RELEASE: House approves measure to establish temporary staffing pool for long-term care, reinstate COVID-19 waivers

SAINT PAUL, Minn. – Today, the Minnesota House approved a bill authored by Rep. Jen Schultz (DFL – Duluth) allowing the Minnesota Department of Human Services to establish a temporary staffing pool for long-term care facilities and other facilities and programs experiencing an emergency staffing crisis. The bill also allows DHS and the Minnesota Department of Health to reinstate a series of waivers to provide flexibility and remove barriers toward delivering services.

“Our work to defeat COVID-19 is headed in the right direction, but we still have a crisis remaining that frankly existed well before the pandemic. Residents in our nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and group homes have unacceptable staffing levels, putting them at risk of not receiving the level of care they deserve,” Rep. Schultz said. “A temporary pool will help us target staffing resources to facilities with the most urgent needs to protect residents. There are also a variety of waivers we need to urgently enact to allow services and programs to proceed without interruption.”

The bill invests $1.03 million toward a temporary staffing pool at DHS with priority given to facilities and programs with the most significant staffing crises and where residents would otherwise be at significant risk of injury if they needed to transfer to another facility or a hospital for adequately staffed care. A facility or program could seek one-time assistance from the pool – for up to 21 days – only after it’s used all resources available to obtain temporary staff but can’t meet the need. 

Governor Walz initially established many of the waivers in the bill by executive order during the COVID-19 peacetime emergency. Rep. Schultz’s bill will extend waivers for MDH including those related to the hospital construction moratorium or bed capacity restrictions, nursing home bed moratoriums, and licensing fees for hospitals and nursing homes that can show hardship. For DHS, the bill extends or reinstates a series of waivers including allowing oral or written signatures on applications for public assistance programs, permitting video conferencing in monthly foster care visits by a child’s caseworker, and waiving mandatory direct contact supervision requirements to allow individuals to work without supervision while an individual’s background check is being processed, among others. The bill also allows DHS to pay child care assistance through June 26 to a child care provider closed due to COVID-related concerns and temporarily suspend certain child care center staff distribution requirements.

A nonpartisan research summary of the legislation is available here. The Minnesota Senate previously approved a prior version of the bill and following House approval will consider it again.