welcome to Minnesota legislative report our Region's longest running public affairs program lawmakers from Northeastern Minnesota are joining us today for a recap of the week's activities at the state capitol this is your opportunity to call or email your legislative questions and have them answered live on the air Minnesota legislative report Starts Now [Music] hello and welcome to Minnesota legislative report I'm Tony cerdich and I will be your host again for the 52nd season of this program our show each week will feature lawmakers representing districts in northeastern Minnesota talking about events and legislation at the state capitol the makeup of the legislature has changed this session with the Democrat farmer labor party having control of both the house and the Senate following the November election the result has been a quick pace and many dfl sponsored bills passed or on the fast track with a historic budget surplus important decisions are yet to be made on funding and specific budget areas and what kind of bonding bill will be passed we encourage viewers to call with your questions for lawmakers the phone number will be on your screen or send an email to ask wdse.org we have one of our Region's newest lawmakers on our first show of Season 52 representative Natalie zelesnikar is a republican from friedenberg Township representing Minnesota house district 3B welcome representative great to have you here thank you for having me absolutely so why don't we start by getting to know you a little bit you're a brand new lawmaker what drove you to run for office you know I was running facilities assisted living and spent my life caring for seniors as a nursing home administrator and CEO and spent about two years at Frozen Windows you know during the pandemic with seniors not being able to say goodbye to their kids and their adult children and I it was devastating and I realized it was harder than going through eight surgeries with breast cancer and I wanted to make sure people were together that we could move past the pandemic and really move forward for Minnesota great well it's been certainly a fast-paced session uh some bills have already passed and been signed into law what do you think the most significant legislation that's already been passed has been thus far I think everybody would say you know the first bill that was introduced was hf1 which was the abortion uh bill I think that was uh you know for the majority party would say that was their biggest accomplishment and I think you know it is it is Monumental in that it it now replicates the most um extreme side on the abortion side which is China and countries like that so I was hoping we'd have more of a with the pro-choice people said that they wanted to have Roe versus Wade and now it's beyond that so I think that's probably the most Monumental Bill I've seen okay and and what and so you voted against it yes uh some of your concerns were you know one of the things where you know having the ability to have abortion you know to the to the 40th week there was bills introduced for amendments to say let's just have that have language where we're not going to do it in the third trimester that we're going to make sure we have care for babies if the abortion is botched and the baby's living we're going to be hearing that bill so that the baby receives care and so there those type of bills that are going through are are highly disappointing and I don't think reflect Minnesota values well we're certainly going to look for some questions from the audience but I'm a few off the top here for you budget targets have been set already and for folks back at home this is a step in the process where uh the legislature decides in big amounts how much money is going to be spent in each area taxes education you name it Health and Human Services all in down the list uh what is your first take on the general numbers on where the priorities are being set by the majority parties in their budget targets that billions doesn't mean anything everything is in billion dollar increments and so we have a billion dollars and you know 20 billion in Surplus and we have billions in every single line item uh in the budget process so listening to that you know it makes business operations and home checkbooks look like nothing and so it's Monumental but at the end of the day we still have to balance a budget and right now the budgets that are being proposed aren't going to be sustainable for the uh the next two-year biennium so what they call that is money in the Tails and so we're spending all the Surplus and then we're also going to have unfunded mandates and policies that we're putting in place which is really concerning to me what is your most concerning area of the unsustainability of the spending either on the tax side or on the spending side I think there's a lot of concern I mean just it this last week there were articles about school districts that you know aren't going to be able to accomplish the goals of making sure kids can read in Minnesota we have 50 percent reading literacy in the state of Minnesota and so even with these uh funding mandates and unfunded things school districts are saying wait these mandates are going to actually make us not get ahead of the game we don't have the building space so the mandates on class size the mandates on you know making sure that we do all the things the state wants is going to put school districts at In Harm's Way and so that's one of the issues and then Healthcare is another thing nursing homes aren't funded so there's 300 nursing homes in Minnesota and we are only funding critical access nursing homes and those are in Greater Minnesota and those are important but we have several that are at risk of closure so you'd like to see more funding dedicated towards nursing homes absolutely and where would that money come from uh separate from where the proposals