Greetings from the House Floor,
We returned to work on Tuesday after what was supposed to be a long weekend to observe Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Although no official business was conducted on Monday, I get a sense from all the House members that no one really had a break. It was nice to have an extra day to focus on our own work outside of committees.
Floor sessions this week were short and the business consisted largely of bill introductions and referring bills between committees. On Wednesday, the Higher Education committee held a hearing at St. Paul College. We received an overview of the MnSCU system from Chancellor Rosenstone, Trustee Renier and Trustee Anderson-Kelliher. Much of the questioning from the committee members focused on aligning higher education with workforce development and preparing students for post-secondary education through the K-12 system (looking at how MnSCU can partner with K-12 schools). I brought up a couple of points that we all need to look at and think about in terms of what is best for students; tuition relief and grant funding on the front end or connecting students with employment on the back end. It is important to simultaneously recognize the cost of higher education and how we can keep it affordable, and also address how students will be best positioned to enter the workforce upon completion of their education. I also raised some points related to the current attitudes sentiments of faculty and students on MnSCU campuses. We all need to work to ensure that these institutions continue to be places where Minnesotans can comfortably learn and work. MnSCU schools currently educate 410,000 students across the state and comprise the largest resource of higher education in the state. We need to keep these schools healthy and vibrant as cornerstones of our communities and a bedrock of our state’s economic vitality.
On Thursday, we heard HF 1 in the Greater Minnesota Economic and Workforce Development Committee. This bill is the GOP’s job creation bill and may get broken down and divided into several smaller bills as the legislative session progresses. The contents of the bill are as follows:
· A reduction in processing time for environmental permits from 90 days to 45 days for less complicated PCA and DNR permits
· Allowing more legislative oversight of agency rule making
· Tax breaks for businesses
· Workforce housing programs
· Tax credits for individuals who study and go into STEM and long-term care fields in certain parts of the state
· Shifting fines assessed by state agencies from the state agency to the state’s General Fund
I focused my attention during the committee hearing on workforce housing and what may be the best way to support construction of workforce housing. Several ideas being discussed around the Legislature on how we should proceed on workforce housing include tax credits for investors of housing land-trusts and other funds, tax credits for developers, guarantees for development loans, grants from the Dept. of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) for which cities can apply and dollars from the state to create public-private partnerships. Workforce housing is a relatively new issue for the state to address and some of the challenges revolve around the cost of building facilities against the estimated assessed value of a completed facility, whether these facilities should be income based and to what extent the state should be involved in these projects.
On Thursday evening, the Property Tax and Local Government Division conducted a listening session in Stewartville, MN. Chair Drazkowski scheduled the listening session as an opportunity for the division to hear from Minnesotans about their concerns and ideas for property taxes and how the state can work better with local governments. An additional listening session is scheduled for January 24th in Albert Lea. The folks who attended largely spoke about agricultural property taxes and the increases they’ve seen in recent years. The amount folks paid into property taxes statewide has gone down over the last couple of years; however, agricultural property tax payers did not see this decline as a result of increases in land prices. Despite the increases in land values, crop prices are now lower as compared to recent years and make it difficult for farmers to pay their property taxes. I have heard very similar concerns from farmers in Clay County. Some ideas folks discussed were looking at the assessment process in the state, taking agricultural land out of school levies and basing appraisals on the ability of farmers to pay (crop prices). The first tier valuation limit for agricultural land will go up to $2,140,000 before it hits the 1.0 class rate for assessment year 2015 (taxes payable in 2016). We need to look at additional ways, like increased market value credits for agricultural land, we can help farmers handle property taxes when crop prices have down years.
Thank You for the Opportunity to Serve,
Ben