Friends,
While some of us have seen weather like this before, many experienced the coldest they have, and possibly, will see in their lives. The nation and much of the world were surprised at how we survived and functioned. We are Minnesota! Good luck with the heatwave and have a great weekend.
My Bill of the Week
This week, I introduced HF394, a bill to promote local businesses and schools to come together to develop and deliver classes that provide the skills and training many of our youth can use to start their careers and adult life. It's important that our young people are able to know all of the options available to them when thinking about a career and education.
Appointment
I was grateful to once again be appointed to the Legislative Auditor Commission for the 2019-2020 biennium. The LAC provides an important oversight role for the state of Minnesota.
Paid Leave
A bill has been introduced under the “Paid Family and Medical Leave” title. The reality is this bill would raise taxes on every working Minnesotan and their employer to pay for an expensive added layer of bureaucracy that only a small percentage of Minnesotans would use.
This bill would increase payroll taxes on every employer and employee in the state of Minnesota. Minnesota workers would see their payroll taxes increased, even if they already have great benefits. Minnesota businesses would see their payroll taxes increased, even if they are already providing great benefits to their employees. Minnesota would be the only state in the country other than Washington D.C. that taxes both employers and employees to pay for the bureaucracy and infrastructure to administer this new program.
This massive new system has MNsure/MNLARS 3.0 written all over it-we still don't know what it will cost to build, and given the struggles MN.IT has experienced building a functioning driver's license system, we're not confident that they can deliver a functioning system. In addition to the startup costs, the ongoing cost to run the system is also unclear.
Instead of this approach, we should be incentivizing business to provide benefits to their employees, rather than creating another MNsure/MNLARS mess. A tight employment market has had companies offering better benefits, many of these companies would be disincentivized from offering the better benefits they currently do and instead do the bare minimum the state requires. This idea is simply not ready for prime time and will hurt the very people it is trying to help.
Child care fraud
The subject of fraud in Minnesota’s Childcare Assistance Program has been an ongoing discussion in St. Paul. Over the last eight months, House members have submitted to the Department of Human Services four data requests seeking information surrounding the alleged fraud of CCAP funds, yet DHS has failed to fulfill any of four separate requests.
This week, legislators submitted another data practices request to new DHS Commissioner in the hopes a new administration will cooperate. The request concerns the allegations of upwards of $100 million of CCAP funds – which are administered by DHS – being allocated to fraudulent childcare facilities and possibly going overseas to terrorist groups.
Any fraud in our public programs is unacceptable, but we are talking about $100 million that should be going to help kids and parents who truly need assistance. The size and subject of this alleged fraud make this truly a terrible situation.
The nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Auditor will likely issue their report sometime in the next month. The report should be very informative.
Contact Me
Please continue to stay in touch to share your thoughts and ideas on issues important to you. You can schedule a time to meet with me in my office anytime by calling (651) 296-9236, or share your thoughts via email by emailing me at rep.duane.quam@house.mn
Have a great weekend,
Duane