are that you know the three biggest pots of money really in the state budget goes to education taxes and health and human services so where would you want to shift the money from in order to accomplish your goal of more funding for nursing homes I think It's a combination I mean I think absolutely one of the things is there's 1.6 billion dollars of the Surplus that's going as a one-time fee to fund as seed money the paid family medical leave policy which is going to then have additional money come in through an employer a mandate and then they can decide if they want employees to pay any portion of that so that's 1.6 billion that's sitting there in this formula that they're putting forward that I believe should be going to other things and many people believe that so that would be one thing that would be able to help Baseline funding for some of the nursing homes at risk that incurred unsustainable costs by mandates through covid great please send in your questions either call the number on the screen or send in an email to us another piece of leftover Business from The Last legislative session was a bonding or capital investment Bill and this is when the legislature and the governor borrow money and you have to get a significant amount of votes not just a majority but a super majority of legislators to pay for Investments and capital Investments buildings and other things like that that bill is making its way through the process past the house I believe you voted against it uh I voted for it you voted for it I'm sorry you voted for it thank you for the correction but in the Senate the Republicans voted against it and so uh where does that sit right now and what are your hopes for making sure uh that your projects get invested in in the capital investment bill you know the house called for the vote on the bonding and so you know both Roger scraba from 3B and myself from 3A Ortiz 3A and 3B but we both you know voted uh in favor of the bonding and part of the reason is is that we have many projects that have been delayed for several years and so those costs are going up and we have many things that are really important for the state and all the Republicans agree with that I think what's happened and I agree with the Senate the Senate's position is look we have all promised minnesotans that we're going to have social security taxes eliminated so that's the reality of what happens at the state of Minnesota and I don't disagree with the Senate you know saying look we're going to deal with bonding but we're also going to not go back on our word because we all said that we were going to make sure seniors were taking care of this session and we should absolutely take care of seniors when we have a 20 billion dollar Surplus and that's a great segue because we got our first question from a viewer and this is a perennial question we get almost every week and it is on the Social Security tax and so I saw that you're an author of elimination of the Social Security tax as well and so where does that stand in the process right now what do you think the likelihood of success is for passing either a full repeal or a partial repeal of that tax you know I don't know I would hope that it's going to be done it's really disappointing to me I guess I was naive to think we'd go into a trifecta I thought that the Democrats would want this to you know get rid of Social Security taxes for everybody in the state of Minnesota and especially seniors and so I wrote a bill that would actually be for the para subtraction of taxes for public employees and people in that that situation and also for people that get Social Security tax uh Social Security regular Social Security that that tax would be eliminated so I I thought that would be we'd be hearing that bill and it's been turned down the Democrats have voted against it in the Senate and in the house more than once so I'm waiting and hoping that we're going to get that done I'm absolutely for having it eliminated and by voting against it uh I I believe I heard that that's a procedural vote to take on the issue immediately but it's still being heard and considered in the tax committees yes and is that correct my understanding yes it's at the Senate and so the Senate will negotiate and then you know they have to have a vote on it at the Senate and hopefully the Democrats will start saying yes we're going to do social security you know tax elimination and have and be serious about it so that we can deal with bonding now I know that some bills are being passed right now that spend money uh in the millions and as you said we're talking about billions of dollars here right but generally are we waiting to see the that proposal along with all the other proposals come later in the session you know the the viewers at home want to know when this is going to happen is it probably going to happen closer to the end it could there they have a trifecta it could absolutely happen right now it's about choice and so it could happen they're in the driver's seat so if they want Social Security taxes uh to be eliminated they would be able to make that go at record speed because everything else is one at record speed so I I don't doubt that it could happen very quickly and I'm hoping it will so we can address the bonding needs and then multiple other needs that we have like eliminate getting taxes lower getting businesses to come to our area making sure we can have jobs and child care credits and and and and many things like that for Working Families so are you supportive of putting the budget together are piece by piece just passing the legislation and then at the end seeing how much money you have left to fund the rest or would you like to see the full picture before it goes forward well we've we've dealt with some bills individually and then right now in the categories of the Omnibus bills they're going to come that way and