**This legislative update was written by Elaine Keefe, library lobbyist for the Minnesota Library Association (MLA) and MEMO/ITEM**
Received: Sun 3/16/2014 at 6:04PM
The already very hectic pace at the Capitol will accelerate this week. Friday, March 21, is the first committee deadline. By the end of this week, most bills will be dead for the legislative session. In order to remain alive, a bill must have been passed by all of the policy committees it needs to go to and either be referred to a finance committee or awaiting floor action. As a practical matter this means there will be long committee hearing agendas filled with bills racing against the Friday deadline, and hearings will last well into the evening.
House Budget Targets: House leaders released their budget targets on Friday, and the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to adopt them on Monday. The targets call for $550 million in tax cuts, $488 million in new spending and leaving $195 million on the bottom line. Of the $488 million in new spending, $17 million will go to to higher education and $75 million will go to E-12 education, where the priorities are listed as funding for teacher evaluations, expanded access to high quality early learning opportunities and making reduced-price lunches free. The targets also include debt service for a bonding bill of $850 million plus another $125 million in cash for capital projects, bringing the total for capital investment to $975 million.
Omnibus Policy and Budget Bills: Committees will begin rolling out their omnibus bills and taking action on them this week, which is well ahead of the usual schedule. Both the House Education Policy Committee and its counterpart, the Senate Education Committee, plan to unveil their omnibus education policy bills, mark them up and pass them out of committee this week. The House Tax Committee will unveil its omnibus tax bill on Thursday. Senator Rod Skoe, chair of the Senate Tax Committee, told MPR that this week he plans to unveil the omnibus tax bill, pass it out of committee and pass it on the Senate floor on Friday. The other omnibus budget bills, including the Senate E-12 Education Budget bill and the House Education Finance bill, are expected to be unveiled and passed out of committee the following week.
Telecommunications Equity Aid (HF 2696 / SF 2167): Last Tuesday our bill was heard in the House Education Finance Committee. Mary Mehsikomer and Marc Johnson did a great job of testifying. The Senate companion will be heard in the Senate E-12 Education Budget Division this Thursday, March 20 at 8:30am.
Data Privacy: Last week I reported that HF 2138, Rep. Mary Liz Holberg’s bill requiring government databases to be able to track the identities of users accessing confidential data and the date, time and purpose for which the access occurred, was scheduled to be heard on Wednesday, March 12. I spoke with Rep. Holberg about the library communities’ concerns and followed up with a more detailed e-mail. The night before the hearing she sent me a message that she was going to pull the bill from the agenda. A big thanks to Mark Ranum, who was prepared to testify on the bill and who also provided the information that went into my detailed message to Rep. Holberg. Rep. Holberg is retiring from the Legislature this year, so I am hopeful we will not need to confront this particular bill in the future.
The other data privacy bill is one that we support, and it is making excellent progress. I am referring to HF 2167 / SF 1770, the bill requiring vendors handling confidential data to abide by the data practices act as if it were a government entity, regardless of whether the contract includes notice of this requirement. SF 1770 passed the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday afternoon and was sent to the floor. Its House companion is already on the House floor.
Elaine Keefe
Capitol Hill Associates
525 Park Street, Suite 310
St. Paul, MN 55103
office 651-293-0229
cell 612-590-1244 elaine@capitolhillassoc.com
Are you starting to think about the upcoming legislative session and what that will mean for libraries and schools? No? Well, that is probably OK since the next session does not begin until February 25, 2014! This year will be a bonding yearrather than a funding year, which usually provides relief from some of the extreme highs and lows that libraries and schools experience around budget issues. For your convenience, here is a recap of the last session written by Elaine Keefe, our MLA/MEMO lobbyist representing our library and school media issues at the State Capitol.
Elaine writes…..below is a summary of the 2013 legislative session. Most of this information has appeared in previous reports.
State Budget Overview: The Legislature and Governor Dayton agreed on a budget for the 2014-15 biennium that erases a projected $627 million deficit and provides additional funding for education and local governments. In order to raise the revenue to accomplish this, income taxes were increased on the top 2% of income tax filers, cigarette taxes were increased by $1.60 per pack and the sales tax was broadened to include some business services. With DFL majorities in both the House and Senate and a DFL governor, the budget negotiations were far less contentious than they were two years ago when most of state government was shut down for 20 days because Governor Dayton and the Republican-controlled Legislature were unable to agree on a budget.
Here is a summary of legislative action affecting libraries:
Education Payment Shift: Repayment of the shift has proceeded much more rapidly than many had expected. Under current law, whenever a state economic forecast projects a budget surplus, the surplus must first be used to replenish the state budget reserve (if necessary) and any remaining surplus must be used to repay the shift until a 90% /10% payment schedule is achieved. Although the November 2012 and February 2013 forecasts both projected a deficit for the 2014-15 biennium, those forecasts also projected surpluses at the close of the current biennium, which ends on June 30. Hence, the shift was reduced by $1.3 billion after the November forecast and by another $290 million after the February forecast, resulting in a current payment schedule of 86.4% / 13.6%. Under the budget deal reached by the Governor and Legislature, if there is a surplus after the close of the current biennium, that amount will be used to repay the shift without waiting for the November forecast. The current estimate is that this will be another $300 million. This should be sufficient to reach a 90/10 payment schedule.
