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 hello and welcome to minnesota legislative report i'm your host tony cerdich today is our last episode of the season and we have much to cover as the legislature nears the end of its session there has been agreement on a few of the smaller bills but many issues left to be resolved in the final two weeks today's show is an opportunity for viewers to ask questions to the lawmakers who represent you please call the number on your screen or email your questions to ask wdse.org we have a great lineup to answer those questions representative spencer igo is a republican from near grand rapids representing house district 15b welcome representative igo and representative jen schultz is a dfeller from duluth representing house district 7a welcome representative schultz thanks both of you for being here and representative schultz happy mother's day to you as well we're going to start the first question uh with you uh we're going to start with where the agreements have been and one of the bills that was passed this uh last week was the veterans and military affairs bill we have two house members here passed almost unanimously with some good things in there for uh military veterans your thoughts on getting some compromise done getting the ball rolling on some of these bills coming through yeah it's good that we're able to pass things off the floor with bipartisan support i think that's a good sign for wrapping up the end of session and you know we're trying to do good things for people across the state especially our veterans so i know we're really proud of of the investments we're making for veterans and the assistance we're giving them in that bill and it was good to have almost unanimous support for that bill and there's a lot of great um incentive checks there for honoring our veterans for those who most recently served and i know spencer can talk about the exact dollar amounts there since he's on that committee sure 24 million in service bonuses for post 9 11 veterans and gold star families do you have more of the details represented yes you know it's uh 750 dollars for any veteran who served after 9 11. uh it'll be 1500 for those who were actually deployed in theater um and then 2 000 for gold star families and i think a great incentive for all of our veterans but that bill also contained a lot of money and funding for our veterans homes um and that which is a great thing and also hand up to veteran programs i mean this is an issue that is bipartisan and i think this passing this bill on friday was so great because it was standalone and i think this this was the first time talking to members of my caucus that we passed a veterans bill by itself on the house floor and i think it sets a great precedent for the future that we can always take care of our vets here in the state of minnesota and also about 5 million in there for permanent housing for veterans another issue around homelessness issues if i'm a veteran watching right now question to either of you how do i get access to this money is it automatic or do i have to do something to qualify or to get this bonus do either of you know i do not know but that's a great question so i'm sure we're going to have it on our website soon if it's not already there but maybe represent i go do you know yeah so um right there's going to be an application process they're going to create a portal i know right now reach out to your veteran service officers and your counties they're going to be able to direct you where you need to go but probably see an announcement in the next couple weeks why the department of veterans affairs kind of gets the program set up for people to apply great so it'll take a couple of weeks to get set up and then folks will be able to access that funding another bill that passed broad bipartisan support again there was a opiate settlement nationally and 300 million dollars came to the state of minnesota about 75 percent of that going directly to counties and cities 25 percent to the state from our region represent liz olson was the chief author of the bill uh care to comment on the opi uh legislation that was passed you know again just another great example of bipartisan legislation and this was something you know wasn't minnesota just needed to act to make sure we could utilize those dollars and as we all know and especially greater minnesota how important it is to see our counties receiving this funding to combat the opioid crisis i think all of us have an experience somehow to the opioid crisis and we have to do something to stop that and us working together in the senate the house to come together to get this bill passed to get the dollars coming here and going directly to communities is exactly what needed to happen so i was really happy to vote green on that bill great uh president schultz any details that you'd like to talk about in that bill what actually does this bill do the 300 million well it's going to help us address the opioid crisis and this is something that has not been resolved yet and we're still grappling with it across our state especially in our tribal lands and so this will help us get money to address the opioid addiction and hopefully get people off opioids and into recovery which is really a priority for us and represent olsen worked very hard negotiating that with the senate so we're really proud of the work she's done that's great uh so please email or call in your questions we have a few in the door already first one is does the recently approved pay for frontline workers include healthcare workers in assisted living facilities and does it include cnas do either of you know the answer to that question it does okay so our healthcare workforce there's some eligibility requirements so those working in healthcare need to make incomes of less than 175 000 for physicians and then i think the income threshold is eighty five thousand dollars or less but people can go to frontlinepay.mn.org.gov or mn.gov i think is the is the website and they can check out if they're eligible and where we are in the process so that also has we need a few more weeks to get that set up but soon people will getting but we'll be getting those rebate checks if they apply so frontlineworkers.mn.comlinepay.mn.gov.org.gov or dot one of those okay and i believe when you go on there too you can there's like a little like subscribe button that'll send your you an email when there's more updates or when the application window opens and all that stuff so i encourage people to go check that website out great another question uh similar to this more philosophical is at what point do you stop giving unemployment benefits and get people back into the workforce represent vigo we'll start with you on that one yeah you know i think something uh it's really important that we look at ways as a state government but also local governments to really give people that hand up you know and the best way to do this how to provide jobs good paying jobs and whether that's looking at ways to create more job creators have more jobs out there for people but also you know i think that just it's the tone um of us as state legislators and leaders in general right you know if we want to you know bring our best days reality is something i like to talk about it requires all of us to work together link together work and make our communities better and you know unemployment is a good thing it's a hand up when people need it most we also have to know when it's not about giving checks it's about maybe stepping in and job counseling or helping those people find where they need to be to do the most for our communities and i think that's a role we can play with working with state government and local governments great and this viewer i think what i'm intimating from this is um you know are we incentivizing people to stay home uh with this funding or not most people want to work they want to provide for their families