welcome to Minnesota legislative report our Region's longest running public affairs program lawmakers from North Eastern Minnesota are joining us today for a recap of the week's activities at the state capital this is your opportunity to call or email your legislative questions and have them answered live on the air Minnesota legislative report starts now hello and welcome to Minnesota legislative report I'm your host Tony ceric the 2024 legislative session is just a few weeks from its conclusion already legislators are working hard as deadlines are fast approaching viewers tonight you will have a chance to hear about the latest updates now is your opportunity to email or call in with your questions for lawmakers that represent you uh to ask a question dial the phone number on your screen or you can also email your questions to ask at pbsn north.org joining us in studio today is Senator Jason Ric a republican from Pine City representing the 11th District Welcome Senator Ric and also joining us as representative Natalie zelesnikar a republican from fredenberg Township representing District 3B welcome representative zelesnikar great to have you both here today thanks for us yeah so this is the very first uh Minnesota legislative report of the session but we're way into the session already which starts late um the biggest uh bill that generally happens in this second year uh that you're serving here is the capital investment Bill some sometimes called a bonding Bill funds projects uh building projects all across the state um seen as probably the highest priority of the session by most uh we'll start with you Senator Ric is that the highest priority of the session or are there other priorities that you deem higher no that would probably be I think everyone would uh consider that the highest priority this year uh there are some policy things working their way through but um typically policy doesn't need to get done um it's the funding that's always the big item and the infrastructure needs are big right now representes Lesnar would you agree or are there other priorities that you would put ahead of the capital investment bill I think the capital investment bill is something that is you know the top a top priority for sure Child Care is a priority I sit on the workforce committee and and children and family so I think the child care initiatives are uh very important too yeah we'll definitely dig into that as the hour goes on and encourage folks uh to call in or write in with your questions let's stick to the capital investment Bill uh General generally uh the governor goes first in his proposals he proposed a fairly significant Bill mostly about maintaining current assets Statewide assets or state-owned assets I know then a lot of legislators locally from their communities will have local initiatives that they deem important as well and of course the colleges and transportation funding is also important uh Senator Ric do you want to talk about what some of your priorities are uh in passing this capital investment bill yeah I think I've been uh pretty vocal uh this year that I want to see the bonding bill will focused on infrastructure uh roads and bridges water infrastructure and asset preservation um the local projects if they fit into those categories um I'm I'm good with that but uh you know I a lot of these extra uh what I would call a lot of wants I'm hoping uh we keep those out this year and stick uh pretty focused on those core needs and and then I think I'm willing to go anywhere from that 850 million they're talking potentially up to as much as a billion as as long as we stick to that core need and because uh capital investment is borrowing it actually takes a super majority of the legislature to pass this bill and even though the house and the Senate and the governor are all dflers right now this would take bipartisan support to get this bill passed from both Chambers representes Lesnar uh any priorities that you want to see either specific to your District or generally in this capital investment Bill to gain your support I think for me one of the items that falls into what Senator Ric is talking about is uh water and sewer extensions in Proctor Proctor didn't have any bonding money for that Community you know last year and we know Workforce housing is really important and we need to have single family homes for our employees and have varieties of options for housing for people so the extensions for uh Proctor area would be huge that's a priority the public saf safety uh building expansion and a training center is another priority and then one of the other things that just happened last year the Herman toown uh Arena got an allocation of money and the delayed projects there's many of them that were having significant gaps and what those project costs came in at and so cities and counties are dealing with that across the state and so that's another smaller amount to try to try to get that actually completed and done great so uh Senator Ric you said on the higher education committee can you talk a bit about uh what you're seeing as requests from higher education uh because they're generally ones that come to the table with significant needs for a capital investment bill yeah um you know both the mstate system and the uen both came in with uh requests of right around that 500 million Mark which a piece a piece so you know we had to be blunt with them and say boy if we did everything you're both asking for the bonding Bill's done and nothing else gets done um they've both been very good at uh kind of coming back with um show helping us on you know see maybe around a 200 million uh what would be really important for them so you know like I said that is in that asset preservation those are things that I um I think they got a lot of good projects things that we need to consider in this bonding bill so and that's that is good the mstate system that's all around the state you know the education needs a that we're meeting all around the state so I sure hope we can uh look at that and get that done sounds great well please uh call in or or email in your questions uh I'll keep firing away at this topic because this is the main one uh for the session uh there was a capital investment bill that was passed last year um and generally the second year of the two years the legislature meets is the main year uh what's interesting about this session is you guys could do nothing there's nothing you have to do the budget gets passed last year for two years and there have been times where there hasn't been a capital investment bill passed in this second year and you know nothing happens legislatively but you know certainly these projects then stay on the back burner ref Lesnar uh if you could put on your prognostication hat what what do you think the likelihood of uh getting a bill passed this year a capital investment bill is you know I would hope that that we'll get the bill done I think the concern is we're going into 2025 with what's being labeled as a structural imbalance but it's