that's what I'm told of how they do it so you know I'm not in a position where I get to make the rules and especially not this year because we have no majority in the seat so right now I can just listen at committee and then wait to see what's in the bill and then look to see what's in the bill because you know the details the devil's in the details so that's what I'm waiting to look at is line by line what are the line items in there and then you know are these the priorities of District 3B and the people that I represent well thank you we got another uh email from a viewer here is there any progress on delivering a rebate to Minnesota taxpayers and I believe this is an issue where Governor Wallace called for a one-time rebate checks to take some of the Surplus which isn't the ongoing money uh to rebate back and I know there's some proposals in the legislature to do something similar what is the status of rebates back to taxpayers that's a very good question I mean we've been asking that at committee meetings all the time and so you know the Republican proposal is 1250 for individuals and 2500 for joint filers so people that paid into taxes would get that money back and I'm hoping they're going to do that I mean my concern is the type of money we're seeing being spent and proposed in these budgets is using every bit of the 20 billion or you know 20 billion dollar Surplus plus taxing minnesotans more so the taxes are going the budget's going up by 30 percent from what we've done in Prior biennium so this is going to be a huge tax burden increase for people in Minnesota in my worry is are the Social Security are these checks going to come back you know give it back is what we've said give the money back to the people now you're a first term legislator uh and you're in the minority I am what do you see your role being in passing legislation are are you there to criticize either to collaborate a little of both what how have you seen your role uh being a first-term legislator in the minority you know my I see myself as being a responsible leader I was elected for the people so whether I'm a minority party or majority party my job is to work for the people to be the voice for Northeastern Minnesota for Two Harbors Rice Lake you know Hermantown Proctor and all the townships and so regardless if we're in the majority I'm going to work hard for the people here and make sure that they know what bills are being introduced so I've I've been making it a priority to do Town Halls monthly to be on radio to you know write articles to do you know as much as I can to to let people know because they're all busy working raising their family you know doing responsible things and and they need somebody to give them a snapshot of what's happening and and then listening just listening to what do people want what do people want and what do they need in northern Minnesota great and you've introduced 12 bills so far a lot of them local projects correct tax bills that we've talked about already and a few on health care as well uh can you identify any of the bills that you hope I I'm assuming you hope all of them get across the finish line but uh are some further along uh in the process you know one of the things I've been working I just um you know talked to our Congressman Pete stabber about is I introduced a bill to have 16 and 17 year olds be able to operate Hoyer lifts and sit to stand equipment in nursing homes and assisted livings because we're in a Workforce shortage and right now OSHA requires 18. we can drive a car at 16. but I need to have Federal a waiver for that so I've been working on that right now and that will be that will help alleviate so sometimes it's mandate sometimes it's policies try to get things done to help people and I'm also working with family child care providers on what they need to be able to to have a family child care model that is financially feasible because 700 child care providers have closed and when you have shift work you need to have child care that's family focused too yeah yeah and Workforce is certainly a challenge that we're seeing and you sit on the workforce committee are you seeing any promises and proposals coming through that'll help Northeastern Minnesota with this Workforce crunch you know it's been fascinating because Workforce has been my world you know for for 40 years and so it's working with deed and understanding how all the pieces come together and then indeed uh we don't do acronyms here on this show so that's the Department of Employment and economic development one of the state agencies yes yes thank you sorry to interrupt no thank you because I'm learning all these acronyms and so uh but it's been great to work to see and that's what I'm looking for when we're looking at the workforce one of the questions I'm asking is what percentage of the funding is coming to Northern Minnesota how much of this is Metro Minneapolis-St Paul and how much of this is for Greater Minnesota because I don't want Greater Minnesota left out of the puzzle so one of the things and that's why I like being on the committee is I can make sure Greater Minnesota is not forgotten great well thank you and let's keep those questions coming in please call or email any questions and we'll get to them straight away as you said working in assisted living facilities that is the other big crunch on both Workforce but helping our seniors with mandates with all the regulation that goes into running those facilities what are you seeing proposals because that's the other committee you sit on is the Human Services committee so what are you seeing hopeful coming out of there that may help us in northeastern one of the things I've been doing is meeting with the Minnesota Department of Health and Department of Human Services meeting collaboratively with them because what I learned when I got down there which was shocking to me is that