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 your host Tony cerdich it was another hectic week at the state capitol in Saint Paul with more budget bills being heard and moved through the legislative process with three three weeks left to go to the end of the legislative session lawmakers will continue at a Brisk Pace we encourage viewers to call with your questions for the lawmakers who represent you the phone number is on your screen or you can send your questions in an email to ask at pbsnorth.org joining us in studio is representative Natalie zeleznikar a republican from friedenberg Township representing Minnesota house district 3B welcome Representatives lesnikar thank you and representative Liz Olson is a dflr from Duluth representing house district 8A welcome representative Olson great to have you both here thank you thank you representative you were with us already this year represent Bolson it's your first time and you are since we saw you last session the chair of the Ways and Means Committee now our viewers might might be interested in what that means normally committees are named Agriculture and economic development but ways and means what does that committee do and what is your job as chair of that committee that is a great question because the title isn't doesn't explain a lot but what it does is we have broad oversight of the whole state budget so anything that spends money or has a fiscal impact will come through the Ways and Means Committee so we had we helped set with each committee so whether it's agriculture or Health and Human Services or whatever budget area we help set the amount of money that that area can spend and so we see the whole Global budget and then we hold each area essentially accountable to spending within what we call a Target and then all of those bills come through our committee so that we can vet them for the financial pieces of those bills so even though they for policy and everything else have gone through their relevant committees were the last stop before they go to the house floor so we see the entirety of the budget in the Ways and Means Committee great and so now we're going to focus on a lot of those spending bills but also the tax bill today as well we have two members of the House of rep Representatives here and so we're going to focus mostly on that and please write in or call in your questions on any topic you have we're going to start with taxes though and so the tax bill was released by the house majority caucus there's a lot in the bill represents less than the car can you you talk as somebody in the minority probably not a lot of input in this bill yet but uh your thoughts on the bill both some things maybe you like in the bill or some questions you have about the bill I think the tax bill for me you know coming into this session with a you know 17 billion dollar Surplus I thought we would have taxi tax cuts that we would see full elimination of the Social Security tax that that would be bipartisan and that we would you know see some relief for the for the middle income for the lower middle income for for all economic brackets and so I think having a you know multi-billion dollar increase in our spending has been the disappointment for me anything in the bill that you see as a positive a lot of things that are up you know they're the positive piece pieces are is that you know we're going to be you know there's some pieces in there for the Social Security Parts it's based on an income level so you know there's something that is is something's better than nothing type of a thing but then there's also um increases in fees and a lot of increases in Daily things that we do all the time whether it's doordash or deliveries or those types of things but I think the tax pieces Child Care credits some of those types of things child tax credits I like the language that the Senate has better than the house because it's more a middle income based instead of a higher amount for a very low income base so that piece I think we're going to see in conference committee I like that I think that will help Minnesota families okay we're going to dive into some of these details in a minute but representative Olson the Ways and Means Committee doesn't deal with the tax bill but you serve on the tax committee and so broadly can you talk about what you like in the bill in any uh questions you have on it yeah I mean the tax and the budget bill go hand in hand if we are going to pay for education and we're going to pay for nursing homes we're going to pay for roads and bridges we have to figure out how we're going to do that and a lot of that happens within our tax bill that is how we bring Revenue into the state right so this tax bill in particular is a really great bill it is largely a tax cut for most minnesotans so we cut Social Security tax on middle-income earners we invest in child care through child care tax credits so that families can help afford their child care in the low-income minnesotans can see a benefit we do a lot of really great things in this bill to just like our goal is not to if you're if you're making millions and millions of dollars and you did really well during the the pandemic this isn't the bill that we're targeting towards those folks we're targeting this to the people that have the hardest time affording their lives right now we know that especially in Northeast Minnesota child care that is a big issue right now with affordability and this tax bill does that we target a lot of relief there we also have the one-time checks for minnesotans it was a big priority of the governor that's in there so it is a tax cut bill but it also does it in a way that we know we don't have a surplus that's ongoing in a big way if we cut things now it means that when the Surplus goes away we would be in a world of hurt and so we needed to balance both how can we help minnesotans right now in this moment that are struggling through our tax bill but how do we do it responsibly so that we're not putting ourselves into a cliff in the future and this tax bill really does that and it you know captured all of the votes of our caucus whether it be rural or Urban it didn't matter you know we really saw this as something that invests in every corner of our state and it's a really good bill great and please uh send in those questions either by phone or email we're going to stick on the tax bill and Reps have also we're going to have you start so there is a significant budget surplus some of it is one-time money and for those viewers the way we've been talking about it around this table not legislatively is one-time money is we equate it to maybe getting a bonus on your check can't really always count on it right and so there's a big portion of the Surplus is this one-time money and then there's ongoing support but there is a budget surplus and so why a tax increase in the tax bill now the tax increase I believe is uh for uh joint filers making over a million dollars and single filers making over six hundred thousand dollars roughly impacting about point eight percent of minnesotans but why a tax increase when we have a budget surplus right because as as you talked about it's one time money so you can't give a child care worker or an increased wage with one-time money you have to have ongoing way you're going to pay for it and so in order to pay for the things we want to do in our state like we want to invest in education we have woefully under invested in public education and we're going to do something substantial this year which we are going to make sure school districts have reliable per pupil funding tied to inflation but that takes ongoing revenue and so in order to have