a deficit and so the reality is is that the 17 .5 billion dollar that we had historic money for in 2023 was spent in five months and so that money's gone and so now the needs are compounding in various levels so all of us are seeing tremendous needs coming in the million doll marks we have Behavior Health needs we have situations of the prisons we have 50% higher civil civil commitments and people waiting in our prisons to get proper placement and we have people waiting in hospitals and the list goes on so there's a tremendous amount of need it's not a matter if there's a need the issue is where are we going to get the money we're in a deficit in 20125 and we already raised taxes by10 billion in fees so we have to make some really tough choices and so the same thing with the bonding we have to be looking at where are we going for the next five years for Minnesota great Senator Ric uh likelihood of the capital investment Bill passing from your perspective this year uh as long as we stay focused on the infrastructure I think they're very good uh when you look at what the last year's bonding Bill included uh a lot of money for nonprofits um and a lot of again projects I would call wants rather than needs uh I think you're going to struggle to get uh Republican Senators to vote for a bill that would be anything like last year's Bill okay uh please uh send in your questions either by phone or by email uh represent L nari you touched a bit on Surplus defic it you know there's a state budget forecast where they look ahead every year and in this current budget uh they're projecting a $3.7 billion Surplus currently and you talked about what's going to potentially happen next year when inflation is factored in in the next two-year budget uh Governor WS came out with uh what some would call a modest budget proposal for the Surplus once again this doesn't need to be done but generally in the second year there are alterations in the budget um are there any spending needs that you see in this current budget that you'd like see included in what is a supplemental budget I think it's clear to me after sitting at committees that in Health and Human Service and finance committee that you know we have people waiting in the hospitals that have no place to go we have Behavioral Health needs mental health needs and uh like I already said the civil commitment issues where the jails don't have uh you know places for the people to be in the appropriate placement so that's a definite issue that we have that there's been task force meeting on this and so we're going to have to find some solutions and that's going to take a lot of money and so the things we're dealing with right now cost a lot of money to fix the issue we have nursing homes that had supplemental money last year but we haven't fixed a structural problem for years to come and so we have nursing homes assisted livings Child Care Mental Health and behavior health so we have a lot of uh programs social programs that really need to be dealt with uh for a long-term strategy do you see that happening though this legislative with the supplemental budget I think there there's going to be some pieces is my guess we're going to see some things with ambulance services I've sat on the EMS task force aging service task force and so you know we have some situations where Greater Minnesota is you imploding with not being able to provide services for the for that whole region so I think there will be some in incremental incremental uh decisions made on some of those topics like Greater Minnesota for ambulance services and then Behavioral Health units and mental health because we have to do something but but the planning for a longer range plan to to your point is going to take more than this year okay let's stick on this emergency Ser Medical Services uh topic and Senator Eric we'll get back to you in a second but want you to be included in this discussion you served on this uh EMS Emergency Medical Service and talked about this need of ambulances EMTs and others in Greater Minnesota traditionally this has been something that has been funded in two ways by local property taxes uh from local communities but then also local government Aid or County Aid that the state has put in so uh whose responsibility do you see this being uh I know Governor walls put in I want to say his in his proposal he's proposing about $16 million we know that the report that came out was much larger need but where does this responsibility lie in your mind about who should be funding these core government services like uh EMS services in my mind I'm surprised it's not considered essential Services I I think that uh it is an essential service if you're calling for an ambulance it's it's essential to me and I think it's essential to everybody that I've talked to so I think that we're in a situation where the funding we have a pattern of how we've done the funding but the reimbursement rates are not sustainable for what people get for medical assistance rates and then there's lots that go into ambulance services and it's not just the transporting time but we've had hospitals close services in different parts of the Greater Minnesota so now people are traveling 2 to 4 hours hours in and transporting people to get the cath lab or the certain type of special service they need which requires ambulance transport so there's a variety of reasons that have that have created this and then in the reports that I've looked at 70% of the ambulance calls are being used in its non-emergency transport and so Greater Minnesota really is lacking non-emergency transportation which I think we have to look at and that is an essential component for federal funding too is to have that infrastructure in place for the state of Minnesota so I think there's a responsibility we have at the state of Minnesota for emergency services without a doubt emergency service needs is that a state responsibility Senator Ric and what do you think about this isue issue more broadly yeah you know and this is one I've been working on uh very closely uh you know Cloquet um and the surrounding area have created a fire and ambulance uh District first of its kind in the State uh I've been working with Chief views on this model um they do have Levy Authority but it especially in area that is so rural um they just don't have the ability to Levy enough to keep the services going so they absolutely need uh the state to step up because we have those Travelers that are coming through especially um that area with the freeway and then continuing up to the range um you know people expect those uh emergency services to be there so uh Chief bus is actually going to be at the capital tomorrow and I'm going to be working with him and some of our uh tax uh staff um local government Aid doesn't work it's a little bit of a calculation that won't fit their model but uh we're going to be looking at options to say what can we do uh because for them unlike so many other fire uh departments and ambulance services that are run through a city