Bone up on latest laws from state legislature

A host of new measures from this year’s legislature officially became law this wee, as of July 1. Summaries of all laws passed by the Legislature in regular and special sessions are available online from nonpartisan House Public Information Services at house.mn

We take a look at the new laws here and in next week’s issue of the Pine Knot

Agriculture

The omnibus agricultural finance law will provide $287.85 million in state funding, an increase of $59.51 million. The bulk of that, $40 million, will go to toward broadband infrastructure development in underserved parts of the state.

Appropriations include a nearly $3.91 million increase (to $107.6 million) for the Department of Agriculture with funds that will increase farmer mental health outreach and expand agency marketing efforts for agricultural products. Additional increases are to bolster programs for meat inspection, disaster preparedness and response, industrial hemp development, noxious weed control, prevention and mitigation of plant pathogens and pests, agricultural research and new lab equipment.

Other changes include:

Authorization for the department to apply enhanced penalties of up to double the base fine in incidents where a person damages state outdoor recreational lands through pesticide use. Allocating funding of up to $5,000 each year to reimburse the University of Minnesota for the time staff spend making determinations on livestock farmers’ wolf depredation claims.

Economic development

The omnibus jobs and economic development finance law will give Minnesota what has been characterized as the toughest wage theft law in the country, along with a range of other finance and policy provisions in the areas of employment, commerce and energy.

The law appropriates almost $2.05 million during the 2020-21 biennium to the Department of Labor and Industry for a Wage Theft Prevention Initiative, making wage theft a felony and punishing employers who retaliate against employees reporting such theft to the department. Penalties could include up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Wage theft is when an employer “fails to pay an employee all wages, salary, gratuities, earnings, or commissions at the employee’s rate or rates of pay or at the rate or rates required by law.”

The new law will also provide funding for vocational services through grant funding and direct appropriations to support people who may struggle to find or maintain employment, including those with severe disabilities or mental illnesses and senior citizens who are becoming blind.

Education

Providing a degree of budget predictability that school boards and administrators have been asking for, a $20.1 billion, two-year E-12 education spending plan has become law. The law will boost the state’s education spending by $543 million over base in the 2020-21 biennium, with the largest investments in general education funding, special education aid and voluntary pre-kindergarten. The law will increase the basic funding formula by 2 percent each year, for an additional $388.8 million in base funding. It will also support the state’s earliest learners with $46.79 million to maintain 4,000 voluntary pre-kindergarten seats that were set to expire.

An additional $90.7 million will go to special education to address the growing gap between school districts’ special education costs and the state and federal funding they receive. Without new investments, the gap is projected to reach $793 million statewide by 2021.

The state’s four tribal contract schools, including Fond du Lac Ojibwe School in Cloquet, authorized and overseen by the federal Bureau of Indian Education, will receive a $3.53 million appropriation increase under the law.

Other education funding:

• $30 million for safe schools grants.

• $1.5 million for teachers of color mentoring and retention incentive grants

• $265,000 for suicide prevention training for teachers grant

• $240,000 for high school equivalency test fees.

Elections

The omnibus state government finance law will prohibit publicly available information on voter registration to include the party choice of a voter who voted in a presidential nomination primary. Current statute requires a county auditor to make publicly available a list that includes the party choice of anyone who voted in the most recent presidential nomination primary. A list of voters corresponding to each party can be provided to each major political party.

The law also provides $2 million for election equipment grants to update computers or software for local election administration, increased polling place accessibility and to create additional storage for local election equipment.

Environment

The omnibus environment and natural resources finance law provides appropriations of $339 million, including an $11.67 million increase for the Department of Natural Resources and a $1.7 million increase for the Board of Water and Soil Resources. The Minnesota Zoo receives a $1.1 million increase and the Board of Tourism an additional $60,000.

About $630 million in revenue — or a 0.375 percent slice of state sales taxes — has been or will be allocated to four funds born of the 2008 Legacy Amendment. The appropriations include: $261.26 million for the Clean Water Fund, $139.77 million for the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, $127.69 million for the Outdoor Heritage Fund and $101.26 million for the Parks and Trails Fund.

More than half of the Clean Water Fund allocations for the 2020-21 biennium will go to the Board of Water and Soil Resources ($138.4 million). Within that are the four largest lines on its ledger: $32 million for surface and drinking water protection and restoration grants; $27 million for grants to watersheds with multi-year plans; $24 million in administration grants for soil and water conservation districts; and $17.3 million for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

The State Arts Board will receive almost half of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund’s biennial outlay ($65.7 million). Within its purview is the largest recipient, the board’s arts and arts access initiatives ($52.6 million). Other large appropriations include $12.9 million each to the Minnesota Historical Society’s statewide historic and cultural grants and statewide history programs, as well as $9.9 million for State Arts Board arts education grants, $8.9 million for Minnesota public television, $5.1 million for regional public libraries and $5 million for the Historical Society’s history partnerships.

Health

In response to the opioid crisis, a new law has a sweeping, multifaceted approach that includes the establishment of an opioid advisory council to establish goals and make funding recommendations; funding for county social service and tribal social service agencies to provide child protection services to families affected by addiction; and increased funding for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

The law includes the first increase ($100 per month) to the Minnesota Family Investment Program’s cash assistance in more than 30 years. It also makes a range of changes to the state’s child protection and foster care systems, with the intent of keeping more families together and reducing disparities while improving children’s well-being.