be able to do the tax cuts we talked about you have to pay for them right and so what we're doing is as you mentioned the taxes on if you make a million dollars it's after you've made a million dollars it's the next dollar you pay 10 cents of the tax on that so we're not talking about probably I don't know maybe this group probably isn't the ones that are going to feel that pinch right it's the people that did really well during the pandemic the people that you know are the wealthiest in our state to your point I think you know 0.8 percent of of the population would see that and so in order to pay for the other things where people are are struggling where wages where you know home care workers are making thirteen dollars an hour and we want to give them a bump but you need ongoing Revenue to do this so we put together a tax bill that that if you're middle low income you don't see an increase but if you're the wealthiest of the wealthy in our state you will see a small increase representative Carr your thoughts on specifically this millionaire tax in The Proposal I think it's a big mistake because you know the people that are in that bracket have don't have to be have to choose to live in Minnesota we want them to choose to live in Minnesota they are the people that volunteer they are the people that give to the Charities they're the people that write the checks to support all the foundations in our community and without them you know we are seeing a mass Exodus out of Minnesota we're not seeing people migrating to Minnesota I think 20 something thousand left last year and so we don't want those people to have the residency in Arizona or Florida whether they're and they're probably older than me and they have the ability to leave they don't have to stay and so that is a question I get all the time is we are being taxed out of Minnesota and so whether or not we think they make too much money the reality is with they leave their money leaves with them and that means they're not going to be in going to the restaurants they're not going to be giving to the communities and they're not going to be volunteering and those are the people that volunteer so I think it's going to be a loss to the community and I think it's very short-sighted short-sighted thinking that's my thoughts okay any additional thoughts yeah so the this idea of millionaire migration out of the state just factually isn't true we have lost people as a state but they are the people that are in their 20s it's actually the people that can't afford Child Care can't find uh on you know a home at a price point and so those are the folks that are leaving and so that's exactly where our tax tax bill is investing is those families we want them to stay here and choose Minnesota and be able to afford Child Care afford a home and have a good paying job and so that's really what the tax bill is all about we're going to stay on the tax bill a few viewers have questions about this we always get questions about the social security attacks uh and uh there were proposals on a host of levels from Total elimination to uh graduated up it looks like in this proposal uh right now currently 50 of minnesotans do not pay a social security tax this would increase that up to about 76 percent and so that would be uh for families making a hundred thousand dollars and single folks making seventy eight thousand dollars and so uh we're going to start with you representative Les nakar uh I I believe you are supporting a full repeal uh why would we put more money towards folks making over a hundred thousand dollars getting a tax cut versus keeping that money and say investing in education or our roads or something else I think the people that already paid the tax once know how to support the communities twice and so I get a lot of emails and calls from people saying how did this number come about why is there if you doubled the single amount that's more than a hundred thousand dollars so they feel like that number is arbitrarily to their detriment and they think it's a mistake and I agree with them they've already paid the taxes uh one time and I don't think they should ever be taxed twice I don't think that's the way we should be funding programs we're increasing our spending in Minnesota with a almost 20 billion dollar Surplus it's not necessary and it's not good policy so I I think that it's short-sighted for the communities represent Wilson why not a total elimination of the tax I think you explained it already fifty percent of people in Minnesota already do not pay a tax on social security we're going to bring that up to 75 percent and when we talk about the number of uh someone making a hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand we're not talking about what their income was we're talking about what they're drawing on Social Security right now so we're talking about people who likely may be sitting on 4 million dollars and drying down 150 a year in Social Security so we're already bringing that up quite High to a quite High income level where where we are you know want to make sure we're investing in seniors but seniors need more to live their lives they need to make sure that they have I know Representatives as well as in the car is really pushing for nursing home increases but in order to do that that takes long-term funding and if we eliminated a full social security cap on the highest income earners and Social Security it would cost our state billions of dollars in the future we can't do it all so we want to Target who's going to get this relief and it goes up to a pretty high threshold and we can still do that and invest in education and invest in long-term care but if we were to do the full exemption up to 100 we wouldn't be able to do that anything else on this topic I mean I I think we've we've made our choices we are funding things that billion dollar increases and so we are not funding nursing homes in this bill we are not at all funding nursing homes we are funding the critical access nursing homes in Minnesota but there's 300 nursing homes that are not they're in Minnesota that are being left behind and that's there's nothing in here we just carved out an amendment 20 million dollars this last week on the house floor but nursing homes are getting reimbursed on a cost-based Model that is 18 to 24 months behind with no inflationary adjustment like education is going to have and so we have nursing homes closing this week and so we are not taking care of the nursing homes where would you like to see those dollars come from then I I've always said I have no idea why we're doing a 1.7 billion dollars from a surplus and creating a new program at a government level called the family paid Medical Leave Act which is going to give employees up to 24 weeks off a year and at a time when we're not taking care of the core things the teachers aren't getting their pension piece done we're not taking care of seniors in nursing home we're not dealing with the public safety and so I don't think we add new programs to government until we are Stellar in the core principles that we need to do and this is a program you know quite a bit about as one of the authors of the legislation represent Wilson do you want to talk about that bill yeah So Paid Family and Medical leave this is something that I think has been top of mind for minnesotans the fact that we don't have paid Family and Medical Leave You know is starting to put us as an outlier as the state and let alone as a nation and this is something that can both help the workforce you know we have we saw during the pandemic in particular you know women and we're leaving moms we're leaving to be home with their children you