where local government Aid would then be able to go to help them their entity doesn't get any of that because they're not under the city of C or any of the townships uh but it's actually a model that uh Chief bus has had a number of people from around the state saying how does this work this might work very well in our area um if we can figure out that piece where they would get that uh reliable state aid I think that model is going to could be very helpful for our rural areas around Minnesota to keep these emergency services available so yeah the state component of that uh will be critical so it sounds like a stop Gap this year but more conversation uh in years to come we'll put that in that bucket just like the last issue yes uh continuing to talk about this budget uh Surplus and some supplemental spending Senator Eric I know you've been involved in uh College funding for foster children and this has been an issue that came up that was unaddressed last year unintentionally left out last year uh can you talk a bit about uh where the Gap was and it seems like there's a path to success and some bipartisan support in getting this done yeah so um back around three years ago um when I was a Vice chair of the higher ed committee uh a group of foster Advocates came and pitched this concept you know foster kids struggle in areas that so many others don't because when they turn 18 graduate high school they lose their support groups you know they age out of the system and it be can become very difficult for them to get into post-secondary education so I carried a bill that would give them free uh tuition plus living uh expenses covered as well and uh went to chair Thomason uh at the time and he believed in it as well and so we did pass that uh through three years ago um last year it wasn't that it wasn't funded it was just underestimated how many uh students would take advantage of that and they fell short by we estimate about $5 million and when they came forward with what their solution would be it was to put the kids on a waiting list and then first come first serve they would Dole out the money well um unfortunately you know The Fosters came forward um we were kind of Blindsided there were a number of legislators and the Foster Advocate groups were blindsided by this idea uh once we found out uh I started letting everybody know we have to talk to Senator Marty who was the chair of the finance committee uh Senator Murphy who's the majority leader express our concern and say we have to fi figure this out and I think my first push was with the one-time money that's there the Surplus money let's use the5 to $6 million pay for it um and then we'd have future to come and look at the rest of it um what they did discover actually and which I believe will be the solution that we move forward with is the Northstar promise that was passed last year actually has quite a bit of extra money that was put into it so we're going to use 5 million uh from that fund to cover the Fosters for the rest of this fiscal um cycle and then next year we will come back and and look at what are the real numbers and hopefully we continue our promise and uh help them see their postsecondary education come through great can you uh talk a bit about this money you said is coming from the Northstar promise act can you explain what that is as well yeah this is this is another one that I'm working on uh the Northstar promise was uh the bill that was passed last year that uh anyone whose family is making less than $80,000 a year you get free tuition the mstate system or the U ofm System um one of the my concerns that I voiced last year and continuing to work it's actually um what what I was worried about is is we're hearing now from the colleges um my big fear was these private scholarships and the foundation scholarships through each uh system the PE the donors would be looking at it saying why would I give money if students are going to get free tuition anyway and so and the department is saying the the Northstar promise is the last dollar in it comes after these private foundations and private scholarships like your Lions Clubs and vfw's and such so I'm trying to work uh with uh chair fat and figure out how we make sure that the Northstar promise money would be looked at first and we've got one little piece of that figured out um through the mstate system any of the uh Foundation monies uh through those schools would actually come later so that they can adjust and put those towards um stiens or book expenses or living expenses so we're actually helping the students see school more affordable than the funding getting the same level of funding it just coming from a different source so uh have to continue working for the U ofm System uh so that they get the same uh kind of coverage or protection but I I think it's doable um and uh a lot of money was put into that to to get it up and going and that's why they did overshoot that one a bit um so that's why the 5 million is there and available um and I'm hoping when as we've been looking at the numbers that have been running one of the big discussions that's been happening with that Northstar promise is our private colleges have been left out of that mix but you know we have some very good programs I St Scholastica has great programs in this area um you know a lot of schools private schools have the teacher programs that are turning out most of our a lot of our teachers um and so I if that's the school that a student feels is the most fitting for them I think that Northstar promise money should be able to go to one of these private colleges as well and right now it sure appears that there's enough money in there to expand it uh to those schools as well represent Lesnar anything to add on this higher education funding or the Foster uh children effort I said on Children and Families committee so we we heard about the the Foster program and the concern with that so I I think what Senator Ric and has stated is all accurate and I look forward to seeing the bill come to the floor so we can vote on it and get that taken care of and sounds like bipartisan support in both bodies so seems like you know knock on wood this is moving forward yeah I think everyone wanted to do it it was just a matter of is there a spot we can find the money and yeah being we've found a spot that I think will have zero impact on other things I I believe this one will get done okay we got questions rolling in and we're going to be getting to a bunch of them right now um you know this is the time of the legislative session you're getting towards the end already there's only about a month and change to go here uh the the issues wi now right there are deadlines where anybody can any legislature can introduce as many bills as they want but then there's deadlines to say if we haven't heard or acted upon your bills they kind of get put off to the side and we've met some of those deadlines and there's other deadlines coming up however uh one bill that already got passed this legislative session and