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 tony cerdich and i will be your host again for the 51st season of this program our show each week will feature lawmakers representing districts in northeastern minnesota talking about events and legislation at the state capitol the legislature's main work this session is a capital investment bill they do not have to pass a budget this session but there is a budget surplus with unfinished business from last year and all 201 legislative seats on the ballot this fall we will be tracking the next two months closely we encourage viewers to call with your questions for the lawmakers the phone number will be on your screen or send an email to ask at wdse.org we've got excellent guests for our first show of season 51. first representative liz olson is a democrat from duluth representing house district 7b she also serves as the deputy majority leader welcome representative olson and representative spencer igo is finishing up his first term he's a republican from just outside of grand rapids representing house district 5b welcome representative igo great to have you both here thanks for having us so this is the first show of the season or something i go it's your first term perhaps i've also been around for a little while we'll start with you represent wilson why did you run for office for the first time that's a really great question so my work in duluth had been primarily around legislative advocacy so working around issues of homelessness and people needing health care and i really saw the intersection of when things don't go well based on what's happening at the state level how it can really impact people's lives especially those living on the margins and so i never anticipated running for office but i had kind of worked in this realm but in a different way and so when the seat opened up i thought well this is just another way to do that exact kind of work but from the other perspective and how i talk about it often is i used to be the one that would pack the bus with the people to go down and advocate at the state capitol and now i'm the one that gets to greet the bus so just an extension of the work i've been doing basically my whole life and be able to do it just from a different perspective wonderful thank you representative yeah you know for me it was like you i didn't ever see myself running for public office i had been working for congressman stauber's office and for me my passion is public service i have a degree in public administration so similar to you i was working in the background of things how can i organize and bring people together and when i had members of the community reach out and to me and say hey would you consider running to represent your hometown um that felt like my call to service and i took that and ran with it and now here i am and loving every minute of it's a really humbling and special experience to be one of what one of five thousand people ever hold offices like this so it's pretty special that's great well thanks both for sharing and uh folks at home please continue to share with us call or email in your questions for our legislators i'm going to start off with something that hopefully is going to bring us together to start this conversation you've already made some progress and passed legislation dealing with the issue of ukraine now this is a international and national issue but it comes home with the state board of investment and legislation was passed so represent igo why don't you start in talking a bit about the legislation absolutely you know this is a really exciting time because i think as a state we're taking a stance right now we're not gonna we're not gonna condone this sort of behavior um you know and our state is acting independently and i think the rest of the states of our nation are gonna follow along with our country right but it's setting a new tone and i think this is really tied to some some work i've been doing around this around mining and around just supply chains russia is one of the biggest sources of nickel that comes across our shores when we make anything that requires it well we all know here in northeastern minnesota we have one of the largest deposits of nickel in the known world and i think this step by doing legislation to ban investment and work with russia and belarus is also going to contribute to now let's look at investing here in northeastern minnesota and that's a message i'm really trying to couple with this divesting from russia is that we can not only divest but we can invest in ourselves here um that's the sort of hand up policy that can have you know economic impacts for our entire state not only here in northeastern minnesota on the iron range i mean it's been said before one copper nickel mine has the same impact as bringing the super bowl to minnesota for the next 50 years we can have that right here in northeastern minnesota we can lead our state and we can lead the world and i think that's why this is a great first step at addressing you know the concerns of environmental destruction labor standards we have the best ones here let's bring it all home here and stop investing in countries that don't invest in american values of olsen you want to talk about the divestment bill and any other issues that represent michael just brought up sure well i'd say you know one of the things we do is we listen to constituents and we know there are you know folks from ukraine living within our own communities and here in minnesota and this was an issue i think a number of us heard about you know both from like what's happening at the the global level but also just really it's minnesotans too and it's we have a number of refugees that also serve in our body and you know them it's personal too to talk about what it's like to leave war a war-torn country and flee and so i think it was just really that personal impact and a time for us to really come together in the house and the senate and it was bipartisan legislation that was authored by both republicans and democrats to come together to divest and it was a really great piece of legislation that we could get to the governor's desk in this moment and i think it does we have supply chain issues and we have a whole bunch of other things i mean and i even talk about the idea around refugees and what we do here in minnesota on that issue i think it can touch a lot when we talk about this and we've really to be honest just been legislating through some incredibly difficult challenges you wouldn't think that a war in ukraine would have such an impact on what we're seeing but it does from the economy to issues that spencer mentioned but just we've really had a lot on our plates to really deal with but i'm glad to see that we were able to get this legislation done quickly and done well and done together republicans and democrats to the governor's desk and this specifically divests uh any sort of investments in the state retirement fund uh from those countries is that correct that's correct okay great bipartisan support so now we're probably going to take a little turn in a different direction uh some of the unfit finished business from last year that are on the front of people's minds especially around deadlines that are happening for uh businesses across the state is the unemployment insurance trust fund uh significant deficit in that trust fund uh needs repayment um deed has said that there was a deadline of the middle of this month to get that taken care of and the legislation has yet to be passed yet represent olson why hasn't that happened yet in the house of representatives we definitely know there's urgency there but i will start by telling about front front line workers so when we set our state budget last year one of the things that we agreed to as republican and democrats was to in order to have that state budget was to take care of frontline workers with our frontline bonus pay so that if we're talking about unfinished business and we're talking about deadlines we start there and that is one of the things that's well overdue and so our