know whether it was because they can't find child care they don't have paid family and medical leave we have a Workforce shortage right now and investing in our workers and Paid Family and Medical Leave is one of them so whether you're caring for an aging parent or you you know just had a baby or you're adopting it's like basic human dignity to be able to be able to stay home and take care of your child let alone setting kids up for the future it's one of the best things that parents can do is stay home and bond with their child during those critical times they can have the longest term impact on a family's well-being and that child's brain development I mean just it's it's exponential what can happen by investing in those early years and especially that bonding right away and so this bill allows for that but it also really is about the workers too and making sure that we have a healthy Workforce that we're keeping people in in jobs as we need them in these critical sectors and I think this really keeps people in those jobs and have that benefit and it's something we're long overdue and doing and you know we ran on this and we said this is something we got elected to do it and we're going to do it and so and we have the ability to do it with the Surplus too representative lesnikar you talked about no new programs but your thoughts on the overall proposal as an idea there's a lot of ideas that are great but if it this is an unfounded mandate for the schools it's going to be for the cities and for the counties and I've heard from them all across the state saying nobody's listening to us this is going to be an increase for taxpayers across the state and so I think it's it's setting us up for a catapult of long-term impacts that are going to come because every single company has been sending me emails from every size because unlike the Family Medical Leave Act of federal that is available up to 12 weeks this is 24 weeks and it's going to put a a provision for the employee to possibly pay unless the employer chooses to pay the whole portion and that's not the real cost the other real cost is replacement of people and so we have Workforce issues right now and we also have we have people that have left the workforce because they want to stay home with their kids and I've always supported that I've been a champion for family child care we lost 700 family child care providers in Minnesota and we don't make it easy for them to stay and create a business and so we penalize those people and and at a time when we're incentivizing the center-based child care model so I think there's a lot of things we can do to help family members stay home and create a business for themselves to help women have entrepreneurship and allow them to stay home with their children when they want to with family child care that would help the workforce and then help everybody because at the end of the day if you take 12 weeks off for a family measure but the nursing homes are closed there's 52 weeks in a year so if we lose 300 nursing homes there's going to be you know 40 other weeks that families need for for care and we can't have the hospitals be the backup system they already don't have a placement because the nursing homes are the only model that have 24-hour nurses predominantly in Minnesota so if we lose them families are going to end up caring for people in their homes because there's not going to be a viable option so I think we need to get the horse solid before we add carts in programs it's not that it's not a great idea but we have a federal Family Medical Leave Act and if we're going to exceed it at a time time when the businesses were shut down by government at no fault of their own and they're still crawling out of a pandemic and it's not it's not a good plan because all of our food costs are going to go up and all of the restaurants and the the grocery stores and the garbage companies everybody's calling me saying this is not a good idea this is going to hurt Minnesota not just Northern Minnesota but the entire State any last word on this I would say I think you brought up a really good point is you know with with the care families need whether it be if nursing homes the expectation of care in this bill allows for that for families to take care of you know aging people to take care of children and we are investing it's a one-time cost which is why even if the Republicans chose not to do it they don't have money to do anything long term we we put a one-time investment into businesses to be able to stand up this program and then we fund the program the operation of it moving forward but it's kind of this one-time cost this is the time to do it and there are people across our state who desperately need this and have been asking for us and now is our time to get it done any last word you know I think there are going to be businesses that are going to choose to leave Minnesota right and then if we don't have the business there is no better benefit for the employee so then we're we're a double it's a double whammy and so I think that we have paid family medical leave right now we have 12 weeks and so I think this is a cost and and people are very worried about what the implications are going to be and it's not funding there is there's one-time funding of 1.7 billion to get the program a government agency up and running there is no funding for the employer to do the replacement costs so they're going to double their costs for us as we buy Goods Lumber is going to go up food's going to go up Transportation costs are going to go up because now they have to assume how many people are going to be off of work by this factor on a payroll tax in addition to replacing another person at work well we're going to keep it in the tax bill realm here many questions about rebates and so we talked about this one-time money and the governor proposed a fairly robust that most folks said uh rebate it got a lukewarm reception by both Democrats and Republicans in the legislature however in this tax tax bill there is a proposal for 275 or up to 550 for a couple of tax rebates so many of the viewers want to know kind of the status of this represents Less in the car are you supportive of the one-time rebate checks uh going back to taxpayers for that portion of the Surplus right we all campaigned on a rebate at least I did and I think every Republican did and as far as I know that many of the dfl did but I think 250 is a slap in the face I mean we over taxed Minnesota we were proposing 12 1 250 for single and you know more for a married couple and I think this is a a pittance of what you should be getting for a rebate check when you have a 20 billion dollar Surplus and your growing government by 9.5 billion in additional spending and growing the budget so no I don't think it's enough I think it's it's small and you know 250 is not a lot of money today would you support the governor's level yes okay yeah represent Volson I think we landed where we need to we've heard just in this discussion the tension already if we would have done a full Social Security tax repeal we couldn't have done the rebate like math is math is math we have to balance our budget right and we have obligations of things we have to fund and so I think we came up with a a plan that really gives money back to people in a variety of ways you get this cash in your pocket through these 275 dollar checks you get a tax credit credit to help you pay for child care you get some social security relief I mean we get we're able to do a lot for people in a way that also is honest and really sets us up to not fall off again into the future and have to cut programs like I also care not just about what we do