Legislative Sessions Wraps up Next Week

The 2024 legislative session is crawling towards its conclusion in the next couple days and have started moving their policy conference committee reports on the floors. There has also been a significant push by the finance conference committees to close up their bills, which is expected to happen sometime today and into tomorrow. With three session days remaining and mandatory adjournment on May 19 at 12 a.m., we anticipate very long floor sessions and conference committee reports to pop up as quickly as the Office of the Revisor can produce them. The omnibus pension bill passed and was sent to the governor.

Two weeks ago, Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) popped back up with some changes from DEED that would make the first week of the 12-week program unpaid if you have a certain amount of PTO. MAPE and other unions have been leading the effort on multiple fronts to remove this piece from the bill. After several weeks of fighting the Senate and the administration, and a last-minute discovery of a report in a Friday committee hearing that showed an alternate path for keeping premiums at a reasonable level, the administration and the senate agreed to strip out the PTO carveout language. The bill will be heard on the House floor today along with the Equal Rights Amendment.  

MAPE and AFSCME continue to lobby lawmakers for a solution regarding the proposed closure of CARE St. Peter.