body is moving that you know through and we are waiting for the senate to take action at the mean at the same time we also know we need to take care of businesses and that's what the ui trust fund issue is about and so we're also moving legislation through our body to take care of replenishing the ui trust fund the deadline is something that can be debated a little bit that there is the ability for deed to back pay the businesses it might be a little bit of an administrative headache but it can be done and so we want to make sure that we're not just taking care of businesses that we're taking care of the workers that kept those businesses afloat and so that's a priority for our caucus and for the house is to make sure that we're doing both which we can do and so we're continuing to work through both of those pieces of legislation with the idea that we should be able to do both at the same time it feels like both of these issues have certainly been coupled together in conversations uh starting uh last year as well represents igo so where do you see the roadblock standing and getting both of these issues taken care of you know i guess i'll talk you know the front-line workers bill we already heard in the minnesota house and i think the biggest problem holding up moving into the senate was there's just a few sections in that bill that make it a little difficult to bring everyone together on it i don't think anyone argues that our heroes our front-line workers deserve the pay that they deserve for working and keeping us moving through the pandemic one of the biggest sticks from my caucus and and in the senate republicans is there really isn't a lot of language in there to worry about fraud and when we're talking about a bill that is now we talked it was going to be 250 million dollars it has now grown to an ability a 1 billion dollar bill it's a lot of spending you know we're already going to be auditing um the southwest light rail we just want to have some some lines in there and and that legislation if you look at the frontline workers bill if i was to go ask for frontline worker pay i don't need to prove what my work background was you know the office of minnesota management and budget is just going to be giving me that check and my concern there is that we would see maybe people take advantage of the system and take money away from the frontline workers and it's not frontline workers i'm worried about doing that it's just the bad actors that exist whenever we're talking about a spending bill this large so i think that's where the hang up is right there but then you know moving forward with the ui part i think that was a huge missed opportunity we should have passed that on day one that that is an issue that there isn't a lot of we don't have to debate the dollars we don't have to debate anything on that it needed to get done so we can backfill it because we have businesses that are finally starting to get back on their two feet this is hand up policy we could have passed and we missed it my hope that as we go into this next week of legislative session that we can find the agreement through our caucus's leadership and get this bill passed so businesses aren't faced with this tax right now they don't need it there so wilson anything to add i would just say one of the things when we talk about the ui trust fund but we're talking about small businesses and we did a lot around grant programs and i wish i could just run through everything we have done i just saw a big announcement about programs that have hit across deed grants that were given to businesses and partners across and there's ample money that we have put forward again we haven't done as much for workers and that is a priority and with the ui trust fund re replenishing we're also talking about businesses like target who would be set to get millions of dollars from the state after having some of the best years that they've ever had and so we want to do it well and we want to do it thoughtfully and we want to make sure that we're taking care of workers who we haven't done as much for as we've done for businesses over these last few years but we can do both great and right now where it stands is it sounds like legislative leaders are in a room trying to iron out some um differences russell baigo where do you think uh republicans need to compromise to get this done yeah you know i think the first things first is you know let's let's figure out and get that dollar amount set at what the frontline worker was going to be and i think the hard part was you know there was a working group working all last summer on this bill they set a number of 250 million dollars signed papers agreed to that and then the bill the bill balloon to a billion dollars so we have to find a way to figure out where we're going to come together on that issue because you know right now there was that agreement it grew to a billion how do we settle that once we can settle the number then let's start moving it forward like i said we have a pass bill out of the house for for that billion dollars and i just said some of my issues with the bill so i think you know maybe one way to make compromise and this is me speaking as a freshman member is if we could add some accountability in there to prevent fraud and make sure that this program is overseen so that our heroes get the money and not the bad actors i think that would be the great first step at getting uh this number of a billion dollars agreed to and getting money to the frontline workers that deserve it and earned it great and just like i asked representative i go represent also where do you think the democrats have to move to to find compromise here well i think that we just have to agree on you know we're we're saying 2.6 whatever it is billion from the senate is what they're talking about for the businesses we're talking about a billion it seems like we should be able to do both and we should be able to have those numbers somewhat match up and i feel like that's something that we should have that discussion about is like we do am we could do both and we should be doing and talking about it the same like roughly the same level great thank you and just as a reminder please uh call in your questions uh or email us at ask wdsc dot org we have our first question from somebody on the line a big question that we can dive into what are your thoughts on the surplus and how do you think it should be spent and just as a reminder the state forecast says there's a nine plus billion dollar budget surplus there's a lot of details to that around inflation being factored in on the revenue side but not the spending side some of it's potentially one-time money with all the funding that came from the federal government so a big hairy question and so we'll spend some time talking about it so big and broad budget surplus uh reps of igo will have you go first thoughts on how to spend it yeah so i think the first thing we need to keep in mind when we're talking about this surplus is how can we make sure we're creating hand up policy with it so if that means giving it back to hard-working minnesotans that means giving it back if that means funding agencies and programs that have been underfunded that's what we should be doing but make sure it's ever lasting change you know i think too often when we get budget surpluses which is taxpayer dollars we look at that one-time money that one-time good we can do with it and i think we've seen a history and this is you know my perspective as a first-time member in the legislature that that money happens quickly it disappears and now you have groups agencies small governments wondering where the next time is they're going to get money to do something so i think if we're going to look at this money we're going to make an actual difference with the surplus that we're faced with let's look at policy gives a hand up rather than a handout and i think there's a lot of different proposals out there you know it's whether it be giving it back lots of agencies have been underfunded or programs right how can we reinvest into