Greetings,
School safety, taxes, transportation and sulfate standards are among the big topics at the Capitol this week. Here’s a quick look at those:
SCHOOL SAFETY
Yesterday, the House approved with broad support a bipartisan package of education-related measures, a number of which focused on student safety. The gist of this legislation (H.F. 4328) is that it provides crucial resources and flexibility for schools to address their particular student safety and mental health needs.
Local citizens and school officials know what serves their children best and the bill we passed allows them to customize solutions to fit their particular situation. The provisions we included all are ones that can be achieved in the relative short term to protect our children.
Highlights of the bill include:
- School resource officers, student support personnel, and other school security programs funded through increased Safe Schools revenue, including a floor level of funding for small schools.
- School building security upgrades, and expanded use of Long-Term Facility Maintenance revenue for security projects, including emergency communications systems.
- School-linked mental health programming to ensure better outcomes for all kids.
- Physical security audit grants to provide state assistance to review facility security and crisis management policies.
- Suicide prevention training for teachers to help educators learn how to engage and assist students experiencing mental distress.
- School-based threat assessment teams established to assess, intervene, and report threats facing students, teachers, and staff.
TAXES
The House has made public this year’s supplemental tax bill, a package which provides the first income tax rate cut in nearly 20 years and also protects as many as possible from harm as we adjust to significant changes in federal tax code. More than 2.1 million Minnesota filers will benefit from a tax cut in tax year 2018. Here is an overview:
- Helping middle-class Minnesotans keep more of what they earn by cutting the second tier income tax rate from 7.05 percent to 6.75 percent by tax year 2020. (This would mark the first income tax rate reduction in Minnesota since 2000.)
- Lowering taxes for people at all income levels by increasing the standard deduction from $13,000 to $14,000.
- Protecting families by preserving a state personal and dependent exemption of $4,150.
- Encouraging affordable homeownership by allowing a state-itemized deduction of up to $30,000 in property taxes.
- Supporting hometown businesses and farmers by reinvesting extra revenue from corporate tax changes into Section 179 conformity and overall rate reductions.
TRANSPORTATION
A bill is moving through the House which is designed to uphold the integrity of legislation I led to law last year directing existing sales taxes on purchases of auto parts, etc., to roads and bridges. This bill is authored by the chairman of the House Transportation Finance Committee and it would pose this question to voters:
"Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to dedicate current sales tax revenue from the sale of motor vehicle repair and replacement parts, so that beginning July 1, 2020, all of the revenue is used exclusively for roads, including repair of state and local streets, highways, and bridges and to match federal highway dollars?”
Please note this amendment does not increase the rate of the current tax. It is simply designed to protect funding for roads and bridges, while also establishing some parameters for reviewing revenue collections and disbursements so adjustments can be made if necessary. The whole objective is to ensure our goals are being met in supporting roads and bridges as a priority.
SULFATE STANDARDS
This week legislation (H.F. 3280) which puts new energy into protecting Minnesota’s natural wild rice resource received bipartisan approval from the House. Three days later, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced it was pulling back its rule from the rulemaking process, which should help clear the way for the House bill.
The bill we approved retires a 1973 numeric sulfate standard, which is not supported by today’s science and has gone unenforced for the past 45 years. Furthermore, the bill directs both the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to refocus their efforts on protecting, enhancing and where appropriate restoring natural wild rice beds in Minnesota.
In 2010, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began a rulemaking process to revise the water quality standard of 10 mg/L sulfate to protect wild rice. For perspective, sulfate in drinking water currently has a secondary maximum contamination level of 250 mg/L, based on aesthetic effects, such as taste and odor. Meantime, recommendations indicate that, as a precaution, water with a sulfate level exceeding 500 mg/L should not be used in the preparation of infant formula.
So, yes, it’s clear some updating needs to take place. Over the past eight years, the MPCA has been unsuccessful in updating and replacing the unenforceable, obsolete standard. Their efforts have been rejected repeatedly by Administrative Law Judges, including this recent 16 page order from the ALJ.
The House bill would let us get re-centered on this issue so that we can bring modern science and a wide range of perspectives to the table and establish a reasonable, enforceable solution that actually achieves our needs in protecting the rice beds and water resources in our state.
Good luck,
Jeff