during a pandemic we find assisted living's three million dollars in the state of Minnesota and one million dollars to nursing homes so that meant that these providers had that large amount of money taken out of their cash reserves and they already were struggling and so now they're on credit lines and I can see what happened and so it seemed odd to me we don't you know do that in any other department you know we have education at 30 proficiencies but we're not finding teachers or finding you know districts when they don't meet you know 80 90 percent proficiency rates but we're doing that to nursing homes when we set the rules by this and they've played by the game of what the state and federal government said to do and we penalize them and they didn't have staff because you can't grow staff in a Petri dish and so you know they were compromised and so I'm trying to help build that back up so that we can get health care workers get the Health occupation classes back in high schools I've been touring high schools around the state to see best practice models to get that in application especially in Greater Minnesota great the other committee you sit on are the children and families committee you know you've talked about child care and we know that that is a major issue especially in northeastern Minnesota Governor walls has actually proposed a brand new agency that focuses solely on Early Childhood what are your thoughts on that proposal and or any other ideas you have to help support our child care providers our families and our communities one of the things I've been listening a lot to is is making sure there's a balance between what the center Child Care model is going to receive and the family child care model is going to receive because much of Greater Minnesota doesn't have center-based models and when I was working I used both and they're both great you know and they both serve a different purpose but we need to make sure when we're doing something for one it's not at the expense of another especially For Greater Minnesota when family based models work so I'm looking a lot at that I'm also looking at Grants that we've done to programs because we've had fraud we've had you know fraud in the that's been tied to the Child Care Program and so I want to make sure that we have accountability we've been asking a lot of questions on what that looks like so that we don't go down that path again and make sure that we have a vetting system that makes sense for the state of Minnesota so when you're growing the state of Minnesota Government when the auditor has said we have noted fraud and we have whether it's 100 million or whatever amount that is it's notable enough notable enough to say this is not one thousand dollars this is not isolated this is millions of dollars so my question is you know do we have those systems in place before we add new agencies and add more funding to Grant programs and so that's what I'm looking at the detail right now we have another question from a caller are there any plans to set aside monies for the ever increasing natural disasters and other emergencies with the historic snowfalls and we could foresee some flooding this spring and otherwise and generally the legislature can respond only when you're in session and sometimes a special session is called but any plans to set aside monies for some of those natural disasters and other emergencies well that was a great bipartisan thing that we did Thursday night before we left session is we voted unanimously to make sure that we refunded the emergency fund preparing for the fact that we likely will see record floods again and we want to be ready in Minnesota while we could go back to special session we don't want to be tied up on a natural disaster thing and so you know right now southern Minnesota is still without power from this storm you know in a well I guess probably was the end of March but you know it happens and so when you have storms like this we need to have emergency backup so that was a great bipartisan thing we all voted yes for so past yes sign into law yes it's going to the Senate already set aside that is great to hear yes uh we're getting another question um from a viewer does Representatives Liz nakar support eliminating Social Security tax for all including millionaires or for those making 150 000 or less as the governor has suggested and so I guess the question pertains to there could be a scale you could eliminate the entire tax for people but there could be a scale to say only up to a certain dollar amount so what's your position you know ultimately my position is you've paid into it once so how many times do you want to pay for the same thing you know if you buy a car you're going to pay for it twice you know what are we going to set up for the system so my concern is just what are they considering wealthy so hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand a lot of people don't think is wealthy anymore so there's a I get a lot of emails from Seniors saying look I if I make 175 000 and I do I've already paid that tax so I think that's where the the line is is how do we determine that you know and so I'm going to be listening and looking and what is going to be best for Minnesota but if I had my perfect world in my wand I'd say let's eliminate it in totality great well keep those questions coming you've had a lot of town halls as you said and have been listening around the region when you're back home in the district what are the issues that are bubbling up in town halls most frequently that you're hearing from your constituents I think Social Security tax elimination I mean that is a universal thing regardless of party I hear it all the time from people and wondering about that just because it's been talked about for so long I think the other thing that people are concerned about is just education making sure that we have you