Legislative report from Rep. Knoblach

Dear Neighbor,

The Legislature finished its work and adjourned the 2018 session on Sunday, passing a compromise tax conformity and education funding bill, a bonding bill, a bill ratifying higher education labor contracts, and a pension bill to Gov. Mark Dayton’s desk for his action.

The omnibus budget bill, which I authored, passed on Saturday. We had originally passed four separate budget bills off the House floor containing budgets and policies for different areas, but the State Senate wanted to have only one big bill, and that is what we ended up having. The Governor gave us a list of 173 objections to this bill this past Friday morning, and in an effort to compromise with him we agreed to meet his demands on 71 of those objections, plus four of six more objections he provided on Saturday. We thus met him more than halfway, and I am hopeful and cautiously optimistic that after he has had time to read and think about the bill that he will sign it.

This budget bill contains a number of important statewide provisions, including:

1. Funding for school safety improvements;
2. Providing funding to eliminate the threatened 7% cut to workers who take care of disabled people;
3. $16 million to deal with the opioid crisis;
4. Funding and reforms to improve the state's care of vulnerable adults;
5. $57 million more in funding for roads and bridges;
6. $15 million for rural broadband;
7. Housing reforms that will allow several thousand more units of affordable housing to be built in Minnesota by better using federal housing bonding authority the state receives;
8. Many policy provisions, including things like increasing penalties for texting while driving, prohibiting people who have previously admitted to sex offenses from being school bus drivers, and requiring state agencies to spend 3.5% of their IT budgets on cybersecurity.

The bill also contains several important policy provisions for the Saint Cloud area that I have authored:

1. $20 million in funding to add a third lane on I-94 each way between Clearwater and Monticello;
2. Language directing the state to open negotiations with BNSF Railway to extend the Northstar Corridor to Saint Cloud;
3. $650,000 in dislocated worker funding to jump start the retraining of people being laid off at Electrolux;
4. $73,000 for the Promise Neighborhood organization that tutors disadvantaged students on the South East side;
5. $300,000 in additional funding for District #742;
6. Language allowing Minden and Haven Township to reduce their regulatory compliance expenses by limiting MS4 requirements to only the urbanized area of those townships.

The tax conformity and education bill, which passed Sunday, were part of a compromise effort between legislative Republicans and Dayton. The federal conformity plan protects taxpayers, simplifies Minnesota's tax code, and provides the first income tax rate cut in nearly 20 years. It also makes available more than $225 million to help students, and providing new money and additional flexibility for school districts to address budget shortfalls.

The Legislature also advanced an infrastructure-heavy, geographically balanced capital investment package featuring $825 million in general obligation bonding to fund construction projects throughout the state. The majority of funding is dedicated to bricks-and-mortar projects, such as roads and bridges, water infrastructure and statewide asset preservation. In addition, the bonding bill includes $32 million for the construction of new veterans homes in Bemidji, Montevideo, and Preston, as well as $10 million for the renovation of existing homes. This bill also contains several important projects for the Saint Cloud area:

1. $16 million to fund asset preservation projects at the Saint Cloud prison;
2. $4.45 million to fund renovation of the Saint Cloud Armory;
3. $5 million to help fund, along with $7 million in matching funds, a new ampitheatre entertainment project in Waite Park;
4. $4.0 million to help fund the water treatment plant in Cold Spring;
5. $500,000 to fund Highway 23 improvements in Foley;
6. $3 million to fund industrial park improvements in Becker.

The bills sent to the governor build on what were tremendously successful accomplishments from the 2017 session that included the largest tax cut in nearly two decades, the largest investment in roads and bridges in state history without a gas tax increase, major funding boosts for education, and reforms to lower health care costs and boost health care choices for Minnesota families.

Provided the Governor signs these bills, we will have had another very successful session.

Thanks for your help along the way as we navigated another set of challenges at the Capitol this year. I look forward to being back home in the district and meeting with constituents now that the Legislature has adjourned. Please stay in touch.

Sincerely,

Jim