ourselves to bring about prosperity for all of us so i think that's the key that i'll be looking for and that i've been trying to lead on is that hand up policy rather than hand out or symbols well i'd say we know that minnesotans are facing really urgent needs and i think that is what we need to prioritize our surplus around and we need to be smart the reason why minnesota is in the position we're in is we do well as a state we have a we're a good fiscal state in terms of like how we manage our money what we bring in how we spend it that we're you know in terms of the nation really looked at for some of our budgeting practices and so we do well here so i think given the opportunity we have with the surplus is to think about those needs of minnesotans especially over these last few years we know housing child care health care there's a whole gamut and people are just having a harder time affording their lives and so this is a time to use use the money that we have and invest in people and invest in those places that to representative igos point can have lasting change that we're making sure people that we have an economy that works for everybody that people can have a place to send their kids so they can work at jobs in our region that we have people can afford the houses and their apartments and we don't have to see uh people moving into homelessness as we see the rent help and things starting to dry up so we need to invest in things for the future and education is huge we've seen what what our schools and what our teachers and our students have gone through and that's something we could put money in now that really helps us in the future so you know what we just mentioned we talked about the senate has already proposed 2.67 billion of that to go to businesses and some of them again being those larger corporations and so i think what we want to say is let's not forget about the people who are hurting who are really hurting and have been hurting for these last few years and we want to make sure that they can afford just to live their daily life and so we'll be putting forward our budget this year as we move forward in this process on the house side and really be investing in those ways governor walls to that point has proposed rebate checks and grew that amount of what he would like to rebate back to minnesotans on a one-time basis in his supplemental proposal your thoughts on that representative also i mean i definitely think that's on the table and i you know when we saw the number what it is i mean i think it's everything is out there to be able to give minnesotans the tools they need to be able to provide for their families and that i think is definitely still on the table and something that the governor is pushing we talk about it too you know there's a lot of good that can be done in a tax bill we want to make sure we're targeting our relief to people who need it so middle income families low-income folks and you can really do a lot through the tax bill and that too so we'll be putting forward things on the house side where we'll see uh you know kind of again to target that relief and make sure people can have money in their pockets great representative rebate checks yeah you know i'll kind of tie right into what you're saying there liz i mean i think the tax bill is actually more of a solution instead of the one-time dollars going to people how could we create lasting tax breaks for our middle class and lower classes i mean that is how we give people a hand up to create you know buy homes stay in their homes generational wealth build communities small businesses if you take that burden that tax burden off of people you give them more tools to succeed and have prosperity and that's where i think we should be spending that kind of money is in reorganizing our tax structure to give people that hand up um because you know a thousand dollars you know it is beneficial to people but unfortunately it'll just get taxed again and go right back into the coffers when they go and spend things on it so let's give them lasting tax relief with this instead of thousand dollar checks great well speaking of uh taxes uh we have another uh constituent writing in uh we'll start with you represent vigo is there anything being done to combat rising property taxes in our state so this is a question i've been getting a lot um especially for my district there's a lot of people that have well their slips are just showing up this week i just got a notification it's in my mailbox um you know it's something that i've been definitely looking into i think the first thing we need to look at is talking it's more of a local government problem first off right and that means working with your local treasurers your assessors and finding out what actually happened property values are obviously rising but there's a huge problem now because we have people that are on fixed incomes and retired people who now are seeing taxes you know rise 100 200 a month for the property taxes and that's unsustainable that's pushing people out of homes that's getting away from what we were just talking about so i think there's a balance need to be had there but the most important issue i can stress on this is work with your local government leaders on this because they're the ones that have the most control over it but also for those listening at home please look into the state there is the state property tax refund you know if you're within a certain budget or certain you know amount made every year please look into that that can be a huge solution to be helping some of those middle class and lower class families and i think that would be huge to look into as well but right now please get in touch with your local county commissioners that is the best place to start air symbols well i agree with representative igo that a lot of it is at you know looking at the county and local level around the assessments and what's happening with your taxes and getting in touch with your county officials is really important to better understand that but what we can do at the state level is you know support our local governments local government aid other things that we can be doing so that our local governments maybe don't have to look at that in terms of continuing the increase in the levy and the property taxes or fully fund our schools so that they don't have to rely on levies in order to be able to fund their basic services too so the state needs to invest and invest in local governments and invest in schools and invest in those ways so that we can help with some of that but in terms of the direct amount that people are paying and seeing in their taxes it's really a good idea to everything representative igo said about getting in contact with their local government great and we're getting a lot of questions from viewers right now and so we're going to jump on over to a topic that represent vigo we're going to start with you again what is the status of the environmental natural resources trust fund registration are you familiar with that sitting on the environment committee right you know i'm actually not completely up to speed with where that's at in the process right now um we we had three committee hearings last week trying to get through bills i don't know if we made it through that one last week so i'm not totally upset i don't liz if you have any i'm not i sit on hhs jobs i like i could give you a general sense about it but no i don't okay so no further update uh at this time represent wilson this one you will know about uh you have a bill on earned sick and safe time that will be on the house floor next week can you talk a bit about the bill and what it does yeah great so earn sick and safe time is something if you're a duluth listener you may be more familiar with so this is the benefit you earn if you go to work and so you work for 30 hours you get an hour of time on your time card so if you're sick or your kid is sick you can call in sick and still get paid so this is a benefit that everybody in duluth has or most everybody because we have passed a city ordinance