know strong Public Schools you know across the state that we are you know we've been the North Star for education and so when we're at 30 and 50 proficiency rates that's really alarming because if you can't read you know it's going to be hard to fill out a job application and have success following so you know we're putting a lot of money in the early childhood development but my you know if it doesn't follow into K-12 then that investment is not going to end up being a good investment and so we need to make sure we have all those things in place so that that's it and then you know making sure that we have the Second Amendment is is honored I think that's a big concern I get a lot of people sending me information on that they want to make sure we use the laws we have right now before we add ever even consider more laws and one of the major laws that we're seeing proposed right now are a proposal to make a law is a red flag yes uh bill that is being pushed by uh some in the majority party what is your position on the red flag bill in specific you know my concerns are just the the you know the targeting that happens in this world we're in right now you know and when I've talked to a lot of police officers I get calls from people all across the state you know that just want to say look some of the things that sound like great ideas have repercussions and so there's there's consequences with good intentions and I I believe that the intentions are pure of what people are trying to do we all want safety but the issue becomes neighbor to neighbor disputes and people make allegations and there's many times people make allegations at workplaces and and there's a lot of effort spent and so the police are already right now in a Workforce shortage so you know having the ability to have due process doesn't exist in the red flag law and so if somebody makes an allegation about you you don't have that it's there's you don't have any right to defend yourself yourself and so that's the concern and we have 72-hour holds in place right now where a judge is involved and a person has due process and when I talk to police they said you know we arrest people but they're out the door right away so we're we're sending them in through the system but nobody's being kept um as it is and so I'm just listening and then watching to see how this goes but that's my concern I don't think we're using the laws that we have to date well we have a few minutes left and a few more questions so we're going to try to roll through them here though it's a big one right right out the gate here a viewer who's very supportive of this idea is asking any discussion about health care for all legislation through the Human Services committee pieces you know that would probably fall under that I think there's so many topics right now at hand that that isn't that isn't a committee I've been on I'm not on that committee so I mean it hasn't been presented on the house floor yet to vote on anything like that it's been piecemealed on topics disability groups you know assisted livings nursing homes and then other aspects of health insurance and funding and so that's about all I could speak on that we haven't had that in in a in a bill to date but it you know nothing is off the table I don't think that's going to happen this session if I was you know a betting person I would say it's that is not something that is the path that probably people are going to want to see happen okay I think we have time for one more question this caller is concerned on the non-english speakers who will have driver's licenses and so I guess this is driver's licenses for immigrants this past and is signed into law this viewer is asking will this change be safe do you have any thoughts on a driver's license for immigrants I hope so you know that was that was a real disappointment because we were trying to have the driver's license look different than the driver's license that we all have that um you know that would just say not eligible for voting or be you know like if you were not 21 the driver's licenses looked different but that was all voted down for amendments so now everybody has the same driver's license we have then and so there's a lot of people that have concerns about that from this perspective of voting of what what does this look like I think the intention was is that there would be a car insurance and those types of things and so what we'll hope and see how this goes but they passed it and so time is going to tell the story on that do you have concerns though you know my concern was just that it says not eligible for voting you know that it would look different because they're not legal citizens and so that was my perspective but it didn't get listened and heard I know if this is your first session but I'm going to have you progressed procrastinate right at the end here um things are moving fast do you see the session ending on time time early are we still going to go late do you have any sense of that right now what is your hope at the pay the pay are going we should end early because they are just bringing everything to the table and saying vote calling the vote and moving it to the Senate so it could wrap up before May 22nd and it wouldn't surprise me because they have a trifecta and so we shouldn't go in we shouldn't go one minute past the 22nd so sounds great well I won't hold you to any predictions on that but it's great to get your perspective thank you for having me yeah and we are out of time I would like to thank representative Natalie's lesnikar for joining us this week Minnesota legislative report will be off next week for the Easter holiday we'll be back on Sunday April 16th when we will welcome more legislators from northern Minnesota to answer your questions stay tuned for Almanac North coming up next for the team at PBS North I'm Tony sirdich have a great evening thank you [Music]