and unemployment is just extra security when we have things like a pandemic and we need people to be able to feed their families so it is a great security net that i think we need to keep but we're seeing you know labor shortage so we have so many jobs available right now and i think that people would rather work than collect unemployment but when we have plans like north shore idling that's when also we need that unemployment to keep people secure in their home to pay for their mortgage or their rent and to feed themselves and their families great so the process at this point in the legislative session is almost as important as the work that you all are doing and so both the senate and the house are passing their versions of what they would like the budget bills to be and the policy bills to be and sometimes they're wrapped together and then there's negotiation between the two branches smaller committees get together and iron out the details and a viewer writes in to talk a bit about this process uh when creating and passing bills how do you determine dollar amounts particularly when giving bonuses and relief paid individuals where do these numbers come from who wants to take that first go ahead all right um so there's a variety of ways the numbers all kind of come together right uh you know there's budget targets that are going to be set by the majorities in each chamber um so that'll be decided on the committee or the conference committee on the bill that's getting worked on but a lot of times that we're seeing right now we saw last year those dollar amounts are decided by usually the leader so the majority leader or the speaker of the house majority leader of the senate and the governor kind of worked together in almost a triumvirate to set dollar amounts that's something that i necessarily don't believe in because then it kind of leaves the rest of the 200 so legislators wondering where this dollar amount came from there wasn't a lot of input there so that's something that i kind of like to advocate for when i get the chance we need more transparency and how those budgets are set um and it like i said it really does vary on the bill where the number does come to but right now the process is we're nearing the end it's going to be that conference committee and it's going to be the leaders of the house and the senate and the governor kind of setting those final numbers and do they generally set the numbers broadly or do they get specific about different issues or bills well you know we have a surplus and that's why we have these spending bills this session and the chairs are very much involved so i chair human services finance and policy so i work closely with the health finance chair representative liebling and we put together our priorities and then we ask for a budget for our priorities in hhs and we submit that to the speaker melissa hortman and then she looks at all that information from every chair's request so we are very involved in that process and then she decides you know where where where are the highest needs where the highest priorities and allocates the surplus to those areas if we didn't have one it would be sort of chaotic if we didn't have these budget targets because every chair would be fighting for a bulk of the resources but i did hear that the senate is having i think more trouble said coming up with budget targets because a lot of their spending is going for tax cuts and to replenish the unemployment insurance trust fund and then reinsurance so a lot of their spending they've already spent a lot of the surplus so they have a much smaller budget target for each of their committees and we're going to get to those differences in a minute i i want to stay focused though on the good work that's been done already the unemployment insurance uh the repayment of the unemployment insurance trust fund the frontline worker pay pass both bipartisan we've got this veterans bill that passed we've got the opioid settlement that's passed are you guys seeing this as momentum to doing more work or do you still see there being loggerheads on some of these bigger issues represent schultz we'll start with you well i think we're going to have more success but it depends on the committee in the area so i'm very optimistic that in health and human services we're going to get out both the policy bill and a spending bill by the end of session by may 23rd and other areas like the environment potentially there's probably going to be greater divide between republicans and democrats and much it could be a very small bill or no bill given our time constraint so it really depends on the area and how close they are if they both the senate and the house have heard similar bills it will be easier to get something out of conference committee if they have not heard similar bills and they're more polarized it's going to be more difficult for them to come to agreement but people should know that we don't need to get any of these spending bills out because it's we're not setting a budget this year we've already done that so anything we do is a plus is going to benefit minnesota and the things that don't get done we can come back next year and do those things because you set the budget for every two years and so as representative schultz said none of this is necessary to get done but you all are spending months down there at a time uh and everybody has an idea and how to use this surplus representing them yeah you know i think you kind of laid it out perfectly right there our budget is funded right now um and i think just because we have surplus doesn't mean we need to go ahead and spend the whole thing you know represent schultz already talking we had to spend a little bit on things that mattered you know replenishing ui reinsurance those are things that were important that we had to get done and use that surplus for but moving forward i think it's vitally important that when we're talking about the end of session and these bills we don't need to be spending money just to spend it in grow government i think it's really really important that if we're going to spend this surplus it's in ways of tax cuts that's kind of in the senate proposal because again this is a way we can give minnesotans a hand up to have more money in their pocket at the end of the month and it's a hard time right now we have inflation at eight and a half percent groceries are going through the roof gas prices are through the rough we need to find ways to keep more money in minnesota's pockets rather than growing government and putting more burden on the budget next year well we do have inflation and we do have high gas prices but you know we need to solve those problems and so some solving that problem sometimes it means spending money to solve those problems and to help people not just through tax cuts but to give them the assistance they need for example we have a shortage in assisted living facilities hospitals group homes to find people to work that means we need to increase their wages to attract them to that caring profession and we're hearing a lot from the health care sector that they need help and higher reimbursement rates to attract labor that's government spending because many of those are government waiver programs that people rely on for those services so it's really important that we are involved that we are passing these bills um to get help to those providers that are facing a huge shortage give the final word to you on this you know i represent schultz you raised some great points but at the same time you know the state of minnesota our country is a free market and i think it's vitally important that you know we're seeing the demand i mean drive down all of our our cities and towns up here on the iron range and you'll see starting wage 15 16 17 i just saw a place today i mean quick trip right here on the hill in duluth was offering 50 000 a year for an assistant manager starting um the free market's