as has minneapolis and st paul and there's other states that have done it at the state level but there's about 932 000 minnesotans that don't have access to a single hour day anything off if they're sick or their family is sick or a loved one to be able to call in you know to go to a doctor's appointment to get a shot get the covet vaccine to stay home if you had covid and so we have a bill that we have brought forward in the house for several years trying to get this across the finish line and the senate has never taken action on it and so we will once again be bringing this to the the full body on monday and tomorrow and we'll be taking a vote on it again because we are in a pandemic which is just honestly like mind-blowing to me as a mom as just a human that we just don't have this in our state this earned benefit that how could you even get through your life you know having to make that terrible choice of like do i try to sneak my kid into daycare sick with a fever because i can't call in sick to take a time off to take care of them like people do that in our state like it's just unbelievable to me so again we'll be bringing this bill forward again it's an earned benefit that employees would have to work there's a number of parameters to make sure we're supporting businesses and making this happen it's not a costly thing for the state to implement so the time is really now to get this done great representative thoughts on the bill so your bill is on my reading list tonight to be ready for tomorrow so um but my kind of take on and there's you raised a lot of good points my concern right now however though is when we're talking about statewide policy at this level how is this going to affect smaller businesses if they're going to be mandated to have to you know pay into more fees and i think the thing is there's a lot of small businesses that are already doing this on their own which is good and i think that shows how the free market really can work to create the best business and working climate for everybody so i i'm afraid right now that in a time where it's hard to even get workers right now and everyone's struggling that adding another you know is essentially another tax to a business to have to pay for this it could really limit our economic growth in a time we're trying to recover from a pandemic so i see the concern there and i know it's a huge problem especially in our greater minnesota communities but i also know that our mom and pop shops know best how to work with their employees through times like this so i'm just afraid of large blanket policy again working across the state and affecting communities differently so i think we need to maybe take a step back on something like this let us continue to fully recover from the pandemic and then hear from mom and pop on main street about what they actually want the bill and the plan to look like as the author of the bill you get the last word great so and i would say one of the things that it does too is it keeps employees in the market like we already know that we have where we're at there's a shortage of workers one of the things workers need benefits so this is a benefit to businesses it's a benefit to workers and it's really a win-win and it has worked in the places it's been implemented great uh another question from a viewer asking about the liquor bill if either of you know your thoughts on the liquor bill or where it's at or something i do actually this is one this is a niche thing i never thought i would work on liquor policy but here i am so this was a big deal we actually have reached a compromise uh with a bunch of the liquor stakeholders but this is a big deal for duluth and this is why i started working on this is because if you've driven through lincoln park if you've gone into canal park you have seen that just the complete change of duluth in terms of the craft and so we have distillers and brewers that are looking to grow and our current liquor laws are well behind the times and so what we're able to do now through compromise and lots of work by a bunch of different people is to actually get to a point where the stakeholders have come together and agreed to make some substantial changes so now like for example if you went to ursa minor tonight after the show to get a beer you would not be able to buy a four or six pack of beer but you could go to the liquor store down the street and you could get a six pack of versaminer beer but they're not allowed to sell their product well thanks to you know again knock on wood nothing's done yet but it's looking like we'll be able to get to a place where they will be able to sell six packs same if you go to castle danger and you try to refill a growler tonight you can't because they hit a limit of the amount they could they could do for growlers that's going to change with this bill same if you go down to the distillery i could talk forever on this but if you go to vikra and you tried to buy a bottle of their gin down there you would be limited on what you could do and this will give them the opportunity to build to sell their product directly to the consumer so this is a good deal i mean i hear about it from people in the community people who come for their vacations here so this is a really big deal not a small feat to get a bill like this done and so it's not across the finish line but it's looking very promising so more promising that has been in the six years i've been here well you talked about a couple of my favorite places to go i also know there's a couple of great breweries in itasca county as well perhaps if i go any thoughts on the look yeah you know hearing from the breweries in itasca county i've been kind of getting up to speed on this issue you know this has been actually been working on what six years now already i mean this issue first came up in minnesota from what my research i mean we have some of the most archaic and outdated liquor laws in the entire country i mean it's time we get up to speed with those things so i'm really excited to hear that we've reached those compromises and moving forward it's going to help those small business breweries and distilleries in greater minnesota grow and i think that's the biggest thing right you know i talk about rapid spring and grand rapids if they want to do like a tap takeover and move kegs to clock out like they can't legally do any of that and that's kind of crazy to me they're you know mile and a half away from each other in our downtowns it's good we're going to be fixing these things hand up policy right it's a republican like liquor law it's like the wild west like we completely agree yeah i know right it sounds like more research needs to be done at these places too so i'm happy to join in that time as well thank you if i go we were going to highlight one of your bills now too uh you're authoring uh and received a hearing this week in the public safety finance and policy committee uh on um safety telecommunications and 911 dispatchers do you want to talk a bit about that bill yeah absolutely you know this is a bill i was i never imagined i'd be working in public safety when i go into the legislature um this is a bill that actually started in my community with my sheriff's department so it was brought up to my attention last year that our public safety telecommunicators are dispatchers right when you call 9-1-1 they had no sort of safety standards certification continuing ed it was kind of the wild west across the state every county could handle it their own way so last year i got a working group put together with all the different you know agency heads different interest groups everyone came together and wrote what they wanted to their standards to be like so now i wrote the bill this year to give them their standards and certification that bill's just heard this week it's going to be a great great fix to making us all safer here in minnesota so when you call 9-1-1 you're going to have that confidence that that dispatcher is fully trained knows what they're doing and can be the first to help you on the scene you know