sign into law dealt with school resource officers now this was an issue that came up last legislative session and then there were some that wanted to make changes to that and so a changes happened to the school resource officer uh legislation represent leardi I'll start with you to talk about what the issue was and uh were you supportive of the solution that was signed I was supportive of the solution last year you know to try to get this fixed and I was thrilled to see that representative witty one of my colleagues uh who is a was a school resource officer was able to help participate in a bipartisan way to partner on to find solutions that would work that would work for the cities that would deal with the liability issues that that law enforcement had with the language that was changed sometimes one two words matters and so that was really important to get clarity so that the Comfort level was there where the rules wouldn't be different for engagement for a police officer in the school or out side of the school and to get some of those things taken care of and and they work through that language and I think uh school resource officers have been reinstated now uh last week I believe so that's a success and so just so I'm understanding and the bureaus at home are understanding a school resource officer is a police officer contracted with the school district to work within the school district and the language we're talking about here dealt with uh putting a student in the prone position is am I understanding that correctly yeah there I think there was a to your point there was I think some misunderstandings of how and and how things were going to be working in the schools but the real issue became the officers are trained and they are trained for various situations in the school and out of the school and so what happened with the language changes that the police officers that are called at school resource officers were being forced to not intervene timely within the school they'd have to call for outside help which just only created more issues uh inside of our schools and we saw that on unravel across the state we saw it happen in the man Mano School District we saw it happen in various school districts so it took care of uh streamlining that so that there wasn't confusion on what the role is how the police are trained and they they were able to find uh a pathway forward that works for everybody so that has been taken care of now Senator Ric anything to add on this yeah you know I think uh so we've heard from law enforcement that they believe this works for them and our school resource officers have gotten back in for me what I feel is unfortunate on the Senate side uh we brought up what caused the whole problem was that the school resource officers were then considered School Employees even though they're you know the school was reimbursing the county or the city whoever the uh officer worked for um but they were being considered a School employee and what was also passed in the bill was that School Employees can no longer restrain a child and that's how this the SRO has got pulled into this whole deal so the issue has been fixed for the SRO because they're not considered a School employee anymore but we're hearing from our teachers um that they're not allowed to restrain a child under any circumstances so when they have a child that is destroying the room um they cannot stop them they can't you know put them in a little bear hug or anything like that to calm them down to stop them from damaging the room so I think that is a piece that we still have to talk about and work through because we fixed the piece for sro's but our school Personnel need to be able to have some ability to uh work with the kids and stop them um right now the only time they can do anything is if they believe another student is in imminent danger and I think there are other situations that we have to say a teacher or another School uh staff person need to have that ability to restrain a child to get them under control another uh Education topic from a viewer emailing in right now why has there been no movement or talk about teacher pension reform this year should a teacher who pays 8% of their salary per year really have to teach 43 plus years to earn a full pension Senator R sit on the education finance committee can you talk a bit about this issue yeah so uh I did spend two years on the pension commission um was not on it last year um but I've been uh talking with a number of teachers over this last year and especially you know this really came to the Forefront last year about March unfortunately it was because teachers saw the what we call the target uh the amount of money that was given to the pension commission to work with and it was very obvious that uh the pension reform that teachers were looking for there was no way to do it with the amount of money that was assigned to that area um unfortunately back in December and January when a lot of the those discussions are having are being made to how much money is going where um I don't believe uh people were really made aware of just how important this pension reform was to teachers um Education Minnesota was not advocating for them the way teachers expected and so they've continued to have those discussions unfortunately I think there have been a lot of discussions this year unfortunately when you look at um now the reality of the budget like we've been talking about with um so much less um this year available that's all basically all one-time money uh and a structural deficit facing us in the future that became much harder last year was the year to get this pension reform done and unfortunately that discussion uh and people were made aware far too late um I I believe everybody uh wants to get something done I don't believe the rule of 90 is going to come back that uh teachers had for many years but um it it's been interesting talking to superintendents uh and school boards um the big issue that I'd have never considered uh in thinking about this is when a teacher can retire in that 58 to 60 age range they'll come back and substitute and that's who our substitute teachers are in our schools if they don't retire till they're 64 or 65 they're not coming back to substitute and now what are our schools going to do uh for substitutes so this isn't just about uh figuring out the this issue for the teachers to be able to retire this has Ripple effects through the school on their budget and their substitute teachers as well so thoughts on this issue thank you for the question and I heard from Educators across the state I grew up with a middle school principal and I heard from a lot of Educators saying look we want the opportunity to have unre unre um not have reduced benefits in order to retire after 30 years of service they want to retire at 62 and I think the teachers really expected with a historic budget surplus that almost was $20 billion that that would happen and it didn't and so now we're in this year and we're going forward so I did sign