catching up and realizing that they're going to pay people more and that's a good thing it doesn't mean the state needs to step in and help with that situation at all times sure like you outline there's some good points that we have to but at the end you know it's important that we allow the the market to regulate itself and will provide the best jobs for people so if if you you all don't get anything else done if there's leftover money from this surplus some of it is what in the legislature you call one-time money which basically means you can't count on it in future budgets some is ongoing potentially revenue and some of it came from the federal government in response to the covet pandemic and so what happens to that surplus if you all don't do anything with it i've heard talk of the governor has some authority to spend some of the money on an emergency basis uh some of it just will sit there until next year what is the plan for the money if you all don't spend it a big part of that money that the governor did have went to unemployment insurance and to pay the hero pay for frontline workers those bonus checks and so that's really dwindled i'm very worried concerned that we don't put enough away for future emergencies which is really good to do when we have a surplus it puts them in reserves for public health emergencies and other emergencies and then in our reserve fund for when our revenue is falling in the state so i think some of that is gone already but the surplus will just roll over into the next biennium and we'll use that in setting up our budget targets if and if our state continues to have healthy revenues we're going to have healthy investments in the state where we can reinvest in things like education roads and bridges infrastructure broadband there are a lot of needs across our state and minnesota is known for making these great investments especially into an educated workforce to draw businesses to minnesota and we really want to keep people here in minnesota and track new people so i think having a healthy state and offering the best education we're going to get people to move to our state and companies and that's what we need to do going forward you know those federal dollars i think i was going to ask i think the governor only has 170 million of it left and when it comes down to spending that he's going to need approval by the legislature for large expenditures um so he'll kind of start thinking about a lot of those here in the closing weeks if there's going to be any large ones um you know i will agree i think it's important that we do kind of keep that money in reserves or plan for the next budget year you know so it does roll over the next year so or provide it in tax cuts like i said i think we don't know what the next year is going to bring and it's important that as we're kind of looking at this time that things are getting hard it's okay to tighten the belt a little bit and prepare for times ahead rather than you know we got it let's spend it so we're going to move on to a couple of the other bills that passed this week and the first one was a bill that dealt with workforce economic development climate and energy uh within that bill was paid family leave act and it was an issue that we talked about i think representative when you were on uh prior as well and in that bill it's 12 weeks a paid family leave the state would set up a program similar to the unemployment insurance the way that that unemployment insurance is out there thoughts on that portion of the bill uh support opposition represent shelters on mother's day i think it's just the right day to say to have people to support that bill you know the dfl supports that bill the u.s is a country where way behind other developed countries that offer paid leave so i think it should be a priority most people want it and i think the voters are going to make that decision in november as well if we can't get it passed there's been a lot of resistance in the minnesota senate for not supporting paid family leave but it's definitely wanted by people who work and they need it they want to spend time with their their new child or they have a sick parent they want to be able to take time off to do that caregiving or sandbag yeah so you know like so we talked about this once already um you know the the current bills that's i'm still opposing um you know there's quite a few people that have some opposition to it just the way it's written you know the minnesota chamber of commerce first off is in opposition uh to doing this and the big reason why is i think uh coming out of a time when there's a lot of mandates and restrictions put on businesses we found out how bad that turned out right how many small businesses suffered so we're bouncing back our economy's trying to come back we're trying to tackle everything in front of us putting another mandate on right now isn't the right thing to do and if you talk with small business owners around our state many of them offer a lot of the opportunities and plans that are inside this bill what works for their business you know this this bill would apply the same way to a company like target to a small mom-and-pop shop that has six seven people working at it and i don't think we take into a effect how that's going to change things around our state like i said it sounds really good on paper but when you really dive into it there's a lot of work that needs to be done there and again the free market our business owners i mean we're minnesota nice we do like to take care of our people and i think that kind of should lead the way on this thing rather than the government stepping in and telling people what they should do one of the other portions of that bill that got a lot of discussion uh was including school workers making them eligible for unemployment insurance benefits reps and vigo your thoughts on that yeah you know uh there was definitely some interesting debate that we had on the floor on that one and um i think that some of the the hang up that was having there is when we're talking about frontline workers there for unemployment um we're trying to you know cut that line of where is you know how many people do we add to this list and i and don't get me wrong you know those people that work in our schools everything from our teachers who are paras are vitally and critically important to you know giving minnesotan students the best education possible but i think when we're talking about trying to prioritize you know who we took care of on that bill was really really really tough and you know being in the minority some of those decisions were outside of you know my grasp to be a part of the conversation but i think there was good debate on the house floor about it grab sam schultz i think early school workers definitely deserve to be eligible for unemployment insurance and it was really unfortunate that the republicans refused to support that all the dfl legislators are behind that and supported it it didn't make it into the final bill i hope we can do that again next year try to pass it great another piece of that building was a big bill sprawling on on some issues was about 200 million dollars going towards workforce development and so uh 200 million dollars is a lot of money but when you look at it in perspective to the six billion dollars that is in the surplus and this is something we're hearing from businesses in particular one of the big challenges of getting that workforce that both of you are talking about is the barriers to training to different opportunities uh is that the right amount of money and is it going to the right things in in your mind in the bill representative schultz will start with you there's always more demand for assistance to create small businesses so we do have this revolving loan fund in the bill where small businesses um and entrepreneurs targeting women-owned businesses people of color-owned businesses people with disabilities so really