Dear Neighbors,
On June 9th, we concluded our one day special session to pass the rest of our state budget and wrap up our work for the year. The final bills we passed reflected our closely divided government in that they were true compromises; there’s some good and not-so-good mixed together in these bills.
The main theme of this session was DFLers standing up for middle and working class Minnesotans and the laws and programs we all rely on. In a time when the federal government is gutting programs like Medicaid to give multimillionaires massive tax cuts, we stood firm against state GOP attempts to do the same. We successfully defended popular legislation from our previous session like paid family & medical leave, child tax credits, universal school meals, strong gun violence prevention laws, and more.
Given the way that the legislative session unfolded, especially in the House, I feel good about our defensive efforts this year. Very little of my own legislation passed this year, but I’ll have more to say about that in my next bulletin. This bulletin will be about the “big picture”.
MinnesotaCare for undocumented immigrants
The most difficult concession that we were forced to make was related to access for adult undocumented immigrants to MinnesotaCare, the State’s “basic health plan” for the working poor. Republicans were willing to shut down the government over this issue. MinnesotaCare is not free: MinnesotaCare plan members pay both premiums and copays. It is only available to hardworking taxpayers – applicants must supply a copy of their most recent income tax return. Otherwise undocumented workers without Social Security numbers obtain an “Individual Taxpayer Identification Number” (ITIN) from the IRS and file their income tax returns using this number because they recognize their responsibility to pay the taxes they owe as residents. Minnesota receives about $220 million per year from residents who pay their income taxes using an ITIN. Through the first quarter of 2025, these MinnesotaCare members had only submitted $3.4 millions in medical claims through the program. These workers are making a large and positive net contribution to the state budget.
The Strib’s business columnist, Evan Ramstad, made the case for continuing this coverage in a recent column: We should be welcoming these workers to Minnesota because we need them to fill jobs in agriculture, construction, hospitality and healthcare that the rest of us don’t want to perform. First generation immigrants fill a large percentage of direct care jobs in nursing homes and serving persons with disabilities. For the Republicans to make this their number one legislative priority is mind-boggling to me. The question we should be asking of Congress is: How do we legalize the immigration of the workers we need for our economy to function?
Denying health care coverage to these workers is penny-wise and pound-foolish. When denied coverage for routine primary care, they end up in the emergency room at Hennepin County Medical Center where they are treated at four times the cost – a cost that shows up on our property tax statements as uncompensated care.
Budget Deficit, Budget Reduction, and Cost of Government
The budget we passed for the biennium beginning July 1st reduces spending by more than $4 billions from the current budget. In large part, this is because the current budget included a great deal of one-time spending to make up for previous failures to invest in infrastructure.
There are no significant tax reductions in this budget and only two tax increases, both insisted upon by Republicans:
- A more than doubling of the registration tax surcharges on electric vehicles (EV owners will now be paying significantly higher taxes than the owners of equivalent gasoline-powered cars).
- An increase in the special sales tax on cannabis products that will undermine our efforts to defeat the black market, which is the primary objective of our new regulatory scheme.
We successfully staved off attempts to reduce state aid to cities and counties, which would have just shifted the tax burden to our property taxes. However, counties will still be under cost pressure related to the administration of growing human services programs.
Future deficit projections are driven mostly by a recent acceleration in the growth of the demand for nursing home care and direct care to persons with disabilities. The budget imposes a slowdown in the rate of growth in state spending on these services. However, these increases are driven by demographics: Our population is aging – the leading edge of the baby boomer generation is approaching the age of 80 – and I don’t think that we can just erase the growing demand for these services with a spreadsheet entry. These demographically-driven trends have been foreseeable and I’m annoyed that they weren’t reflected in the future budget forecasts that were presented to us two years ago.
Finally, I would note that the State’s “Price of Government Index” – State and Local Government taxes as a share of personal income – is currently at its lowest level ever recorded and further reductions are projected for the coming years. We will end both the current and the next budget bienniums with significant budget surpluses and a full “rainy day fund” (unless, of course, Congress slashes Medicaid funding allocations to the states and blows a multi-billion dollar hole in every state’s budget). We are, in fact, “living within our means”.