a lot of people don't realize that you know it's not your police officer or your firefighter on the scene first it's your dispatcher right they're the one talking to you on the phone calming you down saying okay police and fire is on the way don't worry an ambulance is on the way so this is a great way to start up giving attention to a to a group of people that have been keeping us safe a long time and are now gonna get the standards they need to keep doing their jobs correctly sounds great anything that represents wilson i also am not on public safety so i trust it's a good bill great great uh a couple more tax questions popping in here uh the first one is a little longer here uh we'll start with you representative olson how do you feel about a homestead proposal that would be an aid to seniors that have reached the age of 65 and have homesteaded their property for a period of at least 10 years and they get into the details about valuation and and how it would work but a homestead proposal to raise aid for seniors who've lived in their home for a longer period of time i mean just hearing constituents bring the best ideas forward and that's a lot of how we legislate is we hear things directly from people in the communities who have ideas that seems like a really great idea and i don't know where they live or who their representative is but i would say to get in touch you know to email your representative and senator with that idea i think that is something worth looking into again helping people who need the help and i think that's you know seniors and people that have been in the homestead uh who've been in their homes for a while i think that's a great idea to pursue i know kind of on the flip side we've been talking about how are we helping renters too and one of the things that you used to have to and we're trying to change this year is when you do file for your renter's credit uh you'd have to do a separate set of you know if you meet with your tax person you do it yourself you'd have to do a separate form and we're trying to figure out how we could do that at the state level that it makes it so much easier just to do it on one form to directly help renters so and that idea came from renters saying you know it's hard and we're leaving you know a bunch of renters leave money on the table because they don't always know or don't go that next step so again why constituents and bringing the ideas forward is so important it sounds like a great a great something to look into represent yeah kind of i think that's a great step to start looking into how we can help i mean the seniors like we already kind of talked about the beginning of the show right so i believe the homestead tax credits at 413 000 for your house so we got to look at you know what would that number be then for the the exemption to rise if that for that seniors home but i think that's kind of your starting point i think you said there's perfectly you know constituents build that playbook for all of us to do the things that we're supposed to do under the capital so whoever your representative is please reach out and get that idea moving because i think that's worth talking about maybe we can find a solution there great and uh keep your questions coming in call and email one last tax question for now and then we'll shift gears uh anybody know the status status of representative liz lagarde's bill regarding taxing social security i i i maybe we both do what i would say is i do i'm familiar with that that is hot topic um you know that is very much hot topic the thing that it's getting vetted within the tax committee which i don't believe you don't serve on neither of us so in terms of specifics but it has a huge price tag um and also same thing like figuring out like how do we target it to hit the seniors who need it the most um because there are you know really wealthy seniors too who have the ability to perhaps not have that need that break at the level that may be someone who is really struggling as a senior too and so we're having those discussions to figure out you know if and how something like that could move and again the price tag to just do it without consideration for income levels is just you know a huge number that i that i think we still have to figure out yeah you know i'm really excited that this is finally getting the time it needs to be talked about this is an issue that has been talked about for years i mean one of the first bills i co-authored and signed on to was to abolish the tax and social security in january of last year so there's a lot of people in working on moving this bill for a very long time and now we know with a surplus this has created the climate for us to really dive in and fix this you know this is one of the things keeping people from retiring here in minnesota this is why we see people flee and go to other states we want to keep our minnesotans here we want to keep our families here we want to keep us connected and i think this is a great proposal we need to really look into and there's a lot of people on both sides of the island working on us i believe that bill i signed on to us by representative jurgens from central minnesota there so i i we really got to look into this and i'm hoping we can get this done great we're going to change gears now uh representative olson a while ago brought up education a significant portion of the state budget goes to education we'll start with you represent igo what is being done to address the education system and to provide support to changing school and learning environments so you know i think this all starts with we passed the largest educational budget in state history last year that was a great start to getting our schools on track especially coming out of pandemics virtual teachers have been through a lot gave them a lot of tools and funding they needed to keep moving forward i think the biggest thing we need to look at now is how can we assist and help local school districts let's stop looking at education from a blanket policy like i mentioned before a statewide down every school district is going to be able to handle their students and knows their communities better you know i think about you know grand rapids isd 318 i think of greenway you have two schools that are right next to each other but operate and run very differently and have different plans for how they teach their students based on what their community wants i think as a state if we can look into ways to help out those local local education local school districts that's how we can help them and that means less mandates that means more flexibility for parents to get involved in school boards and to write the policy and work with themselves to levy rather than always being reliant on state policy to give them what they need because a school in minneapolis is way different than a school inhibiting and we got to remember that and i think by crafting policy to give local control back is is is front of mind on that right now represent wilson i'd say we definitely you know education is top of mind especially with what happened in minneapolis with just the needs and being brought forward with the strike that was there recently but but i would say even though we did a great bill last year in a bipartisan legislature you know that we were able to do a significant investment in education it's not where we need to be we need to make sure that school districts have reliable money the per pupil amount that they know they're going to be getting so that you can be planning on it but we also need to be considering all of the other things that go into you know the federal government just woefully on you know abdicating their responsibility on special ed has just had a huge impact on what we're do have to do at the state level uh not to get too wonky but the cross educate cross subsidy around special education and other things are just really hurting our schools and so we have a lot to do and it's a huge part of our budget but it's our responsibility to really make sure that it really is like as a state government