on a bill house file 3808 that would allow teachers a pathway to retire at 62 without having reduced benefits and so it's a pathway that doesn't require money from the state when we don't have the money right now because it's Millions uh that would be ongoing investment but it was so important to the teachers to have this in education that I signed on to a bill that would give an opportunity it would increase their contribution every pay period uh in a calculated manner but it allows them at least to have a pathway it's not perfect but it allows an option well let's keep those uh questions coming in over email and the number on your screen um you both talked about just recently here uh and I want to Pivot in a little different direction about hearing from teachers hearing from superintendents hearing from folks back home uh to the viewers here who want to contact our citizen legislators what's the best way to get a hold of you especially during this time of legislative session how do you hear from people back home and what's the most effective way that they can get your attention because I know you guys are traveling back and forth from the Twin Cities to back home and uh you've got email uh letters take a long time right now phone calls can you can you talk a bit about how you keep your fingle finger on the pulse back home and what's the best way to get a hold of you uh represent Lesnar you want to go take this one first I i' let everybody know to reach out to look at the Minnesota House of Representatives just go on the website it lists house members and it lists senate members you can see it and just scroll down and then you can choose to uh to subscribe to the weekly newsletters you can shoot an email to me at my legislative email otherwise I give people my cell number to reach out to and so they can do that Senator Ric yeah you know um the emails uh the phone calls to our offices um we get all those messages the one thing that I would tell people too um which the teachers really did uh last year in uh at April and into May um and a lot of groups Do It um if you have if you're part of a group that is having a day at the capital uh come down um we all make it a priority if a constituent actually comes down to St Paul rather than just doing an email or a phone call um we will make the time to meet with you if you're coming to St Paul especially for those of us whose districts are a ways away where you know you know someone has uh made a commitment to get there um will take the time and listen to what you came to the capital concerned about and and the other thing too I I encourage people that say they came down uh like I said with uh whatever group it's like okay you you've got your things with this group what else is concerning you you you've come all this way let's talk about everything that you want to talk about so but if you're not coming to the capital the email and phone calls always get through to us thank you and emails and phone calls get through to us here at the show too so please keep those coming in as well uh every year uh the governor of the state gives their State of the State address and very recently Governor walls uh gave his State of the State address in oana at the school district heaten um he said the State of the State of Minnesota is strong uh agree disagree what what word would you use uh the State of the State of Minnesota senator Ric I'd probably use Fair uh at this point I hear from a lot of folks um you know they're concerned about where our taxes are you know we're one of the we're in the top five I guess depending on what category you're looking at uh some put us in top one or two um I tend to think we're more in that four to five range overall um so there's concerns about that um I think uh people are concerned about some of the things that happened last year some of the the mandates and just how much happened last year and unfortunately hearing people who are considering moving to other states so I I would I still think with our work ethic and uh everything um just the resources that we have here people love living here uh I can't go low fair but I can't I can't say we're in a great place or even good place right now people are concerned and a little bit worried repr leser I would say interesting I think that's that's a very Minnesota word that has broad definition so I'm going to have you dig in I'll dig in I just uh read a report today that uh Minnesota is in the top five states for people leaving the states and so it was interesting to me to see Minnesota is now with California and Illinois in the top five states with the most people leaving their states and so our border states aren't on that list so it can't say it's weather because North Dakota certainly doesn't have um balmy tropical weather either all year so that's concerning to me and I think listening to the business Community just I still run into people that don't know we have sick and safe time changes that happened in the state of Minnesota and so we have people that are trying to roll their you know all these human resource benefits and they have one employee to 50 employees to 200 employees and so they're they're feeling tremendously overwhelmed I've talked to people that are in the garbage business uh building construction and they said I got to have a hire people to spend thousands of dollars right now to redo handbooks and just implement this let alone explain it to the employees and so I think I think the employers are very concerned of what the Implement implementation of the paid family is going to be but it because it's already being projected to be Millions over budget and so I think they're nervous of where this is going to put us for growth because without a strong business base in Minnesota we don't have a strong commercial tax base and without that the tax is just only go to us as individuals and so I think it's an interesting assessment I believe in Minnesota and you know I think we have to do better and so monitoring all of this is going to be really critical right now but I think we have a we're making the top lists for reasons that I don't think we want to be on those lists I'd like to see us make other lists so I think we need we need to do better and absolutely the taxes are higher uh to Senator Ric's point we know where we fall for commercial tax base and individual taxes and then we had tax changes for everything from driver's licenses to you know mandates and delivery fees and Amazon packages and so there's just a ver the the the living expenses for people the reports say they're 13,00 more than they were a year ago for people to buy the household product so that's hitting people every time and they get paid they just have less money to work with to run their life and so when I'm listening to people that are emailing calling me they're they're concerned very concerned so it sounds like you went from the interesting Camp to the concerned Camp by the by the end of your answer yes 100% 100% And just isn't remember we have two Republican legislators