trying to direct money to those who want who need the more help to initiate their business and to address equity issues so i think it's probably not enough um but in hhs for instance we have we're spending about 450 million dollars in healthcare workforce development so i think and there's different pieces of workforce development and various other omnibus bills as well great if i go too much not enough is it dedicated to the right sections to make it work so you know i think it was uh personally one of the wrong approaches to go about you know i think it's great to talk on paper about spending 200 million dollars to help develop the workforce but think about another way that can inspire a lot more growth more bang for your buck is looking at ways to remove business mandates remove taxes on businesses so they can have more organic growth again when you influx money into the economy it's going to circle around a few times but eventually it goes away and it needs to be replenished by looking at ways to create lasting tax cuts or you know business mandates remove those things we can have better growth encourage more job growth and and really that's that's you know that hand up policy again getting away from handouts so i think that was one of the huge differences in how we look at spending in a bill like that right one other section of the bill that deals with climate and energy and the largest dollar amount in the house proposal went to weatherization and so uh represent vigo we'll start with you uh supportive of that effort um and and your thoughts about the climate change energy portion of this bill yeah so uh i serve on the energy committee so that part of the bill is uh i really took a deep dive on and so there's 40 million dollars that was spent to weatherization which you know is good it's a good program to help those um uh you know in minnesota that need help especially with energy prices but the bill focus more on weatherization being the solution to the issues we're facing in minnesota um and that really isn't the solution right you know there's a lot of things that the bill could have been doing to address rising energy prices and in that same bill we're putting mandates on energy or on wind and solar which are in turn increasing uh you know energy prices to everyone in minnesota the bill didn't do anything to address the rising costs of propane and fuel oil for people that heat their homes here in northern minnesota um a huge missed opportunity there um and when we try to talk about the bill about you know i really try to emphasize the sourcing of critical minerals in that bill or carbon sequestration technologies a ways to keep an all the above energy approach all those proposals were denied and kept out of the bill so instead we focused in on again weatherization being the the catch-all on it and frankly i mean the money even there isn't enough to really support all those who need it and again the best way to get involved with this is to source critical minerals properly here and have that all of the above energy approach with that whole system working together to keep prices down remember rate payers and taxpayers are the same thing and i think like i said there's a lot of people are left behind in the bill unfortunately so what's your thoughts on the energy portion of the boat you know we had high heating bills this year my family because we had the heat on longer because it was a colder spring and i know a lot of people across the northland had high heating prices so i think the weatherization is one tool that we have in the toolkit to reduce our energy consumption to make us more efficient the u.s is way behind other developed countries in terms of energy efficiency and then second you know we have to start relying on other sources for energy alternative energy like solar and wind and hydroelectric and thermal energy because i think there's a huge movement away from fossil fuels and this green energy is becoming much more cheaper so i think we're going to see those investments being made in minnesota and it's a huge business for our port we're bringing in these large wind turbines and we're just going to that's good for economic development for our state and our region but at the same time you know when you talked about you know hydro energy first off hydro isn't even considered renewable in the state of minnesota on a large scale so the only you know energy that was prioritizing that bill was wind and solar which are both being sourced offshores and it's funny you know the department of commerce um it has an investigation right now into solar panels because of dumping uh procedures going on in china so 70 or 78 percent actually of the solar panels coming the united states right now are banned on tariffs because they're dirty bad labor practices are being used from child and slave labor again i'm not opposed to solar and wind energy but if it's coming across these shores and coming here what are we really doing to have a green energy or a green economy here except moving the problem somewhere else and patting ourselves on the back and i think that's critical that we talk about that and to go back that's why i was a no on that bill too is because it wasn't talked about in the bill there was no language to help protect that or even advocate for that instead we're just going to keep pushing it out of sight out of mind there were bills but they just didn't get into the bill because they have to compromise that to bring it to the floor so we have enough votes to get off the floor so i think it was just a reluctance by some in the senate and others in the house of not supporting certain bills on moving towards different sources of energy so i think there just needs to be more compromise and maybe that will happen next year we're getting a lot of questions and some of them are going back to prior issues we talked about uh another question back to frontline worker pay pay that that passed uh does that include volunteer emts first responders and search and rescue workers and if so why not are they included in the first responders are included yes great all right so uh another bill uh that passed off the floor is the health and human services bill uh chief author and chair of one of the two committees responsible for that uh representative schultz uh you talked a bit about this but i'd like you to expand on this is a significant portion of the surplus over 700 million dollars in this bill and one of the one of the pieces you touched on was the health care workforce funding can you go more into details of what specifically you you're proposing in that area yeah so we have workforce incentive fund and this allows providers to pay retention bonus payments to pay individuals to go back and get more training for the education piece to pay for a greater set of benefits to attract people to the organization and to create a pipeline of people so having education subsidized education to get the training they need to go into the caring profession so it's a really broad look at how can we get more people into these caring professions where it's very rewarding work but it's really hard work you know it's just a lot of hours long hours and you're doing a lot more than working for example that quick trip um but you know i think it's so rewarding people want to stay there but they also want to feed their families so we have to make sure that they're getting living wages in those in those positions and so the other part of the hhs bill is increasing reimbursement rates and some of our waiver programs so providers can increase the wages for those professions yes i go we're hearing a lot about the health care providers child care providers and others these low wage high jobs and the barriers to finding those workers your thoughts on the bill and and this way of addressing the issue yeah you know i think uh it's a start um you know obviously health and human services a very expansive topic