now but I want to make sure things are set up so that in four years and beyond that we're not in a situation where we have to cut programs or we have to because we did too many tax cuts that then we have to go back and think oh my gosh we have to cut our schools so this is a plan where it is putting money in in people's pockets right now but it's also doing so in a way that is responsible to fund all of the other obligations of our state budget okay any last word on this I think I mean we're we've grown government I mean I think to the point earlier is they took a little bit to make every single person in the dfl happy and so we spread 20 billion dollars out of a surplus so everybody's happy without really taking care of Education really taking care of Public Safety really taking care of nursing homes and so I I don't think that's the way to do it I think we should have targeted the top hitting things we shouldn't be adding new programs like Paid Family Medical Leave Act you know unemployment for the Summers for education for the hourly workers all these things we added costs to our government without taking care of our core anchors right now any last word I'd say we're Crystal Clear it's not about it never is about me or my party it's about doing the best thing we can for minnesotans and I think the governor said it best like our priority here is to make Minnesota the best state it can be to raise a family and I think that is exactly what you see in this budget it's not about political favors it's about investing in the minnesotans who need it most and that is true across the board word one other portion of the tax bill is LGA or local government Aid and this is funding that goes to cities townships and counties from the state to help with core government services and so the viewer that is asking is actually the mayor of a small town up here of 350 people and says their LGA has decreased substantially over their their 16 years of being mayor will we actually see an increase in our LGA in the near future or will any increase go to larger cities represent Bolson do you want to take this first sure I think that is something we hear local government Aid is super important for communities to be able to fund core services and so we do an increase in in the bill that we just passed the tax bill which we just passed at the house floor does have an increase and I don't know the situation of this exact City who's who's calling in but there is the formula that allows for increase and so we'll see I know in northern Minnesota there are places that are seeing increases and are pleased with the numbers in this bill I don't know exactly what city this mayor represents but yes we are investing more in local government Aid in this tax bill your thoughts on local government Aid I think it's a huge thing Hermantown is has always got nothing Proctor is going to get an increase and so has Two Harbors and so I think Northern Minnesota is going to see increases from local government Aid that's one of the the better parts of the tax bill you know to be honest is local government Aid and then having some you know support in that faction for for cities another viewer is asking about a rainy day fund I know we're in surpluses now but we seem to go from surpluses to deficits and it can swing back and forth based on many conditions is there any money set aside from the Surplus into a rainy day fund so I can take this if you want to try um so yeah so we we do have a balanced budget so in order to set our budget we do it every two years but we do it in Minnesota is unique not only do we set our two-year budget we also think about the two years Beyond it even though we're not bound to that we only bound to these two years so we think about the budget overall and Minnesota does a great job with thinking about a structural budget and part of that is the rainy day fund and in the past there have been shifts in gimmicks that's kind of the terminology but essentially the robbing of the rainy day fund to pay for things we do not do that so we we make sure that we have what we need so that government continue to function and kind of weather that up and down and again why the entire approach that we talk about is so important to get right and so we don't take anything from that rainy day fund and there are specific places where in our budget areas we're actually investing into special Revenue accounts too to kind of take spending and extend it out a little bit longer as well anything on the rainy day fund my concern is that the budget forecast is it's not showing that the corporations are coming into Minnesota and so we're seeing some of those taxations that are coming in it doesn't look like it's going to be we're going to be seeing growth in that and I don't think the policies that we've laid out for businesses are going to have that happen and so I think we're going to see the repercussions in the next few years from these policies that we're laying right now and so that's my concern uh we have many viewers that are asking about education and both of you have brought that up thus far it seems like a significant portion of the surpluses going towards education funding but I've also heard debate happen that the education funding is tied to different priority specific priorities and so representative uh how do you feel about uh the amount of the budget and surplus that is going to the education the gop's perspective is that you know there's 2.2 billion dollars that the dfl has proposed for education and we support that the difference is we wanted five percent and five and five on the formula formulary and then having it the cross subsidies the same but there's less mandates you know making sure that we have this the transportation taken care of and some of those issues so you know making sure that you know we're giving the local control to the districts I think we have an independent school districts for a reason in Minnesota and I don't think all the mandates should be set by the state of Minnesota and I think it's a mistake and so uh before representative Olson have you respond and so the the five and five percent there's a education funding formula and you're talking about a percentage increase on that funding formula itself and the cross subsidy has to do with a federal mandate on special education funding yes okay great a represent Olsen your thoughts on the education proposal and anything that represents Liz and the car said I think this is one area you know it is a big piece of piece have always had been it's our responsibility as a state government to to fund our schools and we do and we're able to do a per pupil increase of what we talked about I think we all would have liked the five percent but again as we've just discussed here there's a lot of tensions within our state budget and so we're able to do a substantial per pupil increase in this budget but I think more importantly we tie it to inflation which means that school districts can have predictable funding so if you're going to hire teachers bring down class sizes make structural decisions you can do it because you know you don't have to read the political wins of two years from now and figure out like where are we going to be how do you know we know that the increase will happen and so it's a predictable stream of funding for our schools which I think is great I think one thing is well it's a lot of money and you can't just get to outcomes without having some benchmarks right it's like you don't shoot money out of a confetti can and just hope for the best you have to have some direction of how that money is going to be used and what are the outcomes we want to see and so I think