it is our responsibility to fully fund our schools and so we've done good work there but we have so much more to do what i'd also say too is we need to make sure we're supporting all of the professionals within the schools so making sure that you know every our paraprofessionals that we have are taking care of in terms of like the amount of money that they're able to get paid is directly related to how much we're able to give schools to be able to keep their benefits up and providing those supports in schools for kids who need them and so we have a lot we still need to do there we also need to be talking about mental health in schools that's a really big one in making sure that we have the supports kids need there and have adequate mental health services school linked mental health that we can bring in support staff from outside experts where kids can see mental health practitioners right at school i mean we just have so much we could be spending you know or basically a whole surplus on education and so we need we have a lot to do there and i'm hopeful we can we can do that but you've already heard between the two of us we've probably already spent the surplus just in what we've talked about so far we haven't talked about hhs um so there's a lot of need and the schools are definitely worthy of that need great and hhs is health and human services yes sorry yes lingo that's all right uh so uh and we've talked about a whole bunch of issues right now we haven't talked about the main issue why you all come in for the second year as i talked about at the top of the show it's not a budget year so actually if you don't get anything done nothing happens the state doesn't shut down you pass a two-year budget last year so that's okay but the main reason that the legislature comes in this year is to really consider a capital investment or bonding bill and that's funding that goes for infrastructure all across our state that has statewide or regional significance so i'd love to get an update on first broadly uh capital investment bonding process and then if you could take a moment or two to talk about maybe some of your favorite projects that you're advocating for represent also why don't you start first sure so to everything you said it's a bonding year and so given the surplus and the state of how we're doing like how the state is in a financially good place we have the ability to take on a pretty big bonding bill to be able to pay the debt service on that and so we are you know on the house side we would like to see something very robust the governor has put out his numbers i mean we want to be north of 2 billion we really want to see something great because it's not just you know it seems like boring capital investment it's roads it's bridges well it's so much more than that it's investing in communities it's investing in infrastructure it's investing in jobs that go into then taking care of those projects and and building out whatever we fund so it's a great opportunity to put a shot in the arm of our economy and to do a lot and in duluth you know we're a regional hub we have a lot of projects and so spirit mountain for those of you that have been out there that's a really dilapidated chalet it really needs some work i think you're on the representative i go maybe you're on the bonding committee i'm not okay i was thinking you've been in toured it a number of my colleagues have been up in duluth you know the the aerial lift bridge is a big project we have um waste water i mean i could name a there's a lot in duluth because we are a hub that provides a lot of services and has that regional impact so we have a number of great projects here maybe i shouldn't list them all because if i forget them then someone who's watching will say you didn't say the thing um so but it's we have a real great opportunity i'm hopeful we can get a really robust bonding bill done great if i go yeah yeah size and then and kind of overall and then any specific projects you'd like to highlight right you know i think uh kind of along those lines let's find a a number and a bill that works and makes sense you know like i said if we're going to be north of 2 billion with all the other stuff we're spending we're already past that surplus then right there so we got to make sure that the number is manageable you know me being a first term member this is my first time going through the the bonding process so i'm learning a lot i'm talking to representative erdah a lot trying to learn everything i can you know in my district i've got some exciting projects i've been working on one of the big ones is the canisteo you know the pit mine there right in colerain bovee we're working with the dnr because that is a pit that needs some legacy management there so that's probably one of the biggest bonding bills i'm working on right now because that is an issue that if we don't get addressed this year we could have huge problems um but on the flip side of that we're also working i'm also working on some other great exciting projects you know one of them is right outside duluth i've been helping with the air base here trying to get a new hangar for them that's really exciting you know a bigger bonding bill of the surplus to be able to invest in our military compounds here in the state is really good keeps us you know it helps duluth also stay you know a hub also city of grand rapids is doing a lot of stuff for school district as well as city of cohasset they're working and trying to do a downtown development project for those who've been through cohasset they don't really have much of a downtown so their idea of using bonding and working with other agencies and also developers to to build the downtown and their community especially with closure of boswell energy center in the near future they need to start diversifying their economy this is a great step and that's where maybe bonding can come in again with that hand up type policy to help make a difference there great a few more questions from viewers we're going to dip back into those uh public safety is a big topic on on these folks minds can you discuss various crime initiatives currently uh being discussed and so i'm guessing not crime itself but uh preventing crime so uh representative you want to go first on any of those public safety issues that may be in discussion yeah so you know i'm not on the committee um my work has been around this dispatching bill um but you know what i've been hearing from a lot is just the fact that there's just such a need for us to fund law enforcement and whether that be in helping local departments or whether that be just in recruitment i think that's one of the biggest things i am signed on co-authoring or carrying a bill actually with senator gazelka about getting some money in dollars into our local departments to help with recruiting and training of new officers i think that's one of the biggest hurdles we're facing right now after we've seen a crime surge coming out of the twin cities we need to get that under control and the first step in doing that is lifting up and supporting officers and training more in new ones so i think we can start looking into policy like that but also benefiting and helping to keep those members of our community that keep us safe remember that they are heroes too and i think we need to kill the stigma of you know police and fire being bad people i i never thought in a million years i mean here we are talking at this table where you know the idea of law enforcement public safety has been politicized it should never have been this way and i think we can work as legislators you know bipartisanly to kill that stigma and work on lifting up all officers that keep us safe for what they do or sam wilson yeah so the house has put forward a really big package that actually was just unveiled this week which is a sort of huge approach from the investing in law enforcement which representative igo talked about to some of the accountability measures that people want to see in terms of making sure that adequate training and that there's all of those