what Whelan called a “way forward” to continue conversations about the use of fetal tissue in research, particularly tissue obtained from aborted fetuses.

The amendment would require the university to use part of its medical school appropriations to establish a center to oversee all research activities involving fetal tissue and ensure compliance with applicable laws and policies. The committee adopted an oral amendment from Whelan to remove restrictions on the source of fetal tissue from the proposal.

Kaler said he opposes the amendment because it would redirect funding away from other important medical school functions, but he recognizes the importance of the issue to lawmakers and members of the public and is “willing to continue the conversation.”

“Science with no ethnical guidelines or limits, in my opinion, can go down roads that have tremendously terrible results,” said Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe).

Other lawmakers felt the bill would restrict the ability of the university to recruit top researchers and perform its role as the state’s primary research institution.

“We have a bill in front of us that doesn’t help students with tuition, that doesn’t do anything about student debt and now we’re trying to make the university a place that is weaker than it is without this amendment,” said Rep. Paul Rosenthal (DFL-Edina)

What’s in the bill?

The following are selected bills that have been incorporated in part or in whole into the omnibus higher education policy and finance bill:

• HF2576 (Murphy, E.)
• HF2586 (Bennett)
• HF2896 (Daniels)
• HF3130 (Dean, M.)
• HF3237 (Nornes)
• HF3275 (Nornes)