on the show I'll be asking that question when Democrats come on the show too and see if they have similar or interesting as well yes all right uh So within that Governor's State of the State address as well he put out laid out his priorities of course the capital investment Bill his supplemental budget requests in the areas of emergency services that we talked about and some other places he also talked about uh guns and um I know a big discussion is around straw purchases now traditionally there hasn't been a lot of legislation passed around gun uh gun legislation in general but it seems to be gathering bipartisan support around looking at straw purchases which is defined as somebody buying a gun for somebody else and we all of course know of the tragedy down in the Twin Cities of some police officers and EMS uh uh worker who were tragically killed in a standoff at a home um what is the likelihood and do you support any changes in our uh gun legislation especially the straw purchase uh effort Senor R we're going to start with you um yeah you know it's a the straw purchase piece has been uh discussed for a few years years uh there's the bills have been out there uh to move a doing the strap purchase where you're buying a gun for somebody who you know is a prohibited person um it's a gross misdemeanor right now and the legislation is out there to make it a felony um and I I do believe there's a bipartisan support that would get that bill passed um I think it's one of those things U we've heard from prosecutors uh who say that a gross misdemeanor isn't strong enough where it's worth Prosecuting the courts are so overwhelmed um they want to see that penalty move to a felony so that they will indeed prosecute and I think that's one of the things um you've heard many Republicans talking about let's enforce the laws that are on the books uh for the criminals and so if that's something we can do to get one of those laws uh better enforced I I think that's a a very good discussion and something that could uh get done uh as far as some of the others like the safe story um I there are a lot of people a lot of law enforcement even who are just saying that is not uh that is not going to help anything um a lot of people have uh guns in their homes for personal protection and if you're gun and your ammo have to be locked up in separate places that no longer affords you that ability to protect yourself so in your own home so I think that one there's some problems uh with that one um few of the others I I don't know if uh there'll be any movement on them this year uh but that straw purchase one I believe if if it can uh be done uh right now there's some political games being played it's two Republicans who submitted the bill last year and now uh two Democrats have submitted the exact same bill so to me I think if we could get the politics out of it let's kind of figure out a way to give everybody uh the credit if we're going to get it done instead of trying to turn it into a party fight um I think then something positive Could Happen Lesar your position on straw purchases I I agree with Senator Eric I think that the intent of it is to make it clear to the public that this is there's going to be a penalty if you intentionally purchase a gun for somebody that you know as a felon and in the case of Burnsville there was a documented record of why the person could not have their second amendment rights restored so after after serving their time they denied it and so it was known and maybe this would have made an impact or not we'll never know but I think there's a bigger issue here and that is you know we are seeing laws bills being introduced one after another of just really minimizing criminal behavior and so I think that's you know when we're calling people that have been had involvement with criminal justice instead of calling it criminal Behavior that's a problem to me April's been determined a proclamation month for Second Chances and I've had so many people emailing me say there is no second chance for a victim there is no second chance and so what are we doing for women who have repetitive domestic violence situations what are we doing for people that have wrap sheets that are a mile long what are we doing to protect law-abiding citizens and people are frustrated to see bills introduced that just reduce all minimum sentence for anybody that has a firearm that is in a firearm situation that uh is doing illegal Behavior to have no minimum sentencing and they're really wondering why are we protecting the criminal so much and I think that's a very valid question all right so one of the other uh bigger topics that are coming up uh this legislative session it started last legislative session as well is sports betting and so uh introduced uh many years G gained some Traction in the legislature bipartisan last year it's a big topic again this year I know there's under currence of other issues below it but what is the likelihood of sports betting um getting past this legislative session represent Lesnar will start with you I would say I don't know I I I haven't heard it at in my committees yet but I'd say it has a probably more than a 50-50 chance that it could get heard and I will be open to listening to that I I know that the other states do it I'm I'm well aware I've been listening to conversations already that people can do sports betting on the internet and a variety of other ways right now and so we're going to be listening as legislators uh to see what the pathway for Minnesota is what are you going to need to hear to decide to help you make your decision at this point I think just the same things that go on with all types of of you know gambling and that type of thing looking at the whole big picture of how we're going to protect kids what we're doing you know what the system is going to be for the taxes how it's going to flow into the state what that's going to look like and what the implications are to uh the horse racing and all those other elements that go on that uh making sure I have an understanding of what it exactly is so I'm going to be listening to that and I think we'll probably hear some you know conversations on the house floor Senator Ric uh have you taken a position on this yet and uh what do you think about this issue um it'll I'm generally in favor it's going to depend on exactly what the proposal is uh you know I think one of the concerns around it anytime you're expanding gambling um one are you making it too easy for folks to get into trouble and gamble everything away uh but two what are the impacts going to be on the other already established uh gambling uh that's out there and for me one of the biggest concerns I have is um what will be the impact on our local charitable gaming folks the the the ones who do the pole tabs in our local bars that money is going directly back into our communities to support uh local functions so I want to make sure that those groups are not negatively impacted by anything new that we're doing because the new money is going