resources and that there's resources to support beyond whatever crisises may bring people into contact with law enforcement that getting the support for that but also how do we change and minimize those interactions that lead to some of the things that are really challenging that we've seen in our state so thinking about how we do policing a little differently and giving supports for places that are doing that and offering and already kind of leading on that like the duluth police department does a lot and actually comes and testifies often on bills that we have at the capitol around because they do have some innovative things they're doing here and so there's opportunities to lead and grow and both fund and do everything that representative igo said but also put in place some new initiatives some support to do things differently and some accountability as we move forward too great thanks uh another question from a viewer representative olson we'll start with you what is being done to address gun violence this legislative session that's a great question and so i'm personally the co-author on two pieces of gun violence prevention which is um which in the previous sessions when able we've been able to move through the house but have not you know been met with any action in the senate and so this session we you know have opportunity and things are at the table around gun violence prevention but we just know we have the same makeup in the senate and it's just not likely to be seen and so we have a number of provisions brought forward whether it's the you know background checks expanding background checks for for a variety of things there or the red flags so people who maybe are a danger to themselves or to others that there's ability to maybe have some interventions there so that they don't have as easy access to guns because we actually know gun violence it's it's it's unfortunate but it's a lot of suicide too we think about it as school shootings or mass shootings but it's also just like harm inflicted with you to yourself or even people in your home and so keeping measures like that which unfortunately we just likely won't see action on but what we're seeing though is there's some legislation moving around safe storage for firearms which is i think has some potential for bipartisan support and so we see some of those initiatives happening and hopefully we can do something but in terms of kind of the bigger ones that are being pushed by a lot of the gun violence prevention advocates i unfortunately don't see moving this session suicide domestic violence we see data around background checks or polling around background checks that so many people support this representative um what do you see as potential bipartisan opportunities around gun violence well you know i think this kind of goes back to what we were just talking about we need to kill the stigma of anti-law enforcement that's one of the biggest things you know in this debate right now you know this gun violence is rising gun violence is coming out of one city in the state right now it's minneapolis it's leading the country and that's due to the fact that we have officers retiring left and right and not and and and you have city council that doesn't want to support the police um a lot of the the things you talked about uh representative wilson unfortunately don't stop the bad person from getting a gun and the the best person you can put in that line of defense there to stop bad people with guns is law enforcement is having a robust law enforcement whether that be your sheriff's department whether your police departments community policing that's how you change those things so that's why you need to support law enforcement i think that that is probably one of the biggest things we need to invest in is a public safety bill that does that because unfortunately creating more and more hurdles that keep you know responsible gun owners away from guns isn't going to stop the people that are causing all the violence so i think that's we need to look into public safety anything to address i would just say just going back to like statistics we you know like to focus or i don't but there's certain folks that like to continue to to point at minneapolis but what we're talking about is something that impacts every community there was a woman killed in the chester park area not long ago by an intimate partner you know with access to weapons and so it's to the point it's domestic violence it's suicide and like the fact that we don't take action is just i mean it's incredibly hard and and we have to keep pushing we have to keep not just politicizing the moment around gun violence as minneapolis but it's all of these other things that then make it so much harder to take action when we politicize it so just going back to the facts i think is really important last word represented by go yeah well you know i'll just say i don't think i'm politicizing when minneapolis is the number two city in the country for gun violence right now that's not politicized that's stating a fact you know i i have tons of friends who are still students in the u of m campus and when they hear gunshots regularly every night that that is not politicizing anything that is stating a fact in fact the matter is we need to fund law enforcement we need to work to kill the stigma of anti-police because police officers don't join a police force to inflict harm they do it to keep us all safe and we need to bring that back to society and stop having this be a politicized issue that's the problem right there all right another question from our viewer where do you stand on a proposal to ban non-compete agreements for lower and middle-income workers um are either of you familiar with the topic and maybe explain a bit of the background represent wilson you're not in your head first so i'll let you go my counterpart here representative schultz i believe is actually the author of that bill and it's something i didn't was not aware of but got a lot of emails from people in the area that actually left the area and weren't able to they wanted to continue to work in their field but their person or the place they worked here had them sign a no compete clause so they couldn't go work for a competitor within a certain like area around so they had to completely leave the area in order to on honor that contract instead of being able to just work you know they wanted to change jobs seek a different opportunity maybe get paid more and their employer you had them sign something that said they wouldn't do that and so they completely left the area and so i had a number of people actually email me about jobs that they've left because of that and so i wasn't aware that that was even something that could happen and so representative schultz and i'm not sure who the other authors are have actually introduced legislation and it's moving to ban those no compete clauses for and i don't know what the targeted income but i think the viewer's asking about middle and lower and i know that that is a part of it and i don't know how high up it goes but absolutely i fully support banning those great and it sounds like this is for maybe restaurants i i've read about in the past or some of those sorts of jobs uh representative you know for me i serve on the energy committee in the environment committee and redistricting i i haven't seen a lot of this proposal coming through it's one of the first times i'm hearing about it but i'll add it to my reading list tonight to get caught up on it there you go you're going to be very busy tonight always them all right so something once again we're going to come back around to a place where there's a lot of agreement um state senator david thomasoni from chisholm who i served with who you currently serve with was diagnosed with als and there's been a lot of support honoring him there was an iron ranger party every year and it was in his honor this last year and legislation was brought forward on his behalf but not just for him right for the issue of als where he's been diagnosed uh for funding for research