Friends,
It looks like we will be having beautiful weather this weekend. I hope you can get out and enjoy it! Have a great weekend.
Education Bill Passes House
On Thursday, the House passed bipartisan education legislation on a vote of 94-29 that puts students first. House File 4328 prioritizes school and student safety, increases transparency in a number of areas, and helps prepare kids for a bright and successful future.
Every student in Minnesota deserves to have access to a world-class education and to be safe at school. Our bill strives to do just that by providing critical resources and flexibility for our schools to address student safety and mental health, while also proposing innovative solutions that will make a meaningful impact on education in our state. I am particularly pleased my proposal to ban teachers from engaging in sexual relations with high school students, no matter the age, was included in the bill. No parent should worry their student will be taken advantage of by adults they trusted. Those teachers who do this should go to jail. Period.
School safety audits will allow schools to identify vulnerabilities and invest their resources properly to make our students safe and I am glad my proposal to make grants available to schools across the state was included in the bill.
Highlights in the education portion of the bill include:
- Championing a multifaceted approach to give school districts the resources and flexibility they need to address student safety and security. That includes expanding the use of long-term facilities maintenance revenue for facility security upgrades, strengthening the state’s commitment to school-linked mental health grants, supporting suicide prevention training for teachers, increasing funding for Safe Schools Revenue, and more
- Strengthening and clarifying state law to address teacher misconduct and teacher licensure including prohibiting sexual relationships between educators and students, even if that student is 18; requiring periodic teacher background checks, and prohibiting the issuance or renewal of a teacher/administrative license or bus driver endorsement for certain felonies or gross misdemeanors involving a minor
- Requiring the Minnesota Department of Education to create a School Report Card —a one-stop-spot for summative and easily accessible school and district ratings that will provide families with a place to research, compare and help determine which school will work best for their child
- Enhancing the transparency of school funding and our commitment to tackling our state’s achievement gap by doubling the number of school audits each year. These audits will discern whether or not education dollars allocated to school districts and dedicated to special education, English-learner and low-income students are reaching the students intended
- Ensuring students are exposed to a wide variety of post-secondary options including the trades and branches of the military
- Strengthening laws that protect kids from school lunch shaming
- Creating a Special Education Working Group to engage stakeholders and examine the factors that are driving rising costs
The creation of a Special Education Working Group was another proposal I carried this session. It will examine what is working and what is not working to make sure we are giving every student requiring special education the best possible educational opportunities.
A number of higher education provisions are also included in the package. Highlights include measures to fund student loan debt counseling, bring new sexual harassment reporting requirements and policies to the University of Minnesota, and to back a textbook affordability initiative.
Tax Conformity - Simplifying and Providing Relief
One of the most important things we have to do this session is to pass a tax conformity plan to make sure Minnesota's tax plan conforms to the major changes passed by Congress in 2017. Our goal in the House is to hold as many Minnesotans as possible harmless, provide meaningful tax relief to taxpayers and simplify our tax code so people can take full advantage of state and federal tax relief.
Highlights of our plan include cutting the second-tier income tax rate from 7.05 percent to 6.75 percent by 2020, letting middle-class Minnesotans keep more of their hard-earned money. We also lower taxes for people of all income levels by increasing the standard deduction from $13,000 to $14,000. Third, we help families by protecting state personal and dependent exemptions of $4,150. To encourage affordable home ownership, our plan allows state-itemized deductions of up to $30,000 in property taxes. Finally, we support our hometown businesses by reinvesting extra revenue from corporate tax changes into Section 179 conformity and overall rate reductions.
Governor Dayton is proposing a supplemental budget that raises $1.4 billion in taxes on Minnesotans. An analysis done by his own Department of Revenue showed his plan would raise taxes on every income level—not just the rich —hitting households that make $32,000 or less the hardest. The governor is proposing reinstating more than $1 billion in health care tax increases, repealing tax reductions we passed last session, and other measures surrounding federal tax changes.
The Governor's proposal is a non-starter with me and my colleagues in the House and will continue to move forward with our plan outlined above to deal with the complex tax conformity issue.
As always, please continue to stay in touch to share your thoughts and ideas. You can schedule a time to meet with me in my office anytime by calling my office at (651) 296-9463 or share your thoughts via email by emailing me at rep.drew.christensen@house.mn.
Have a great weekend!
Drew