going to be going out well the state will get it share and and probably these online apps will get their share um I want to make sure that our locals are not being left out of the equation so it's sounding like that has been uh listened to and there is going to be some pieces that uh really help the local uh charitable gambling folks with their taxes um and then but the other thing I guess again I'm worried about uh the proposals are out there you know for the apps on your phones um I want to see some protections around there so that right the person can't be sitting in their basement and and gamble away everything they have and and nobody else has any clue it' be nice that there's at least some way uh for family members to to see a pattern and to maybe be able to intervene to know um if it's you can just do it anywhere on an app um people can get in a lot of of trouble without anyone else knowing another big topic uh continually and talked about this legislative session and represent Lesnar you brought it up earlier is child care uh cost of child care for families uh the the challenge that providers have in in making money uh and being profitable Workforce issues it runs the gamut um there have been some proposals this year uh that have been introduced to really put a limit on how much families uh would need to pay to afford Child Care uh they've been heard in committee generally what I've been hearing is that uh folks are saying it's too expensive for the situation we're in today in this non-budget year but represent Lear can you talk a bit about anything that you see potentially being passed this year dealing with child care that's a good question I mean we're in a situation where the proposals that have come the proposal of 7% of income to be a Max for families to use is just it's a great sounds great and everybody would love it I paid for child care too and I understand the ask but the reality is is that the state doesn't have the money for that and so I've been looking at opportunities to decrease that burden for families through uh tax deductions for Middle income people too because one of the things I hear from people is we just aren't getting any help uh the middle income the tax child ta tax credit basically help people if you make $9 an hour or less you know $14 to $19 an hour and for to get the 17 50 so that's a very low amount of income for and most families need to make more than that uh to to be able to pay for child care and to to live so I've been looking at child tax credits and also signed on authored a bill for businesses to expand Child Care at their business site and at their property or in or purchase a building and so looking at initiatives like that and then the mandates I've spent a tremendous amount of time touring the entire state in my district and outside to see family childcare and Center based child care and the mandates Stack Up costs and so the mandates look at what we require for Education who can be a teacher who can you know uh what the ratios are all of those things square footage I wrote some bills to try to help the freestanding Center so that they can have uh fair and reasonable Staffing ratios so that they can have success yeah you know uh this is a big one and I it's the Mandate piece and some of the requirements that we've put on these I you look back uh not that many years ago you know we had so many more uh families that would one person in a community might say you know I'm one of the parents is going to stay home uh to watch their kids and then they would have other families um come in and they would watch their kids as well the you know inhome daycares and and they weren't meant to be a permanent business they were going to do it for a limited amount of time and we just don't see that anymore because of the fact of all these requirements ments that got put on them that they would have to meet that was never meant to be a like I said a career or a to do this permanently um they were just trying to meet a need and especially for our small rural communities that is going to be critical that we can get that back um to allow for that to happen without the state just they're watching and everything they're doing and putting requirements on upgrades they have to do to their house um if families could have an option I think a lot of fames in rural Minnesota would pick that and then we'd open up more spaces and then then the competition would help Drive the prices down um we have about a little less than 10 minutes left we've got some other we've got some questions to get to uh it would be remiss though Senator R if I want talk about a bill you're introduced this year that ruffled some feathers up on the Iron Range and since we're a show for northern Minnesota and I happen to be an iron Ranger I feel compelled to ask the question and so uh mining prop mining production taxes that are collected on mining companies are Ed in Le of or instead of property taxes and there's a funding formula that the state sets and there's a defined area where those taxes are both collected and then distributed and it's based on school districts and so it's roughly the arrowhead region in northeastern Minnesota you've proposed legislation to and it's based on school districts actually the boundaries of school districts you proposed expanding uh that service area to four school districts in and around uh where you you represent can you talk about why you introduced that legislation and uh what's going on with it today yeah so um the Talon mine is going to you know hopefully be opening uh in the very near future and this operates outside of the normal what we consider the tanite uh mining area and so um last legislative session the McGregor School District was added in and the language was written as such that when the mining actually starts within their school district they would be incorporated in and be able to start receiving those same um taxes within their school district um I have school districts in my area that also H um Talon mine has lease rights in their school districts and they came to me and asked well why aren't we included in that so I went to our revisers and I had the exact same language drafted that um if and when and only when mining actually starts happening within their school districts uh then they would be incorporated into the tacite assistance area to receive those uh revenues just like the other schools that have mining in their school districts receive a couple more questions here um the issue of property taxes has come up and now is the time of the year where folks are getting their statements from the county just as a reminder property taxes are collected uh for County city and School District Ser services but the state does play a role from time to time in property tax is not a primary role as well but the question uh from duth is uh why don't you give landlords a reduction on their property taxes so they don't need to pass it on to their tenants as an increase in their rent so if you could address that specific issue