I recently read an article in the Albert Lea Tribune relaying information that the Albert Lea school district is facing budget reductions of $2 million or more for each of the next three years. This is the school district where I taught for 33 years, and this news breaks my heart. It also brings back memories of the final days of last year's session and special session.
There are some who would celebrate that we ultimately “got our work done” last session with a tied House and a one seat DFL majority in the Senate. But I would ask, did we really get our work done?
Your property taxes are sky high, nursing homes continue to close, schools are going bankrupt, and fraud continues to pop up everywhere because we never passed any significant anti-fraud legislation. I am not going to paint a happy picture that we got our work done because it's pretty evident that we did not.
Last session, I voted against many of the final omnibus bills because I will not vote for bills that I know will hurt people.
I voted no on the health omnibus bill because it gave the state agency its operating increase but cut nursing home funding. The result? Nursing homes throughout the state continue to struggle financially with continued closings making it more difficult for our elders to find care. One of our beloved long-term care centers in Albert Lea is facing significant financial challenges and is now implementing many tough cost cutting efforts to maintain daily operations for the seniors they serve. But the government agency got its increase.
I voted no on the education omnibus bill. As a chair of the Education Policy Committee, I voted against my own bill – and my personally authored legislation was within that bill. As a former teacher of many years, education and children are my passion, but I could not support this bill because I knew it was going to hurt our schools greatly.
This bill did not remove any of the 65+ unfunded/underfunded mandates placed upon schools in the previous biennium, mandates like the paid family leave program, new unemployment burdens, and paying for the lunches of wealthy students while core reading programs that will help close student reading gaps are left wanting. It did nothing to fix the insanity in our schools where children are allowed to rampage and destroy classrooms while those who want to learn are forced to leave the room. To top it all off, it requires a soon-to-be-arriving $250 million cut to special education.
It is no surprise that the Albert Lea Schools are in significant financial trouble, along with many other schools throughout the state. Educators told us this would happen if these mandates remained. It's no surprise that nursing homes are still in trouble. They also told us this would continue without some fixes.
No, we did not get our work done last session.
So, what is the next step? How can we help our schools, nursing homes, the fraud issue, out of control property taxes, and more? The evidence shows that we cannot sit by and just do nothing. We must make this legislative session a year of reform.
There is a lot we must undo and reform to fix the many problems we are currently experiencing in this state. Many more than I had the space to list above. Last year I fought for (and authored bills for) major fixes for these issues and more. I will continue that fight this year - the fight to do the right thing.
Let's make this session the year of reform!