Good morning, and welcome to another Monday.
It’s officially budget bill season in the Minnesota Legislature. MPR’s Brian Bakst reports category-by-category spending packages will roll out this week. The plans all have to fit within limits agreed to by Gov. Tim Walz and DFL legislative leaders. Eventually, they’ll make up a two-year state budget totaling more than $70 billion. “What Minnesotans wanted was a budget that supported education, a budget that supported working men and women of Minnesota,” said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato, adding that the goal is to pass one that “every Minnesotan north, south, east and west, old and young will be proud of.” Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, described the in-the-works budget as a “runaway train of spending in Minnesota that Minnesota taxpayers will be paying for years and years to come.” The plan allows a budget that reaches nearly $72 billion over two years — compared with about $52 billion now. But $10 billion or more of the new figure is considered one time, meaning the money isn’t establishing or feeding a permanent program.
Brian also discovered this: The Walz family will move into a Sunfish Lake home owned by former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden, likely in May, ahead of planned multi-million dollar renovations at the official governor’s residence. The first family’s stay is likely to last into September 2024. On Friday, the state signed an 18-month lease — plus renewal options of up to three additional months — with MFM Properties II LLC, which has a Wisconsin mailing address. Total costs associated with the lease are $329,581, according to the Department of Administration. Walz does not own a residential property, according to state disclosure records. He and wife, Gwen, sold their Mankato house early in his first term and have called the Summit Avenue mansion their sole residence. In January, the state’s property management agency began a search for temporary living quarters that could also play host to official ceremonial functions while the 110-year-old residence underwent fixes.
A bill moving at the Minnesota Capitol would require all Minnesota district and charter high schools to offer an ethnic studies course by the 2026-27 school year that can be counted toward social studies graduation requirements. MPR’s Elizabeth Shockman reports: It would also establish a 25-member working group composed of teachers, parents, students, school leaders and community members to help the Department of Education develop a statewide model curriculum. The bill defines ethnic studies as “the interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity and indigeneity with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color within and beyond the United States. Ethnic studies analyzes the ways in which race and racism have been and continue to be powerful social, cultural and political forces, and the connection of race to other groups of stratification, including gender, class, sexuality, religion and legal status.” An amendment to the bill removed the word “critical” from that definition and makes ethnic studies a requirement that high schools provide, but does not make the class a graduation requirement.
The Twin Cities two major newspapers each had a look at the DFL proposal at the Capitol to set up a paid family and medical leave program. The Pioneer Press focused on the numbers: The joint budget targets announced by Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party leaders include nearly $670 million to kick-start the benefit program. But a fiscal analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Budget Office found getting the program up and running could cost as much as $1.7 billion. The high costs are largely to allow the state to begin paying benefits around the same time it starts collecting revenue from a new 0.7 percent payroll tax. The tax on wages could be split between workers and employees. The state Department of Employment and Economic Development would have to hire more than 400 workers by 2026 to administer the program, which proponents say would look a lot like Minnesota’s unemployment system. Only about 24 percent of workers currently have access to paid leave and 13 other states have some type of benefit requirement on the books.
The Star Tribune focused on business concerns: David Senter fears his Hastings structural engineering firm will lose business if one of his five employees takes three months off. Niles Deneen, CEO of mug-making St. Paul company Deneen Pottery, worries about navigating different state and federal requirements. And businesses ranging from a small Moorhead chiropractor to St. Paul's Anchor Paper Co. are concerned about a new payroll tax. Many executives are watching warily as Minnesota lawmakers develop a paid family and medical leave program. Some small-business owners have heralded the move, saying that both they and their workforce will benefit. But others say legislators' plans are more expansive than in some other states, could affect every employer and would make Minnesota an outlier in the Upper Midwest.
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