one that i definitely have a long time studying and want to continue to study and work on but i think one solution that we should talk about more that could have been part of the bill is finding ways to tie that to our high schools and our local community colleges right in our area finding this kind of career pathways that we can get young students involved in so when they're graduating high school they're you know ready to go and start specializing into these fields to start taking care of people and i think that's one way that we could partner with education local governments and health and human services to do the most to addressing this problem and we do have a program like that in the bill it's called the direct service corps and we're partnering partnering with community colleges in winona state to create those programs to get students interested in these professions and trained great well keep those questions coming in uh we're getting a bunch of questions around taxes no surprise and uh so the the house uh just passed the bill some highlights in that bill were child care tax credits and that was a main portion student loan credits and in the senate bill relied heavily on uh not taxing social security and that's a question we get time and time again and if we're just to back out a bit it really looks like the end of the legislative session between the two branches of government comes down to the senate which is controlled by republicans putting a lot of their proposal into tax cuts both tax eliminating the tax on social security and then lowering the first tier of taxes across the board for minnesotans and in the house it's more of a broad proposal of a lot of spending and some of these targeted tax credits and so my question actually is uh to you uh representative i go first clearly there there needs to be compromise if something's going to get done where do you where do you see your political party needing to compromise towards the democrats uh to get some sort of agreement on this well i'm kind of hoping that the one bipartisan issue between both the tax bills there is going to be the tax on social security i think that's one where we can kind of come together on and then maybe do some trading on those things there i think lowering that bottom tax bracket would be huge again it kind of goes back to what we started talking about earlier in this conversation about how can we prepare minnesotans to be better going down the road so i think lowering that that bottom tax bracket be really good but i think if we started the conversation when the house incentive coming together with let's eliminate the tax on social security and then see where that takes us and i think based on budget targets in both chambers that would be a great place for us to start and ramsey schultz where do you see democrats needing to move towards republicans to close up the end of the session well in the house tax bill we are eliminating social security tax on incomes of under 75 000 which includes most people are not paying tax on their social security with that new threshold so we are doing that and the republicans are removing it completely so i think there's going to be compromise around a threshold number because you know many people believe that taxing wealthy people that that's okay they're wealthy many wealthy people say tax me more so we can provide these vital services to live in our state and then we're really targeting taxes in the house like you said we're trying to help young families with the child care tax credit we're trying to help older adults with the social security tax but also keeping them in their homes longer with reducing their property tax so there's a lot of property tax and renter refund credits in the bill so we're trying to target it to where there's the greatest need rather than if you reduce the tax on the on the lowest bracket that helps everybody even the uber wealthy when they're paying a lower tax on their first 20 000 of income so we really could do different things in the compromise to target those to the lowest income individuals and get more refunds and refundable tax credits to help people you know and representative schultz raised a great point about rising property taxes right so i mean i come from a county that's uh you know is really concerned about this right now itasca county um and i think you know the the house democrat bill was had a lot of good provisions that were kind you know it was you know the targeted refund went from 12 to 10 i think those are really good things but one big difference was is how the money was spent um you know there was over a billion dollars spent uh in going into uh renter credits and only 76 million going into homestead exclusion credit so i think that moving forward i'd like to see those numbers be negotiated between the house and senate a little bit more because when i think of you know homestead relief i think of you know the retired people living in northern minnesota i think of the young families that are just starting out they could really use that help and that doesn't always just mean renters right so i think that would be a great place too if we started there in social security would be a great place for that tax bill to start when we come together in conference but the prop property tax most of that is going to your local units of government your counties and your municipalities so i think there's we just see a greater need for for revenue for those local units of government to provide the services people expect like better roads and so what we're trying to do in the house tax bill is also address local government aid and increasing that lga to reduce that burden on local units of government which is really key so i think we did definitely hear that people need some reduction in their property taxes and hopefully increasing lga will help with that not to overly focus on where there's differences but that's the point we're at in the legislative session the other big issue where there seems to be a big differences around k-12 education funding the house proposal significantly more than the senate proposal where do you see there being common ground and what would you like to see ultimately come out of that representative schultz we'll start with you well there's something called the cross subsidy so we need to put more money into addressing this cross subsidy and and the senate education bill only focuses on literacy the house version is giving money more money to the school districts to help for a variety of needs and they probably need a lot more we have underinvested in education over time and the increase we're making is still inefficient so i think people expect more from their public schools we have a history of excellent public education and to get back to that we need to make sure we're investing in our public education school districts teachers paraprofessionals all of the individuals that work to educate our young people so you know i spent a lot of time trying to figure out what would be best for the area i represent northern minnesota and talking to superintendents and the principals the biggest thing that they want to see coming out of a k-12 bill this year is just more local control given back to them they want to be able to run their districts and run their levies with their constituents in their own school districts the best way possible and i thought that really fit well with the messaging emphasis you're supposed to be it's a policy year right again it's not always supposed to be about how can we spend money it's about how can we you know make things run more efficiently and that's been the ask i've gotten from all of my superintendents in the area i represent any last word on education from either of you well i think people really saw what happened during the pandemic and what before from 1996 to 2017 our math and reading scores really excelled and the achievement gap was reduced but in the last two