Legislative update - May 7, 2025

Publish Date
Committees
Political Council

With less than two weeks left in session, the House and Senate are passing the final omnibus budget bills off the floors to conference committees, many of which will be meeting this week to iron out policy differences. The committees are still awaiting global committee targets before they act upon the budgetary aspects of the bills. As of Tuesday evening, bills in conference are as follows: 

  • HF2432/SF1417- Judiciary and Public Safety policy and appropriations 

  • HF2446/SF2458- Agriculture, Broadband and Rural Development policy and appropriations 

  • SF2298/HF2445- Housing and Homelessness Prevention policy and appropriations 

  • SF3045/HF2783- State and Local Government and Elections policy and appropriations 

The House Health committee and the Workforce and Labor committee have finally reached tentative budget agreements. House Health includes operating adjustments more than the Governor’s recommendations for the Department of Health, but does not include appropriations for MinnesotaCare, as there was a policy impasse regarding the coverage for undocumented Minnesotans.  

The Workforce and Labor committee made steep cuts to DEED and eliminates the Minnesota Investment Fund, a program designed to help small businesses. The House Education omnibus bill, which provides no operating adjustments for the agencies in its jurisdiction and discontinues providing unemployment insurance (UI) coverage for hourly school workers, was voted out of committee but remains on the House Floor until an agreement can be reached on UI. MAPE currently opposes the bill. 

As mentioned in previous updates, the House budget target leaves a lot to be desired - both the lack of new revenue to help balance some of the cuts here at the state level and not preparing to mitigate devastating impacts of proposed federal cuts. MAPE has significant concerns around the current proposed operating adjustments for numerous agencies; specifically, the Department of Corrections, as neither the House nor Senate provide more than 46 percent of the governor's DOC operating adjustment budget request, which was already significantly short of their needed funding amounts. This means significant cuts and layoffs unless the House and Senate receive higher joint budget targets in conference committee.  

In the House, other agencies that currently do not have their full operating adjustments are Public Safety, Revenue, Mn.IT Services, Natural Resources, Mn Zoo, Pollution Control Agency, Children, Youth and Families, Employment and Economic Development and others. The Senate also does not fully fund several agency requests, including Vocational Rehabilitation Services, the MN Zoo, and Department of Commerce. The Senate also passed language in the State Government bill that prohibits grant-authorizing agencies from collecting administrative fees unless specifically authorized in the budget appropriation.  

Tax bills were released this week and were predictably disappointing. To reach its minimal revenue target of $40 million per biennium, the House relies largely on ending the local aid to municipalities from Cannabis revenue. The Senate does that while also shifting local government aid and county program aid back to the general fund, implementing their social media data excise tax, and other minimal aids and credits shifts. The Senate bill also includes the extending the data center sales tax exemption to 2062.  

Pensions committee is also starting to wind down their work. The committee will reconsider the early retirement for corrections agents bill. After numerous hearings and no agreement, advocates will be pursuing new options.  

Federal Updates 

Congressional committees have started their budget reconciliation process. Moderate Republicans in the U.S. House have been adamant about not cutting Medicaid benefits, specifically changing the percentage of Medicaid expenditures reimbursed by the federal government to states (also known as FMAP) nor creating per capita grants. This makes it very difficult to reach their target of $880 billion as their proposal for implementing rigorous work requirements and fraud prevention is unlikely to yield that much. Markup is anticipated for May 12. 

MMB recently launched an online tool to track current federal funding disruptions and grant terminations. 

Other updates 

MAPE will continue to fight the Walz administration on their return to office mandate and look for opportunities to escalate our demand that he rescinds the directive and negotiate with us in good faith.