Library Appropriations in the K-12 Budget: Current funding was maintained for Regional Library Basic System Support, Regional Library Telecommunications Aid, Multi-types, ELM and Telecommunications Equity Aid. We also succeeded in getting an amendment included in the omnibus education bill changing the terminology for RLBSS and multi-type funding from “grant” to “aid” to better reflect how these programs are administered.
Homework Help: Our bill to fund an online Homework Help service statewide was introduced in both bodies but did not receive a hearing. There was heavy emphasis this year on providing additional funding for large existing programs, leaving little room in the budget for new initiatives. Our bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator John Hoffman (DFL – Champlin) and in the House by Rep. Kathy Brynaert (DFL – Mankato).
General Education Formula: The general education formula (which is the main source of funding for school media centers) will increase by 1.5% in each year of the biennium. It will rise from the current $5,224 per pupil to $5,302 in FY 2014 and to $5,806 in FY 2015.
Total Operating Capital: MDE included language in its omnibus policy bill that would have prohibited schools from using total operating capital to pay for annual licensing fees for software. I raised a concern about that language on behalf of MEMO. After much negotiation, MDE agreed to amend the language to specifically allow the use of total operating capital for software and annual licensing fees. This passed in the omnibus education bill.
Minitex and MnLINK: Funding for Minitex and MnLINK was increased by $300,000 per year. It is the first increase for Minitex and MnLINK since the 2007 session. Our authors were Senator Kent Eken (DFL – Twin Valley) and Rep. Ryan Winkler (DFL – Golden Valley).
Higher Ed Systems: MnSCU funding was increased by $102 million and the University of Minnesota by $79 million. Most of these funds are earmarked for freezing undergraduate tuition.
Legacy Funding for Regional Public Libraries: Regional Public Library Systems received $3 million per year to provide arts and historical programs. This is the same level of funding provided during the current biennium. The funds will be distributed via a revised formula that replaces the equalization factor with a “qualifying system entities” factor. We had to fight hard to retain this level of funding after the Senate bill proposed to reduce it to $1 million per year in an effort to maximize the funding for the State Arts Board. Many thanks to everyone who contacted their senators and the members of the Legacy conference committee to urge them to maintain the current funding level for regional public libraries. You were definitely heard!
Legacy Funding for the Minnesota Digital Library: The Minnesota Digital Library received $300,000 per year. This is an increase over the current $250,000 per year appropriation. As in the past, this funding is appropriated to the Minnesota Historical Society with a directive to cooperate with Minitex and jointly share the appropriation.
Legacy Percentage to the State Arts Board: The Senate Legacy bill added a provision in statute requiring that 50% of all future appropriations from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund would be allocated to the State Arts Board. Senator Cohen insisted that this was the intent when the Legacy Amendment was passed. The final bill requires that 47% go to the State Arts board in the future.
Data Privacy: Our bill to extend current data privacy protection for public library patron records to electronic data stored by a vendor was introduced by Senator Kari Dziedzic (DFL – Minneapolis) and Rep. Steve Simon (DFL – St. Louis Park). It was heard in both bodies and passed out of the House Data Practices Subcommittee before we learned that other provisions in current law already afforded this protection to such data. Our bill became the vehicle for the omnibus data practices bill, but our provision was deleted after we learned it was unnecessary.
Library Accessibility and Improvement Grants: Although it was not a traditional bonding year, the Governor and the House were eager to see a large bonding bill pass. We were encouraged to get a bill introduced to fund Library Accessibility and Improvement Grants, and so a bill to provide $3 million was introduced by Rep. Mary Murphy (DFL – Hermantown) and Senator Alice Johnson (DFL – Spring Lake Park). The House included $1.5 million in the final version of its bonding bill, but the bill failed to get the required supermajority on the House floor. It needed 81 votes and only got 76 votes. The Senate never did produce a major bonding bill. In the end, a very small $176 million bill passed, with most of the funds allocated for renovation of the Capitol. A major bonding bill will be on the agenda for 2014.
Aid to Cities and Counties: Aid to cities was increased by $80 million and aid to counties was increased by $40 million. The trade-off is that levy limits will be in place for 2014. The limits are relatively generous — the city or county’s aid plus levy for either 2012 or 2013, whichever is greater, plus 3%.
Sales Tax on City and County Purchases: Cities and counties will no longer have to pay sales tax on their purchases beginning January 1. The sales tax was imposed on local units of government (except for school districts) in 1992 as a way to solve a budget deficit. There have been repeated attempts to repeal the tax since then, and despite broad agreement that the tax was bad policy, it was difficult to repeal it because of the loss of revenue to the state. This is a great win for cities and counties. Public libraries were partially taxed and partially exempted in 1992 when the tax was first passed. We won a full exemption a few years later, so this will not have a direct effect on public libraries.
Elaine Keefe
Capitol Hill Associates
525 Park Street, Suite 310
St. Paul, MN 55103
office 651-293-0229
fax 651-293-1709
cell 612-590-1244 elaine@capitolhillassoc.com
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