and then more broadly what is the role of state legislators and state government on local property taxes um so uh it's one of those weird roles right the state um sets the parameters for the categories and this is one I only served two years on the property tax committee but it was one I learned that so uh for Minnesota something we need to address but uh we have the last I heard 57 categories uh for property taxes the state with the next most has 15 which makes our property tax system very confusing um but so we determine the rate basically at which every property is going to be taxed at and so then just as you said it's the counties the cities the townships the school districts that when they set their levies and determine how much they need those formulas are used to determine how much each property contributes to that now we can at the state level we've done things for uh veterans where we say um we're going to eliminate a portion of their property tax and in those cases the state then puts money forward that goes out to the the counties the cities the school districts to cover that um so if we were going what the caller asked for um if we were to do that it would require the state to to kick that money in um to make that happen but I think that's typically um that's not something that the state would typically do that would be something you would look either for the state to reduce what the they would owe on the formula or uh something done at the county level uh to make what he's asking for happen but uh I think those those questions come up all the time from everyone why is my property taxed at this and we could make uh things more affordable um if we didn't um I agree those are all discussions that uh we have all the time at the capital so um unfortunately I I can't get deeper into that particular um having not served on a tax committee for a long time but I I know those exact discussions happen in tax committee all the time anything dad represent Les that's a conversation that I've had with many constituents is property taxes so it's a great question from this landlord I'm willing to look at every and all thing on property taxes because I think the valuations affecting businesses the valuation for personal property and business property is affecting obviously the tax base so I've been looking at bills that are looking at that for property taxes for individuals of how they're assessing that value and what the lookback period is because we've seen real estate go up and down and many of the people are like Well when the real estate State Market goes down or my property tax is going to go down generally speaking we don't see that happen in the same capacity so I've also looked at I've signed on to bills that would uh change the property tax formula for some senior citizens and so many of them you know they're they're on a very fixed income and so the property tax swing when it goes up 20% and you're you're getting 3% or less in your income base that's a big deal and so I'm concerned that we're going to force seniors right out of their home and the the initiative in one Minnesota is to keep seniors at home so that's not going to happen if they get forced out with property taxes so I've signed on to bills that were're are going to help that and directly to this viewer just uh to to close the loop do we see anything potentially happening this session on this because it sounds like issues you're talking about would impact the state budget and correct and so correct likelihood of something happening this year probably not but it's definitely we need to be looking at property taxes for landlords and for businesses and for individuals okay I think we have time for at least one more question here another viewer writes in and says what are the chances to change the annexation law to ensure that cities annexing a Township must have consensus from both the township and the city do either of you have any knowledge in this there are a bunch of committees and so not every legislator serves on every committee so anybody have any knowledge on this sen R you're not in your head yes yeah um this is one I've been uh my whole time in the legislature this has been around for a long long time um you know when you look at the Met metro area um you see you can see this has been happening a long time you know I think of places like corkran or you know things like where a Township incorporates to become a city to stop that very thing from happening um I know up around this area uh that uh Midway Township and some of the others around duth and Proctor and Hermantown are are going through some of these very same discussions uh it happens uh every year um local government committee talks about this all the time um and boy it's it's such a tough one because the the townships come in and they see things one way the cities come in they see things a different way and it all it never seems like one side ever has enough folks on the Committees to get their way through and uh boy coming up with a changing that system I you know it's been a long time and I don't uh see anything is really happened uh so it's that the biggest remedy for a Township that's struggling with that unfortunately is incorporating and becoming a city okay we just have a few seconds left uh tomorrow's Township day so I will be hearing this I'm sure so it's Township day at the capital so we will be talking about this but to Senator Ric's point I think it's it's something that has been talked about for a long time and the conversations are going to continue and uh I don't have the answers right now and I don't think we're going to be hearing this uh in this year it's we have a month left basically of session and we have some big issues to get through that we've talked about already today so I think it's it's going to continue uh for B enums to come on this issue of annexation all right and just in 10 seconds a piece was there one issue just to kind of wet the appetite of the viewers one issue we didn't discuss today just topic-wise that you see uh having an impact here at the end of the session real quickly represents Lesnar Uber lift Uber and lift yes um you know everything that happened to schools last year uh they're looking for some relief and I have a bill that would extend uh this out three years I think that's something we uh need to be talking about as well all right will keep us on the edge of our seat and maybe you'll come back and talk about it before the end of the session thank you both very much and we are out of time I'd like to thank Senator Ric and representatives Lesnar for joining us here this evening answering questions and sharing their thoughts we will be back again next Sunday at 5: to speak with more members of the Minnesota state legislature and answer more of your questions and thank you to the viewers at home for calling and writing in with your questions you're playing a vital part in our representative government system for the team here at PB North I'm Tony cich have a great evening e e e e e for