years of the pandemic we saw that really drop so we really need to invest in those resources to get those students that fell during the pandemic back up to grade level great last word yeah you know again i think the best way to get our students back to those levels is you know no one knows their students better than the teachers in the areas and in this in the school boards that represent those areas and i think you know what goes on in itasca county is different than goes on in todd county and i think it's very important that we let school districts and those school boards that are elected by the people decide how to give and make their students prosper the best way possible one of the other main issues of this legislative session which seems to be taking a back seat if you're watching from the outside is the capital investment bill and so generally every two years this this year of the legislative session you all look at projects construction projects infrastructure projects across the state of minnesota the state can borrow at a very low interest rate to invest in these sorts of projects all across the state haven't heard much about that and there's only a couple weeks left of the session can you please give me an update on where we're at with the capital investment bill sometimes called the bonding bill reps invigo yeah so i know there's conversations happening um i have no idea what the dollar amount's going to be but i am hoping it kind of sticks to that infrastructure bit right yeah if we're going to do the bonding bill which i'm in support of let's just make sure it goes you know infrastructure in our cities roadways and remember i mean a bonding bill for greater minnesota is a jobs bill so i think this is a great way to kind of help out our greater minnesota communities as well as metro communities at the same time but you know if we have a good bonding bill that focuses on that infrastructure but i think it'd be a great bipartisan bill that we could pass before sessions over and we've done really well in duluth and northeast minnesota and getting our local building projects funded through bonding so i think we're going to have that same success this year it's just that things are quiet the bonding bill is like the dessert after we have passed all of our omnibus bills it's that cherry on top of that sundae and right now i know every legislator is lobbying the chairs of the capital investment committees for all of their individual projects in their district so that is what is happening behind the scenes but i'm optimistic it is a jobs bill we need to make those investments now because it's really going to help our local regional areas and our economy and because the state borrows money you actually need a super majority of the legislature to pass this in both bodies which means it has to be bipartisan other bills can pass in a partisan way if need be and represent schultz you said what i think some legislators say is that this is this comes after all the other work a question to both of you is what if there isn't agreement on some of the other budgetary issues is that going to stymie or stop a capital investment bill from being done or not i don't think so because this was the year that this is the bonding year this is one thing we needed to get done i think both parties want a bonding bill they just don't agree on how much that bonding bill should be so should it be 1 billion or 2 billion or 2 and a half billion that's what's going to be negotiated and when we have to reduce it local projects fall off and people are really upset so we'll see if everybody wants their project it's going to be much larger than probably what the senate wants yeah i think that's a a great point right i mean there's a is if we find a great way to keep those local projects funded that can get everyone in agreement right i think it's going to be helpful for northern minnesota having senator bach being in charge of capital investment in the senate so you know i think we're going to see a really good constructive bill come forward on it but yeah i mean we're all kind of waiting right now to find out what that dollar amount really is and then we can start telling people what to expect and it is key we should never delay this because interest rates could be going up so we really need to lock in those low rates now and and make sure that we can do this these projects at the lowest cost possible great well we've got plenty of questions coming in please keep them coming in call and email i'm going to go back to process again real quick two weeks left of the legislative session we're not going to be on the air uh now till the end of session what's it like being a legislator you know representative schultz your chair of the committee you talked a bit about being involved specifically on the issues where you chair representative you're in the minority which means you don't have as much uh interaction with the process you both talked about leadership working with the governor what's it like to be down there in kind of this hurry up in weight mode and what do you guys do in that meantime as you're waiting for bills or a breakthrough to happen from legislative leadership president i go why don't you go first you know i think in this time right now now that we're kind of through omnibus bills there's been a lot of healthy conversations been happening between both parties right so the retiring room which is the back part for those listening you know of the house chamber it's great to see house republicans and house democrats talking again and i think it's really great to get back to the spirit of what that chamber is all about which is compromise and doing the most for minnesotans so um that gives me you know some great optimism as we get these bills back from conference hopefully some of those good ideas that are very bipartisan we can pull out do individual bills on and that happens because we're going to have those conversations um off the floor while we're kind of waiting and i think that's really healthy to talk about minnesotans seem to know that those conversations are happening and you said going back and and for the past year and a half or so they weren't happening because you were mostly meeting on zoom and folks weren't in the chamber oh right and i mean especially for me so as a you know a new member of the legislature i'm going to be concluding my first term without ever sitting in a committee in person so for this time for me right now to actually finally be sitting down next to people that i've been serving in a committee with for almost two years is super constructive and getting to know people and more based on just their issues but getting to know them personally getting to know what their families are what they like to do and then you can find a lot of that common ground to stand on and get good things done remember schultz you talked a bit about being on a conference committee and negotiating your section of the budget can you talk a bit more about that when you're a chair and you're in the majority you really never have down time so i will be monday and all weekend um conferring with my counterparts in the senate on hhs and so we have the conference committee set our first meeting is monday afternoon where we go through something called same and similar so we look at what are the things that are identical in our bill let's get those out move those to the side and and talk about where we disagree and in hhs you know it's very complicated so this conference committee hopefully most of it will be done in public there is some private conversations as well just to get through the immense amount of work we have so this is an 880 page bill on the house side it's 600 pages on the senate side so it's a lot of work for our staff so really no downtime really trying to get as much agreement as possible and that that you know that's negotiation so there's a lot of negotiation going on behind the