We did pass a $700 Capital Appropriations (aka “Bonding”) bill for the maintenance of state-owned facilities, but there is nothing in this bill for local government infrastructure.
Fraud Prevention Committee
I’m serving on the House Fraud Prevention Committee this session. While much of the programming can be characterized as political theatre, we are learning things that will eventually result in meaningful improvements. We now understand that most fraud is perpetrated from the service provider side, not the service recipient side, and that’s where we need to be focusing our attention.
The COVID relief programs were hurriedly thrown together to prop up the national economy without allowing time to properly set up the supporting infrastructure or controls. A huge amount of money was stolen from these programs but this was a (hopefully) one time occurrence. Our ongoing Unemployment Insurance program has one of the lowest fraud rates in the country.
We’re wasting too much money shuffling paper (literally). I have an IT background and I’m seeing opportunities to achieve program management efficiencies from controlled sharing of data across agencies via “data services”. For example, the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) collects payroll information from employers once a quarter. If the Department of Human Services (DHS) needs to know if someone is eligible for Medical Assistance (Medicaid), they should be able to make an automated query to the DEED system to find out that person’s current income. DHS should be able to make a similar query to the Registrar of Records at the Department of Health to check for deaths among program participants. Setting this up will require time and money, but these discussions are already happening. I also serve on a Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) Data Sharing committee that is working to identify and eliminate the institutional and technical barriers to making these kinds of automated services available.
Significant improvements in grant management are already well underway. Minnesota will be the national leader among states in grant management once these reforms are fully implemented.
There is bipartisan agreement that we need to improve the "Inspector General” (IG) programs in the various agencies; however, there is no agreement over the form of a reorganization and no bills were brought to the floor for a vote. I have tendered a proposal that would co-locate a State Inspector General’s office with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, with individual IGs embedded within the various departments but reporting directly to the State IG to ensure independence from individual agency leadership. GOP proposals have had the state Inspector General reporting directly to the Legislature, which would politicize the office. (We already have the Legislative Auditor serving us.)
Yesterday’s Town Hall
Thank you to everyone who attended our Bloomington Town Hall last night. We had good attendance and a thoughtful and cordial discussion. I look forward to seeing you at the next one!
Happy Pride!
Happy Pride Month! Our wonderful and vibrant LGBTQIA+ community is a huge part of what makes our city and state so amazing. I was able to participate in the annual Bloomington Pride celebration at Bloomington Civic Plaza.
Lane Splitting and Filtering Begins July 1
Lane splitting and lane filtering for motorcyclists will be legal in Minnesota as of July 1, 2025. Motorists and motorcyclists need to be aware of this new law and how it will affect them to ensure it is enacted safely and respectfully on Minnesota roadways. It’s incredibly important to be mindful on the road, especially with these new changes. Lane splitting is allowed when two or more lanes of traffic are traveling in the same direction and traffic is moving. It allows a motorcycle to pass another vehicle in the same direction of travel and in the same traffic lane only under these conditions:
- At no more than 25 miles per hour.
- No more than 15 miles per hour over the speed of traffic in the relevant traffic lanes.
Lane filtering is allowed when two or more lanes of traffic are traveling in the same direction and traffic is NOT moving. It allows a motorcycle to move through traffic that is stopped, such as at a traffic light or traffic jam, only under this condition:
- No more than 15 miles per hour over the speed of traffic in the relevant traffic lanes.
Stay safe out there!
Disposing of Medication
During Minnesota’s last Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, over 5 tons of old medications were collected! While impressive, the next take-back day isn’t until October. To bridge that gap, MyOldMeds.com makes it easy for Minnesota residents to locate free year-round disposal sites across the state.
The site features 510 disposal locations in Minnesota, including 10 options in our community, part of a nationwide network of more than 29,000 disposal sites. By simply entering their ZIP code, residents can instantly locate a nearby drop-off location through the MyOldMeds locator tool.
Keep in Touch
Don’t hesitate to reach out if I can provide any assistance. Please follow me on my Facebook page for further updates and invite your friends and family to do so as well.
Thanks for the honor of representing you at the Capitol.
Sincerely,
Steve Elkins
Representative, District 50B
Minnesota House of Representatives
rep.steve.elkins@house.mn.gov