Higher education

Increases in biennium funding provide $3.41 billion in appropriations and a new set of policies for the state’s public higher education institutions. The funds represent an increase of $150 million.

The Minnesota State system will see a boost of $81.5 million in funding that will include a general “campus investments” increase of $64.5 million.

The five-campus University of Minnesota system will receive a $43.5 million increase over base funding.

In next week’s Pine Knot News, look for recaps of new laws in housing, transportation, government, veterans affairs and public safety.

The Office of Higher Education, which oversees the state’s financial aid programs will receive $25 million more in funding, including additions of $18.2 million for state grants, $2 million for the new MN Reconnect program to help those between ages 25 and 62 who have left college to return, $1.8 million for longitudinal education data systems and $1.5 million for grants to teaching candidates.

HOUSING

The $15 million funding increase in the omnibus agricultural finance law is evenly divided between housing development and redevelopment efforts, and prevention and efforts to end homelessness. Programs where increases are focused include: $5 million for the Challenge program for developing affordable permanent rental housing; $3.5 million for Homework Starts with Home to identify, engage and stabilize students experiencing homelessness and their families; and $500,000 for Bridges Rental Assistance, which provides housing assistance for people with very low incomes and a serious mental illness while they wait for a housing voucher or other rental subsidy.

Of the policy changes, several are intended to increase renter protections, including leases for buildings with more than 12 units that will be required to specify the unit to be rented. They will also need to specify move-in and move-out dates and prorate rent when full months are not part of those terms.

The new law also amends a number of regulations relating to manufactured homes, including allowing modular homes to be placed in manufactured home parks.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Additional dollars for the judiciary, public defenders, corrections officers and the Department of Human Rights are included in the omnibus public safety law. It calls for $2.48 billion in spending, a $123.6 million increase. Among the increases are: $11.93 million for the Public Defense Board primarily to raise salaries of the approximately 580 public defenders across the state along with other staff, and $6 million to hire new attorneys and support staff; $7.6 million to hire an additional 78 prison correctional officers; $5.34 million to maintain full funding of the offender health care contract; almost $2.68 million for prison staffing recruitment and retention; $1.48 million for cybersecurity enhancements; $1.31 million to re-establish a prison ombudsman office that was eliminated in 2003; $366,000 in the first year of the biennium for critical technology needs associated with prison security; and $150,000 for a Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

A 2.5 percent annual salary increase for judges and staff of the Supreme Court, appellate and district courts is also included.

A city or county will be allowed to establish a license reinstatement diversion program for individuals charged with driving after suspension or driving after revocation and defines which offenses are eligible offenses.

STATE GOVERNMENT

Omnibus state government law contains $75.5 million increase. They include $11.5 million for the House of Representatives, in part for members’ $1,500 annual pay increases based on a Legislative Salary Council report, staff salary adjustments and changes associated with redistricting; $10.5 million for the Revenue Department to maintain current services; $10 million to MN.IT Services for cybersecurity enhancements across state government; $6.3 million for the Senate (It also received $5 million for Fiscal Year 2019 activity, effective May 31); $1.95 million for the Office of the Attorney General to maintain and stabilize experienced employees, who make less than other public law offices, such as county attorney staff; $850,000 for the Minnesota Historical Society to maintain current services; and $400,000 to the Administration Department for a grant to Minnesota Public Radio for upgrades to the state’s emergency and AMBER alert systems.

TRANSPORTATION

The omnibus transportation finance law will appropriate roughly $6.7 billion over the next two years for the Department of Transportation, transportation-related functions within the Department of Public Safety, and the transportation division of the Metropolitan Council, including Metro Transit. The law will appropriate just shy of $100 million in additional transportation spending that includes $52.7 million to replace the error-prone Minnesota Licensing and Registration System, known as MNLARS, and $13 million in reimbursement to deputy registrars that were hit hard by the problematic rollout of the system in July 2017. The MNLARS provision took effect May 31.

The largest share of spending in the bill is $6.06 billion over two years to MnDOT (counting all funds), including appropriations of roughly $1.86 billion in state road construction funding, $1.68 billion for county state-aid highways, $728 million for agency operations and maintenance, $420 million for municipal state-aid streets and $50 million for the Corridors of Commerce program.

Other major appropriations include:

-$465.3 million in funding for the Department of Public Safety, including $229.3 million for the state patrol;

-$203 million for the transportation functions of the Metropolitan Council, with the appropriations newly divided between Metro Mobility at $137.5 million and $65.5 million for other transit operations.

Other new laws include:

-Allowing various stretches of state highway to be named in memoriam to Minnesotans of note, like former Rep. Tom Rukavina, and those who died in the line of duty.

-Permitting a city to establish speed limits on local streets that differ from speed limits provided in state law.

-Amending traffic regulations related to school buses re-entering traffic from a shoulder, right-turn lane or other location used for passenger pick-up or drop-off.

VETERANS AND MILITARY AFFAIRS

The omnibus state government finance law will allot:

-$2 million for the Department of Military Affairs to sustain state enlistment incentive and retention bonus programs, such as tuition reimbursement.

-$775,000 for an operating adjustment for state veterans cemeteries.

-$544,000 in program and service operating adjustments for the Department of Veterans Affairs. -$516,000 to sustain reintegration programs for deployed service members.

-$500,000 to expand Minnesota Service Core that provides free essential, community-based services directly to veterans and their families.

In next week’s Pine Knot News, look for recaps of new laws in housing, transportation, government, veterans affairs and public safety.