scenes when we're not in public trying to get our priorities to match the senate priorities great a lot more questions to get through here it's going to be more of a potpourri of different questions this next one comes from somebody in proctor uh writing in or calling in to say what have you both done to cut expenses on certain programs all i hear about is spending more money on things represents why don't you take this one first well you know i'm an economist so efficiency is important to me and we really do look at if our programs are effective and if they're not effective we need to go back and look at it but this year is the first year i convened a commission on tax expenditures so we're looking to see is a tax rebate or a tax refund is it doing what it was intended is it providing that incentive if not do we eliminate that that tax expenditure so we are doing these review processes in every committee to make sure that we're spending our money wisely and that we're getting a good return from every tax dollar we spend so that does happen throughout every committee great you know i think that viewer raises a good point and i think you know based on some of the questions we've been talking about myself and in my caucus for republicans that's kind of things we've been looking at for the policy here um again it's ways how can we you know get the most out of the dollars we have and we don't always need to be spending and growing government you know it's okay to this program is not working it needs to be removed or redone or we need to bring this back to the drawing board we need to get better about doing that as a legislature as a whole i don't care what committee i don't care what department it is of the state agency tax dollars need to be spent appropriately and used you know the correct way because it's the people's money and it's the people's government great uh next question brings us back to the environment and a viewer is talking about um polymet and i know there's been some hearings around mining uh this last week and this one the question is why has it taken polymet 17 years to not to not be allowed to mine and will talon minerals have to go through another 17 years to be allowed to mine rep represent you serve on the environment committees why don't you take this one first so you know there's a lot that goes into that question okay um how much time do we have yeah so you know paulie met taking 17 years is there's a lot of moving pieces there because polymet has federal permits that are going to go involved with state permits the state has actually done a very very good job about producing really really good permits that's the way the regulatory system's supposed to work it's not about keeping things from business it's about making sure it's done the right way um the problem that polymet's facing now is this kind of litigation phase where anyone that can kind of raise a cause that wants to has the money is taking them to court that's we're seeing a lot of that get gummed up right now you know i'm sure the viewers question kind of came from what we saw last week with the epa making a decision saying don't support this permit which was really kind of unheard of because you just see an administration change happens in dc and now the tone of an agency changes i think that's people in northern minnesota like myself are getting very frustrated because we're kind of seeing opinions over facts kind of take place on that when it comes to talent metals town's going to be a little different because they're not going to have any kind of federal lands around them it's going to be a state practice and they haven't submitted any sort of mine plan yet they're getting close but i'm hoping that that project can move a lot quicker you know with talon it's worth mentioning they're going to be looking at doing carbon sequestration at their site and the number of preliminary numbers say they can store 30 gigatons of co2 at that site so 30 gigatons is enough to take all of the emissions from minnesota for the next 2400 years and store them safely underground so it yields a very unique response that we could mine nickel here in minnesota carbon negative to produce the actual clean batteries needed for the world of tomorrow and i think as talons moving through this process we need to start looking at things like that as solutions and ways to set the benchmark here in minnesota and polymet's been in the news for decades twin metals talon is a newer mining project down in the aitkin area correct yeah so it's located just outside tamarack great all right represent schultz mind permitting this whole process i know you're a health health and human services expert but you've been around and have heard these issues i have i'm very familiar with them so everybody wants to do it safe and do it the right way nobody wants to pollute the water and so what we need to use to rely on science rely on our regulatory process to tell us that it is okay to do this if they've met all of the standards and we are seeing the litigation these are all checks and balances in our the system that we have but i think we really need to make investments in the science so we can do it the right way so it can be done because i know there is demand for these minerals and that pressure is only going to build and so i think we should be investing in things like the nri where they have the technology to address some of the sulfates they just need to scale it up we need to bring in the federal dollars and unfortunately that hasn't been happening with our federal delegation is bringing in those investments so we can address this problem and come up with a solution because you know this is i think a problem that can be solved with technology and we have this technology we just need to get the investment there so we can use it and expand it and scale it up see i couldn't agree more too because you know this is worth noting polymet created a whole water purification process because of that because of the science because of the permitting process and you know for those listening at home the water that polymet's going to emit is actually cleaner than the bottle of water you buy at the store so that is technology and science at work to make sure that it is done the right way and i think that's why we have so many advocates for what polymer is going to do here in northern minnesota because they are going to do it the right way and i am the acronym police and representative schultz uh we made it this far into the show nri is the natural resources research institute located at umd that does this sort of research on natural resources it is a gem in our community and we've been giving them some state funding that's in this bill as well but we really would like to get federal money so they can do the re research that's required to do this mining safely great yeah and apart from mining too i mean not only do they have a facility here in duluth but also in my district right in colerain bovee so and they do a lot of work there not only just with mining but looking at how we can use our minerals and our resources better i mean even things like using old mine pits filled with water to be an energy sink right because you can store that water and then run it through a turbine put it back in the pit i mean there's tons of great work actually happening there that really should get talked about more and i know they do for forest and timber as well and they have a wonderful birding site website too great next topic is a more national topic certainly you folks know and viewers probably at home know about this draft opinion on roe versus wade that is going through the u.s supreme court uh got a few questions from viewers on how this will impact minnesota you know there are states around us that have what are called trigger laws which means that once this decision is made if this is truly the decision it will revert back to abortion uh not being legal in those