we all all want to see our achievement gaps decrease we want to see our students you know have the mental health services we want to see our teachers day I mean there's a whole bunch of things that we need to get to with this money that isn't just giving a chunk of money and hoping for the best so can you talk about maybe one of those what representative Lesnar is saying is a mandate that is more directed funding and the rationale for directing that funding in that area that's a great question I'm trying to think of like a one that would come to mind and maybe Representatives unless the car knows some of these two between UI yeah it was the one anyway yeah one of that that is a really big concern to me is the unemployment for hourly workers and I've heard from districts across the state that they're very worried of how we're going to fund this can you explain what that is that means hourly workers peras bus drivers Cooks janitors that are working in a school district on a nine-month calendar will now be eligible for unemployment all summer so I've gotten a lot of feedback from people from in the tourism industry in restaurants and saying this is going to hurt our Workforce I mean these are these are people that worked in the Summers and I have a lot of so that's a that's a new cost for the districts and an unfunded cost to the districts and so just so my concern is the the four and two percent that we're talking about the dfl has those are going to go to these costs we're just transferring money to another fund that we're creating a new cost center for districts and we're not gonna teachers aren't going to see the increase they're thinking they're going to get the districts are going to be short and I would say the unemployment for hourly workers is like we watched what was required of our hourly workers during the pandemic you know they were delivering meals on school buses they were providing child care they you know were so essential and you know risked their lives for a lot of these really important jobs and you know they're barely scraping by barely able to to get paid for what they need for their families so what we're saying is if school districts can keep these people on during these shortages uh have jobs for them in the summer through summer school programs do other things they're not eligible for unemployment insurance if they're offered a job and turn it down so this is the option for those that they want to stay in this job they want to have it but they need to also provide for their families and it's something we do in other areas so this is something we can do for our schools we have a policy question related to education Bill and uh this caller is a former educator and has read an article that critical race Theory will now be a social studies standard and wondering if that is true or not representative card do you know the answer to that question it's a yes I it's ethnic studies is the is what it's called and ethnic studies is in the education Bill okay so I think that would be an accurate statement and what is that and what does that mean well it means it means I think the concern is is that in the feedback I get from people is they want us to be talking in the human race not to make a child think that because of the color you're born or the the location you're born or the income level you're born at that that is at all the fault of the child that all children should be going into the education system with an idea that we are all part of the human race it's 2023 that we should be teaching and the other part with it is that the ethnic studies piece is going to take class time it's going to take away from other things that the teachers in the in the school districts are going to have to pick because there's only so many hours in a day we have an achievement Gap right now we have 30 to 50 percent reading proficiency at grade level so kids are not caught up there are gaps in learning right now that are Monumental so adding another thing on top of a the fact that we don't have math and reading and the core curriculums happening is concerning to many parents well and I think critical race theory is it's whole we do not talk about that that is not something we're mandating that is not something that's coming out of anything we're doing at the legislature at all and I think you know representative celestica is right that we're talking about ethnic studies in terms of what we're having our school districts talk about because you know we live in a diverse World in a lot of histories within our own State have not been taught and we talk a lot about you know we have a number of indigenous legislators in the highest ranking indigenous leader in Peggy Flanagan our lieutenant governor and talking about like what gets taught in our schools in our own history and the diversity of our own state is so important to understand who we are where we come from what mistakes we don't want to repeat and so that we can move forward and so I think there is like a misunderstanding and a fear-mongering that happens around just like our basic humanity and what we teach about respecting each other and understanding the diversity of stories we have here and so I just want to name that I think there has been like a totally misled conversation around from what is actually happening which is just understanding who we are as minnesotans in the diversity of ways that we have existed and will continue to exist together as a state anything else on this I you know speaking of of this I thought one of the tribal leaders when we had indigenous day there was we had it at the Capitol and one of the tribal leaders said we are all people of color and I thought that was a very amazing thing to be said and very true we are we all come in from different ethnic backgrounds and at the end of the day we are all people of color any last Point here well I would say you know we have a uh the a bipod caucus the largest we've had which is our can you explain I did the acronym thing and I shouldn't so we have like people of color and Indigenous folks and so you know they have created a caucus and have like priorities that share like the achievement Gap is real the race is in my face is real um just so many things that happen within our state government in that they have like been so keen on saying this is what we can do to move the needle on the issues that impact our lives and create an agenda and really push that throughout our legislative legislative process and have really been so good about naming what we can do to really have racial equity and we can really think about racial justice so I think we need to acknowledge that that those adversities still exist and those systems have been stacked up against people of color and that we have to be super intentional about what we do and how we think about all of the legislation through that lens so so that we can actually have a state where everyone can Thrive and we have to name difference and because that is real and people's experiences are real and so we need to name those see those and think about what can we do in each part of our budget to move the needle on those and I think our again our Posse caucus our bipod caucus has really helped us open our eyes to how we see every piece of legislation through that I'll keep those questions coming in we received a number of questions on pensions educator pensions and Public Employee pensions are either you up to speed on where we're at with the proposals for Public Employee or educator pensions uh represent Olsen you're nodding your head we'll let you go first sort of I mean like this is like we're going deep on all areas of the budget which is great it's