and that that got broad bipartisan support and is moving forward uh either of you want to talk a bit about that legislation uh and and what that means yeah you know i uh it's it's an ode to his legacy um you know as a first-term member you know i i had the opportunity not only just serve with thomas sony this year but when i was a staff member working for congressman stauber and i'll just speak to senator thompson's character on this one you know you have a republican congressman come into a very democrat-controlled district and i'm the new republican guy on the range working and trying to show up these meetings but senator tom sony always grabbed me had me sit next to him and was always cracking jokes with me in the front and making sure i had a chance to speak or introduce me to people and i think that speaks to what everyone says about him he was a man that reaches across the aisle and always is trying to make things better left quite an impact on me and it's something i remember when i'm serving now and this bill i think embodies that um the fact that we're going to be putting money into a disease that doesn't always get you know the the limelight and now it is um and it affects a lot of people i think there's more people out there than you know that have someone with als in their lives that that's hurting you know i think you know the fact that you know anne knew her husband you know passing away from als was able to share testimony how important this is as we're seeing senator thomas sony deal with this i mean it's it's really powerful stuff and i'm glad that the legislature can come together over something like this and say hey we have this is an issue here let's rise above the partisanism and let's make a difference and we did that when we passed that bill through the house and the senate it was unanimous in the senate i mean i think that's saying something in itself right there 20 million dollars of research is that correct representative wilson i think so yeah and it there's differences between the house and the senate bill but we even added an amendment into uh representative new brinley as as he mentioned was a caregiver herself to also um to address so we put it some funding in for around caregivers too for als so i think yeah so it's a great bill and it was really powerful testimony on the floor representative lis lagarde gave quite a moving speech about senator thomasoni and about the importance of this bill and his legacy and it was a very moving day on the floor for all of us right thank you so one committee that both of you sit on is the redistricting committee and so every 10 years there's a census and after the census is done they changed the maps of the legislative districts and the boundaries change now the courts had to decide what the district boundaries were again and that tends to be maybe the norm these days or the past few times it's happened i'm not going to get into kind of talking about the past but i really want to hear from both of you and represent igo maybe you first how is redistricting impacting this legislative session politically you know politically quite a bit i mean i think it was like the one quiet day in saint paul i think because the maps came out a little afternoon on the 15th of february and it was everyone was immediately on their phones computers trying to figure out what's going on politically wise we saw shifts all around the state you know especially here on the iron range in northeastern minnesota i kind of joke itasca county kind of came the focal point of redistricting you know the county now has four different senators and four different representatives cutting it up in all different directions going to bemidji going to hibbing going to brainerd going up to international falls and i think you have a lot of people now that are you know either had their whole district lost and changed or you had people that were paired together that are now you know changing things politically as well um you know there's a lot of hard conversations had on both our sides of the aisle with you know two colleagues who may have been serving together for four or six years not to look at each other and say who's going to retire that's a really tough conversation to have um but yeah it's it's definitely interesting times i mean and the maps will be at the maps via i mean they've the courts have been doing this since 1972. so at this point it's essentially precedence that the maps are done that way i think it's one of the best ways you probably can do it you know then we're not having what's going on wisconsin right now which is you know hyper political trying to gerrymander i'm glad we don't have that here but yeah definitely shifting tides with everything moving on i'm happy the range delegation stayed relatively strong with how the new maps have decided and i think that was maybe the biggest concern for all of us here in the northland and certainly after districting you see a lot of retirements and a lot of retirements in northeastern minnesota already so seeing a lot of seniority going down and just legislative history representative olsen uh duluth seems to have kind of shrunk down to one senate district uh now with with the new map do you want to talk about that or any other thoughts about redistricting sure and it was the last redistricting cycle there were 46 retirements which shows and i don't know what we're currently at it feels like that changes every day um but it's somewhere within there so it feels like a lot but that that's what happens to the point of like people getting paired together or people you know not wanting to move into a different district if their house is no longer where they were so there's a lot of decisions to be made i would say like another thing to kind of watch for too that we've noticed it happened with senator melissa lopez franzen stepping down when she was paired together just the gender balance of what happens in these situations will be interesting to see you know we're making ground up in terms of like representation to really reflect the diversity of minnesota and if we're able to maintain that with both who steps down and who decides to run i think will be really important and in terms of duluth so we actually shifted a little bit but the we lost gary and part of gary new duluth and fond du lac actually went into a different senate district so we're still chopped up um but we're chopped up differently and so we brought back in two of the precincts that were senator or representative murphy had that were kind of so it's it's different but yet we're still not all together maybe next 10 years from now um so i think all in all it's not much of a shift in terms of that there wasn't much of a shift needed because we didn't really grow or lose a bunch but the big news is we'll be you know senator or representative schultz will be stepping down and is no longer running so we'll have a change make up will change regardless even if incumbents were to hold seats it will look different here so great well we only have one minute left and i want to get a sentence from both of you about this and so there's two months left of the legislative session we've gotten great questions from viewers we couldn't get to all of them today uh that's the best way that you guys can find out information both of you have said that uh reps i go what's the best way that your constituents can get in touch with you in one sentence best way to get a hold of me is by literally googling my name phone number comes up email comes up personal cell comes up reach out to me i need to hear from you great arsenal wilson same i have email phone whatever works it's all on the web so great well wonderful i appreciate you both being here today and we are out of time i would like to thank representative spencer igo and representative liz olsen for joining us this week minnesota legislative report will be back next sunday when we will welcome more legislators from northern minnesota to answer your questions for the team at wdse wrpt i'm tony cerdich have a great evening [Music] you