states minnesota is really an island around those and so how will if this draft opinion is is truly what's going to happen how will that impact uh the state of minnesota and the policies around abortion schultz we'll start with you there was a court case in minnesota called doe versus gomez and so we it'll continue to be legal in minnesota so we will be an island surrounded by states where it is illegal or they have those trigger laws and i know the governor governor walls and dfl legislators have made a commitment to make sure that we still allow choice in minnesota i'm saying you know so uh yeah representative schultz outlined perfectly like i said there's that court case right um but i think the decision would be a very good one being i'm a big proponent of states rights and i think that the people that are elected here in minnesota to serve in the legislature of 201 people i think that you know having that issue of being pro-life pro-choice is incredibly important as being a pro-life representative i think it's good that when i campaign with that and i tell my constituents about if they want a representative who's pro-life that pro-life member can go down there then advocate for that and then it's going to be a state issue again it's all about state rights and states control so um you know with this decision i think that really returns it back to minnesota but if you look at the polling even in states that outlaw abortion the electorate owns only like 30 percent of individuals favor those trigger laws favor outlawing abortion and so the vast majority 80 percent support roe v wade so that's where the electorate is that's where voters are so do we see anything happening uh on the state as it pertains to this issue or are things going to relatively stay the same until probably the next election and see what happens after the next legislature and the governor convene well we had two amendments from the republicans in the house to change access to abortion and so those amendments were voted were voted down or voted not germaine to the hhs bill so there are bills coming forward to restrict women's right to choose in minnesota and so i really think it depends on who people elect and who represents them and how they vote and that will be determined in the november election when everyone is on the ballot in minnesota so i just i gotta jump in there because the amendment that was proposed was just to have licensing and certification and guidance under the department for planned parenthood facilities right now there isn't um and if we have to have our clinics under all those uh if we're gonna go to a regular doctor and you need to be you know following so many state guidelines why isn't planned parenthood the same way um like i said i don't know why it was ruled not germaine to to the bill but it wasn't a you know that was just a good government bill apart from being something that was going to advocate for pro-life issues as well well i disagree but that's okay we can disagree all right well it sounds like nothing this year but definitely going to be an issue talked about on the campaign trail for those that are running for office uh we're getting close to the end here and i just want to throw a broad question out to each of you um what do you hope gets done you know at this end of this session if you could pick like one or two things that you hope that you would like to see that would make this legislative session a success what do you hope uh gets done in the next few weeks uh by the time you're you're wrapped up with your session representative schultz why don't you go first well i just have a couple bills that i'm very proud of one is called the health affordability board it addresses health care costs throughout all our providers massachusetts implemented this health affordability board and they'd say saved nine billion dollars over five years so it's really one key piece of legislation the other piece of legislation i have in a labor bill is something called the non-compete agreements really narrowing down the use of these non-compete agreements that really bar people from entering another employer in the same industry that's been a real detriment to our labor markets and efficiencies so those a couple my bills i would love to see and then i have a public option bill to make to allow people to buy into this municipality care program that we've had for 30 years that was created with both republicans and democrats it's been very successful it just allows people to get affordable health care and only four percent of the population in minnesota is uninsured so we could get to zero percent if we allow this public option those three key things i would love to see get done what's on your wish list for zen vigo you know um something that i've been working on is public safety bills i would love to see a pro law enforcement pro public safety bill one that's going to be helping train future cops to take care of all of us in the state and keep us safe safe you know i've been working on a bill to help dispatchers and get them training so that they can you know when you call 9-1-1 everyone's going to be taken care of appropriately and i think minnesotans as a whole i don't care if you live in international falls or if you live down in rochester we all want to start supporting our cops and showing that message and i think it'd be great to have a pro law enforcement bill leave at the end of this at the end of this year only a couple minutes left one issue that gets a lot of attention when it's debated and it sounds like the house may be debating it is sports betting in the state of minnesota and uh probably not going to pass into law but it certainly looks and feels like at least the house representatives may debate and vote on that issue before the end of the legislative session where do both of you stand on this issue representative yeah you know i've actually been getting a lot of people reaching out to me about this um and you know uh right now i think the voice i'm hearing from my constituents that i'll probably be voting um in favor of it i think you know it's one of those things where minnesota is an island how many people are running to iowa wisconsin to place bets when we could be doing that here so i'm as of right now and we'll see how the florida debate goes obviously but i think right now i'm leaning towards yes on that bill i voted yes for it in ways and means i think that we need to regulate it that's the important thing of making it legal is that you can regulate it and make sure that people who are addicted to gambling can get the resources they need because some of the tax will be used to address gambling addiction and just to be able to make sure it's done well it's you know people are already betting and they're doing it illegally so this would legalize it and keep them out of legal jeopardy because most states around us already have it and so i think i think it is going to happen i don't know where it is on the senate though okay well it sounds like there'll be definitely some debate on the house floor on this and we'll look forward to watching that thank you both for being here and we are out of time i'd like to thank representative igo and representative schultz for joining me today i want to wish everyone celebrating a happy mother's day and i especially want to give a shout out to tally mother of my son sam and my mom nancy who always watches this show i love you and thank you for tuning in to this season of minnesota legislative report and for sending in your important questions it's been a season filled with excellent discussions from our legislators the show would not be possible without all the people behind the camera who do the important work to put this show on the air i'd like to thank nick katie austin owen joe jason tony paul ashley megan and greg wish you were here tonight greg for the team at wdsc i'm tony cerdich we'll see you next season [Music] [Music] you