like a test and we can be better ready to go about our week right Natalie like now we really know so pensions we had a 500 million dollar pension Target which is actually substantial there's usually not a separate pension amount that is like set within the Global budget agreement so that was set that said I think there is about eight billion dollars worth of pension asks that are on the table so something we cannot move the needle on all of that in one in one year right it's a whole set of things some of them 30 years in the making to get us to where we are and so for example the teacher pension that one of the issues we probably hear a lot about is three billion dollars um just that one alone and so we have to think about what can we do now knowing we will have a lot more to do to get pensions where they need to be but in particular the teacher pension is you know stemming from a decision that was made 30 Years Ago by how we would how we would do this and so we're going to do what we can and for the first time have a pension Target that moves the needle on kind of the whole variety of all the pension plans and also know that we have much more to do we just you know again there is a finite amount of resources of what we can do this year but we're very much aware of all of it and all all of it is good things that need to be done we just can't don't have the resources to fully handle everything this this biennium represents Less in the car progress you know from my standpoint the resources are all there we had 20 billion dollars 17 after we started weeks in a couple million billion were already spent so you know we came in with a 20 billion dollar Surplus which rebates were available and the priorities were set by Trifecta I mean the trifecta is there so whatever wanted to happen could happen because we had 20 billion dollars to start with so the priorities and the targets that representative you know Olson sat with were done by the dfl trifecta so as far as the teacher pension goes I just tell them you know that was set targets were set and that was not the priority and so we have to now look forward to how we're going to deal with retirement ages we're all living a lot longer and then whatever we do for teachers what are we going to do for police officers what are we going to do for firefighters what are we going to do for nurses that work shift shift work and have to work 365 days a year it's not a nine month calendar so we have to look at equity and how we're going to do this as we move forward for the decades to come I think actually you know you that's a really good point that you make is like that is why we couldn't do it all within this Target because if you the teachers ask was 3 billion the firefighters the T the you know all of the our front line responders I mean it's our public state employees the ones working in corrections I mean it's a whole host of people that you have to take care of in the pensions Bill and so there are a lot of interest there and I think it sounds like we're pretty aligned in you know there is work to be done in all those areas any final words on this yeah I think for me one of the bigger disappointments is to see you know the the point that the bus drivers and the the Perez and these people are at the front line during the you know the pandemic they they were able to work remote for a lot of years um well they were in school you know we were we were not in school I mean the nursing homes never shut down and we are leaving them on the sidelines I mean we the nursing home workers took care of the frailst and the sickest people that were at the highest risk and there was no families allowed to come in no support we didn't have child care open so the family stress was high and the nursing home employees are the ones left aside which makes no sense to me coming into a 20 billion dollar Surplus and that's to me really disappointing because they never we can't those facilities can't work remote they couldn't do remote and protect their families they had to do what they had to do and the government set the rule of how many days 14 days 10 days seven days you had to be outside of work there was no second line third line fourth line to bring in like hockey to replace somebody so the facilities had to work short and then the state of Minnesota fined assisted livings three million dollars during covet and they find nursing homes one million dollars and they act surprised that people have a credit line because the food costs went up and there's no inflationary adjustment in there reimbursement system like education and other things that I'm seeing in the budget so to me that's very disheartening because that is the group of people that built Minnesota when I would say that is in our budget we look at all of it the the lowest paid employee taking care of someone who requires a college degree is a a child care worker you know 13 an hour and they take care of our kids we leave them in the hands of these people and they make 13 an hour and so when we're talking about a budget we want to increase their wages we want to increase the wages of our nursing home workers we want to do that for those doing the Home Care work who during the pandemic had to go into people's homes to make sure that they they could you know bathe that they could eat that they could do those basic human dignity things like we don't want to leave anybody behind or pit anybody against anyone we need to lift all boats and I think that is really what we try to do in our budget is like I think a lot about the child care workers of your workers in your nursing homes they had to leave their kids who also were providing that care and we're making thirteen dollars an hour that we need to make sure we try to lift everybody's wages and we do that like our health and human services budget really tried to bring everyone's wages up but again it takes ongoing investment and it means to make sure we have balance and we have to make sure that we're paying for those things I think what my response would be on the child care piece we increased the mandates the mandates we were increasing mandates without money and so an example is some of the child care workers haven't been four-year degrees we're putting mandates that they have to be for you and I've had people call me from Minneapolis saying this is not going to help our child care issue we're going to take great people out of the off out of the business because now they have to have a four-year degree they don't want a four-year degree they've been doing this for 10 15 years they're fabulous but now it's going to be mandated that they have to have a four-year degree to the same extent we are eliminating tier two so teachers I was in Proctor on Friday that's why I have my shirt from the welders the girls can you explain what tier two is tier two is for people that have great experience they're in the schools for the trades they're doing welding they're doing um AV they're doing uh rails TV they're doing welding classes they're doing um Chef teaching they have they're doing cooking classes those people are there because they have great experience and they've been doing a phenomenal job we built trades programs across the state I've been proponent of that and now we're going to not allow them to do that so there's 27 of those people in northeastern Minnesota that are we're going to be at risk of losing them at a time when we can't find teachers or something I was talking about some mandates either in child care or education care to respond well I don't think what you do like this drop standards you don't lower the quality of care you talk about like we fundamentally have have to have