Friends,
For the second straight year, the Legislature completed its work before its constitutional deadline when we adjourned late on Friday night.
In a future report, I’ll give you a recap of everything we accomplished since we were gaveled into session in January of 2013. But for now, I thought I’d wrap up the last week of action, and it was quite a week.
On the very last day of the session, the House passed a bill making Minnesota the 22nd state to allow some form of medicinal marijuana, a supplemental budget bill and a bill cutting taxes – the second such bill of the 2014 session.
We also passed an $846 million bonding bill and a bill that uses $200 million of general fund money to fund important projects, including many in St. Paul.
These bills – along with our Women’s Economic Security Act and the first tax cut bill – will be how the 2014 session is remembered.
We’re calling the tax bill we passed on Friday “Tax Bill 2.” It provides $103 million in additional tax cuts to Minnesota homeowners, renters, businesses and farmers. When combined with the first tax cut passed in March, the legislature will have provided $550 million in tax cuts this session – providing tax relief for nearly 2 million Minnesotans. In Tax Bill 2, an estimated 940,000 Minnesotans will see property tax relief, including 500,000 homeowners, 350,000 renters, and 90,000 farmers.
Highlights of Tax Bill 2:
· Homeowners will get a one-time 3 percent increase in their Homestead Credit refunds in 2014. The average homeowner will see a refund of $837 for 2014.
· Renters will receive a one-time 6 percent increase in their 2014 Renters’ Credit Refunds. The average renter will see a refund of $643.
The supplemental budget includes critical investments in Greater Minnesota job creation, caregivers and education.
It includes $30 million in job creation measures, mostly aimed at Greater Minnesota. We need to make sure that all corners of the state are feeling our economic recovery. It also provides $20 million for a border-to-border grant fund to promote the development of broadband. Areas of the state with low broadband connectivity will receive priority.
It increases funding for home and community-based long-term care providers by 5 percent. The budget also increases funding for early childhood scholarships and lifts the cap on scholarship funding per child.
The bonding package was a huge victory for St. Paul.
Metropolitan State University will receive $35.9 million for a new Science Education Center, and to renovate its new main building.
Other projects receiving funds are the Minnesota Children's Museum ($14 million) to expand and renovate its facilities,Twin Cities Public Television ($9 million) to renovate its building, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts ($5 million) for a 1,100 seat concert hall.
The bill also included $5.4 million for St. Paul-Como Regional Park, $6 million for the Dorothy Day Center toconvert a building to an emergency shelter, and $1.5 million to St. Paul College for a classroom and lab space for the culinary arts and computer numerical control/machine tool programs.
We’ve worked long and hard to get these important projects funded. I want to thank my colleague, Rep. Alice Hausman,chair of the Capital Investment committee, for everything she did to make sure they were in the final bonding bill.
The other important item we dealt with last week was the bill to legalize some forms of medicinal marijuana. We did this in a bipartisan manner. It will allow some treatment for those suffering from cancer, Glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Tourette’s syndrome, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), seizures, including those characteristic of epilepsy, severe and persistent muscle spasms, including those characteristic of multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s Disease and some terminal illnesses.
It was a hectic week, but we finished the 2013-2014 Legislative Session, and with a couple of days to spare.
Have a good week,
Sheldon