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May 26,
2006
In this issue:
STATE
LEGISLATURE ADJOURNS FOR THE YEAR
As expected, the focus
this year was on passing the bonding bill, considering stadium proposals
and very few policy issues. The state’s budget forecast did depend on
revenue generated from the Health Impact Fee passed last session, so the
Supreme Court’s ruling that the fee was constitutional during the
last hours of session allowed the state to move forward with some additional
spending.
Both the House and the
Senate ultimately rolled all of their supplemental spending items into one
large omnibus bill. Along the way, they stripped out all policy provisions
that did not have fiscal implications. Some policy provisions survived as
separate bills, but many did not.
The supplemental
appropriations bill (HF 4162) was being debated by conferees until the wee
hours of the morning last Friday and Saturday. As you’ll recall from
previous updates, the Senate had stripped all HHS provisions from its
version of the bill in an attempt to avoid controversial abortion language
from being added to the bill by amendment. Some of these HHS provisions
were added back into the bill, in spite of never having passed a vote on
the Senate floor, as a result of negotiations between House and Senate
conferees that were apparently facilitated by the Governor. (Typically,
rules state that provisions can not be amended onto a bill in conference
committee unless they had previously passed a floor vote in the House or
Senate. However, a deal was struck whereby the Senate could add HHS
provisions back into HF4162 if the House could add provisions into its tax
bill, regardless of the fact that such provisions had never passed off the
floor of either body.)
After much debate, the
final supplemental appropriations bill was brought to the House floor
around 7pm on Sunday evening for a final vote by the full body where it
passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support (131 – 1). The Senate
followed suit by passing the bill (66-0) just before both bodies adjourned
sine die.
Major
Issues Tracked in the 2006 Session
MFIP and TANF Refinancing
In February of 2006,
Congress changed the formula for calculating state performance in the
welfare to work programs in ways that make it extremely challenging for
states to meet the federally determined work participation rates. The State will be required to record
30 hour per week work participation rates for at least 50% of the single
parent caseloads- up from 18% as the current target. In addition, two-parent families may
be required to hit a 90% participation rate. The goals are high, and the stakes
are even higher, as the State faces significant penalties (up to $24 million)
if the targets aren’t hit.
MWCA Positions:
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MWCA
opposes using the MFIP performance standards as a measure to reduce
funding. Instead, Counties
should be given their full allocation from the consolidated fund;
incentive bonuses could be distributed from the Commissioner’s
Innovative Projects fund.
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MWCA
supports allocation of funding to employment service providers for
transportation, tools and clothing expenses for MFIP clients who are
participating in countable activities.
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MWCA
supports allocation of funding to MFIP employment service providers to
increase Community Work Experience and Volunteer Work activities.
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MWCA
supports providing funding to local workforce boards to support
On-the-Job Training and short-term specific job training combined with
soft skills training for MFIP recipients.
What Happened?
To reduce the chances of
being penalized, Minnesota’s
Senate put together a “Work PREP” bill aimed to improve the
state’s MFIP performance by instituting a number of new policies. The
provisions in the Work PREP bill were not
supported in the final supplemental appropriations bill (HF 4162). However,
the bill did include provisions advocated
by DHS, which will fund two-parent families on MFIP with state funds rather
than federal funds. This change allows Minnesota to avoid having such families
counted in the calculation of our state’s work participation rate.
Despite much advocacy
from MWCA members, efforts to implement a package of policies and
supportive funding aimed to assist local areas and their program
participants in achieving new MFIP standards were not successful.
Minnesota Youth Program Funding
The Minnesota Youth Program (MYP) is a state-funded program
providing work experience and academic enrichment activities to
economically disadvantaged and at-risk youth between the ages of 14 and 21
in all 87 Minnesota
counties. Last year, MYP lost
all of its general fund dollars, and instead received a one-time allocation
from the Workforce Development Fund of $6 million, or $3 million per year.
MWCA
Positions:
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MWCA supports restoration of Minnesota Youth
Program funding to 2002 levels.
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MWCA supports funding MYP from general funds
as it has been in the past, rather than using Dislocated Worker Fund
dollars.
What
Happened?
Representative Karen
Clark attempted to provide additional funding to the Minnesota Youth
Program through several amendments to various iterations of the House
supplemental budget bill.
Ultimately, there was no money included in the House proposal. In the Senate, Senator Linda Higgins
requested nearly $4 million from the Workforce Development Fund for Summer
Youth Employment programs in Minneapolis only. In the final version approved by the
Conference Committee, the appropriation was scaled back to $2.5 million for
Minneapolis
programs.
Other Issues of Interest
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The legislature approved modifications to
the Partnership Program and the Pathways Program. Current law states that
“up to 25% of a job skills partnership board grant may be used
for pre-employment training.” The new language allows more
flexibility by striking “25%” and replacing it with
“a portion.”
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The Supplemental bill allocates $450,000
from the Workforce Development Fund for a pilot project to encourage
the licensure in Minnesota
of foreign-trained health care professionals.
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Joint Powers liability addressed. The purpose of this legislation
is to clarify that joint powers arrangements are to be treated as a
single governmental entity for the purpose of assigning damages in
liability cases and that the individual tort limits cannot be
“stacked” to increase the ultimate amount awarded. It also
clarifies that one entity in a joint powers agreement is not liable
for the actions or omissions of the other entities in the joint powers
arrangement. The bill was amended to adjust the tort caps over the
next three years. The tort cap adjustment goes from the current
$300,000 for an individual/$1 million for any number of claims from a
single occurrence to $400,000/$1.2 million on January 1, 2008 and
$500,000/1.5 million on July 1, 2009. The Minnesota Counties
Insurance Trust (MCIT) and the self-insured counties approved this
compromise. The amendment preserves the intent that joint powers
are to be treated as a single entity and that damages arising from
joint powers actions will not be stacked.
Special Thanks to:
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Jerry
Vitzthum, Chair of the MWCA Legislative Committee
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All
those who participated in the MWCA Day at the Capitol, provided
testimony, and/or contacted Legislators regarding issues of concern to
MWCA
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Kate Lerner (MACSSA), Julie Ring (LPHA), Patricia
Coldwell (AMC) and Curt Yoakum (AMC) for their
contributions to this report
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Lynne Batzli (DEED) for her
insight throughout the session
________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you wish to be added or removed from this
distribution list, you may request to
do so by
e-mailing aolson@mncounties.org.
Minnesota Workforce Council
Association
Anne
Olson, Director
125 Charles Avenue, St.
Paul, MN 55103-2108
Phone: (651)
224-3344
Fax: (651) 224-6540 www.mncounties.org3/mwca
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