a conversation about what it means to provide care in our society we underfund it we undervalue it whether we talk about paid family medical leave we talk about child care workers we talk about nursing home PCA like it's not we're not going to get ourselves out of this by cutting all the red tape and making it you know unsafe to leave your child at a facility what we get out of this is talking about like it matters who's providing care for our kids and we should we should we should make sure that they can afford their lives that they can provide care to their families that they don't have to live off financial assistance that they don't have to worry about the roof over their head so I think that's really the conversation we need to have and where we can invest as a state okay I'm gonna get back to a viewer's question right now a caller is wondering how much money is being spent on in their words illegal immigration is money being spent in northern Minnesota to support these folks representatives in the car we'll start with you I would say the answer is yes I mean I think we're going to now have that group of people are going to be eligible for health care in the state of Minnesota and so yes it's a it's an absolute yes I mean so we right now did the driver's license for all and so we my perspective was I voted with the Republicans that we should have a driver's license but it should say not eligible for voting that it should be very clearly a different one like you have for people that are over 21 when you can't drink until you're 21. so to me it was an easy way to do the accomplished Public Safety that they have a driver's license they're insured but that it would look different and the Democrats voted that they will have the same driver's license as us and the next thing has happened is at the insurance piece that we heard this week so I fully expect that they will it won't be just the emergency room cost they believe that the best thing is to ensure everybody as the same as all of us at the table regardless if you're here as a legal citizen or not and one through the process process and so they're going to move that route is what it looks like representative Olson well I would say no human is illegal it's someone who's undocumented in our state I think is what we would talk about and these are the people that are providing like a lot of the basic Services who kept their food coming to US during the you know when everything was shut down they were going to the meat packing plants it was a lot of people that were risking their safety you know going into jobs that no one else would want to do I mean really we talk about it it's people coming in and doing key parts of our work for our state who want to be able to drive to work safely who deserve to have health care and we don't fund a I don't remember exactly what the question but we don't fund a legal immigration at all we take care of people who are in our state who are working who are trying to do the right thing with their families and so yes we want to make sure people have health care because you know what happens you still get sick and you know how you what happened when you get sick and you don't have health care you go to the emergency room as the most expensive way to get care so either way we're paying for it and why would we not want to make sure people can take care of their health and make sure that they're doing preventative care and doing all that before they have to go take a more expensive route which just comes back to uncompensated cares that the hospitals as we know is a very expensive way to do care and so we are making sure as a state that we're taking care of people because it's the right thing to do but it's also financially the right thing to do as well another big Bill that passed off of the house floor and actually the senate floor in the past week or so is recreational marijuana or cannabis use we have a yes vote down the panel and a no vote on the panel so I'd like to get both of your perspectives on this representative Olson why did you support recreational Cannabis this is a long time coming I mean it's like most minnesotans agree it doesn't matter your political Stripes I have Republicans and Democrats in my district who this has been their priority since you know I first ran for office and we know that the War on Drugs isn't working right like there is an illegal Black Market it's already happening and we also know after we did a small dose legalization this year things are going well in Minnesota and so this has been a long time coming in terms of adult use recreational marijuana and so this is a way to regulate it to tax it and then also to do some expungements around like just the failed like how bad this has been at exasperating racial Injustice in our state and so this bill is a really comprehensive approach on how we handle cannabis in our state and so I think this is a great step forward and something that has had a ton of work and a lot of stakeholder input for the last you know bunch of years and it's also a way to be honest to grow our economy like talking about micro businesses you know that are going to be in the state of Minnesota they're very excited to start up and to invest in what this can be for our state so I think it's a great Bill and I'm excited this is going to get done this year representative I voted no and I'm going to wait to see what happens on the conference committee the Senate has a different version and there reasons I voted Noah is there's no there was no local control I felt that you know it's like with liquor licenses the cities should have some control over where these are going to be I also was concerned that I think it's 1.5 pounds somebody could have of marijuana in their house and that's like I think it was described to me as 195 joints it seems like kind of more of a dealership you know a lot of marijuana so what does this look like and how are we going to do this so I want to see and then the public safety I mean I talked to a lot of people chief of polices across the district many people are concerned there's no way to test you can test alcohol level uh in if you're impaired we don't have enough drug enforcement officers and the budget doesn't allow for a huge increase in them Statewide so I had some concerns on Public Safety but I understand that it's probably 50 to 60 percent would like to see it legalized but what does this look like on taxation it's a very low tax rate for Minnesota that was worrisome to me too I thought the taxation should be higher it's basically a break-even business unlike the other states anything else to say on this issue when I would say the taxation we were really deliberate on making sure that we didn't over tax you know we looked at other states and what they have done and really tried to think about just taxing enough to be able to sustain what we need to do to both set up the program and fund ongoing measures of it but I think that was actually you know mostly Republicans usually like when we don't tax things as high but this was a really deliberate approach by looking at how other states have handled it you know I I agreed with the criminal expungement I've been working for years with people as an employer to help people through probation offices locally to help them you know get back in the workforce so the expungement of Records wasn't a problem for me I I was more concerned about local control and then looking at there's been a lot of feedback on just the percentages of the THC and then access if people are going to have you know 1.5 pounds in their house you know what that access is for kids and and everything across the state so but I agree it comes down to personal responsibility for everything and so you know a lot of these things it's difficult to mandate in society and so it's trying to figure out the pros and cons of the coin and I'll take a second look at it when it comes back after conference committee and so right now the bill is both there's a senate version a house version they're going to air out their differences and details and try to find some agreement I know Governor walls has said he would sign this what do you think the likelihood of this passing still this year is with everything else you have to do in the next three weeks very good very good do you agree I agree I I think it's it's gonna it's going to pass with or without my vote I just want to see I hope it's going to be a better bill I don't think the house bill is the version that is best for Minnesota I think the Senate Bill looks better but I want to see what it ends up after conference committee a number of questions uh this hour on property taxes uh property tax increases that folks are feeling and seeing as a reminder to the viewers at home the property taxes are set primarily by your cities your counties your townships and your school districts though there is interplay between the state a lot of times folks have asked about why is there no cap or mandate on an increase is there any discussion about property taxes uh from a state level and anything that you all can do to influence property taxes represents less than the car that was one of the Amendments we offered on the on the house floor this this last week was to have a you know a five-year look cap on what the percentage could be for an increase and it was turned down but I think that's a big concern for people in Minnesota valuations went through the roof on property and so correlation of property taxes and then you know how that implant implicates people so I think that that's one of the things that is on the mind of a lot of people right now is property taxes well and I think one of the things we touched on earlier is local government Aid when we're able to provide funding for our local governments you know our County Aid too we do County Aid we do local government AIDS it allows to have the then the local municipalities that do set their their levies that they can look and that we can give them funding so that it they can stretch their budgets a little bit so there are things we're doing in our tax bill that maybe aren't as direct as the property tax relief that you're talking about but it does help to be able to give more relief to our local governments who then are do the levies and whatnot and same with our school districts too the more we Fund in the education Bill the less that you know they have to look to the taxpayers to fund things even though that's you know okay to do and I you know fully support that but we can do what we can at the state level to lessen some of that anything else on this I think that the boss sums it up I think people want to see it lower okay so uh there's three weeks left to the legislative session uh what is one thing you hope that gets done uh in the time left and we'll start with you representative Olson I think overall like I'm very excited for the our whole budget to come together and see that big picture and to see how minnesotans lives will start improving like I'm watching the effective dates of a lot of the bills which means when things start happening I'm like by July and August 1st like people's lives will could be like substantially better because what we do somebody's wage could go up they could know that what child care will be for them how they can pay for it going forward they could have that walls check in their pocket you know it's just incredible to see that all come together in in a final way and what I want to see is not just like what we deliver that's going to help but that we show government can work and it can work for minnesotans and I think that's the story of this session too is not just what we're going to get done but how we're going to get it done get it done in an efficient and timely way and do it in a way that's going to help improve people's lives one thing you hope gets done here in the last three weeks you know for me it's what what does one Minnesota look like it's not what's in the spill it's what's not in this bill and nursing home funding has to happen and then making sure if we don't have businesses come there is not a job and then there's not employ employees don't have a way to make a living and we've increased non-profits and we've increased government spending at record levels and so I think we have a 40 increase and I don't see that as sustainable and I think that's what is concerning to me and I I hope that we'll see nursing homes get funded for sure and that we see some relief for everyday minnesotans where they you know their cost of groceries are through the roof everything is high and so we need to make sure that I hope the Social Security tax gets completely eliminated and we fund nursing homes so one other large bill that was discussed early on has kind of been on Hiatus but is on the minds of many Northern minnesotans as a bonding or capital investment Bill and so this is the funding that the state does borrows money to invest in local and Regional infrastructure projects roads Bridges buildings and our colleges and otherwise I know both of you have supported the bill we haven't heard much about it recently and there's only three weeks left this is something that didn't get done last year uh what is your problem prognostication I always say that word at the end here and I always out of my mouth backwards but what are the chances that that Bill gets done and what are you hoping to see out of it I think it's I mean I voted yes for the Bonnie Mill because I think bonding is something that is just part of the infrastructure responsibility that is a responsibility of government to do that we we bond for that and so there's a piece of it that's cash and then there's a piece of it with the bonding um but I you know it's going to help Northern Minnesota and the cost you know we didn't do a bond email the last year or two so we have delayed projects and it's just increasing costs we've got gaps for Highway 61 so we've wanted to get that taken care of to get the road done hermantown's got projects Rice Lake's got projects up here so we had a lot of them that are really critical and I know there's some in representative Olson's District too and I think that's good for northern Minnesota it's good for the state represent Polson I agree and I'm hopeful we'll get it done we were able to pass it off the the house floor which is great because it takes Republican votes and Democrat votes Senate was not able to do that but we do have enough cash in our budget bill that if we need to do one as a cash only and you know not worry about getting the super majority of Republican votes I think we'll do it great uh just in the last few seconds 10 seconds a piece we have many more questions folks want to know what's on your guys's mind what's the best way to contact you in the last three weeks representative Olson please email me or call my office and we'll make sure we get back to you all right how about you absolutely just go on representative natalie.zalesdikar house.gov all right great well thank you both and we are out of time I would like to thank representative Natalie zeleznikar and representative Liz Olson for joining us today Minnesota legislative report will return next Sunday when we welcome more legislators from northern Minnesota to answer your questions from the team at PBS North I'm Tony sirdich have a great evening you're right [Music]