Capitol Update 14 2015

Higher Education Omnibus Bill

Last week, I briefly highlighted both the E-12 and the
Higher Education Omnibus bills. As Chair of Higher
Education and Workforce Development, I would like to
elaborate on the bill that we put together, which was
heard and passed in our committee and the full Finance
committee this week.
A few weeks ago, we learned that the Senate had given
the Higher Education Division a target of $205 million
from the $2 billion surplus. As you may recall the
Governor had proposed $288 million and while we did
not quite come up to his level, I believe our target
represents a healthy investment into our postsecondary systems. In working through this target, our
committee chose to approach with parity across the
three buckets of Higher Education: the University of
Minnesota, the MnSCU system and the State Grant
Program.
The University of Minnesota received approximately
$85 million in increases. This money is divided up with
$25 million going to the University Medical School and
the remaining $60 million going to keep costs down for
students. The Medical School appropriation is the result
of work done over the interim by the Blue Ribbon
Commission, a working group put together by the
Governor to come up with strategies to get the School
back to its elevated status. Before we presented the
Omnibus bill on Tuesday, we had four esteemed
doctors from the University come in to provide
information on the critical and life-saving work they are
doing. These doctors are working on curing not just
treating some of the most difficult health challenges
of our day.

This includes, but is not limited to, HIV/AIDS, Cancer

and Urology. The committee was awe-struck with the
brilliance of the doctors and humbled by the fact that
out of all the institutions in the world, they choose to
practice at the University of Minnesota. In addition,
associated with this investment is language consistent
with the recommendations of the AAHRPP and the OLA
report regarding human subject research. This language
provides strong oversight and asks for specific reform
details to accompany this proposed appropriation. You
can find that language in Article 12 of the Higher
Education Omnibus bill. I renew my pledge to demand
the University take responsibility for past
transgressions that have occurred within the
Department of Psychiatry and will stay vigilant
regarding the implementation of their response to this
crisis.
The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system
also received approximately $85 million as an increase
to their base budget. We structured this increase by
appropriating $25 million to the initiative many of you
may have read about free technical college for
qualifying Minnesota students. This provision had been
introduced in a broader concept (free two-year
community and technical college for all students), but
as the Chief Author worked through the policy, it was
decided that we needed to be more targeted with our
dollars. I am particularly fond of the mandated
mentoring program that each participating student will
be required to take part in. This is now a need-based
approach that goes a long way in making postsecondary technical education possible for those who
previously could not afford to go even with our
generous State Grant Program.

The third traditional bucket of Minnesotas Higher

Education budget is the State Grant Program. When I
took over as Chair in 2013, we made significant
changes to the policy that allowed students to access
more dollars. As we entered the 2015 Legislative
Session, the Office of Higher Education notified us that
within the account there was $75 million in unspent
funds. This money was trapped as a result of the caps
and limits that are placed on the funding formula. This
Session, we took the approach of freeing this money by
adjusting that formula so that these funds could be
made available to all students. On top of this, we
invested an additional $19 million into the program.
Aside from these three pillars, the bill contains
important provisions such as sexual assault policy on
college campuses, student debt counseling, mandated
disclosure to students of institutional outcomes prior
to their enrollment, investments in Spinal Cord and
Alzheimers research and also holds the policy and
funding for my Earn While You Learn program. This
bill passed out of our committee with a unanimous bipartisan vote on Tuesday and passed through Finance
on Friday.
Next week, the bill will be on the Senate floor for a full
vote and then sent to conference committee, where
we will do our best to find compromise with the House.
I am optimistic about conference committee as I know
and respect the House Chair, Representative Bud
Nornes. However, I do want to let you know that we
are significantly far apart in our budgets. To start, the
House gave the University of Minnesota $0 and
decided that the unspent $75 million in the State Grant
Program should be raided to pay for a MnSCU increase
essentially taking money from students to attend the
College or University of their choice in order to pay for
the operations and management of one system.

Omnibus Liquor Bill Sunday Sales Debate:

On Thursday, the Senate took up the Omnibus Liquor
bill. In recent years, the debate over selling liquor on
Sundays has come to the forefront of the discussion. I
have heard from numerous constituents on both sides
of this issue.
While the Sunday Sales provision was not included in
the bill as it entered the floor, it was offered by Senator
Susan Kent as an amendment. This led to nearly an
hour of debate amongst members, but was ultimately
defeated. I am a strong proponent of allowing Sunday
Sales and spoke on the Senate floor providing
rationale.

Capitol Update Survey:

I have provided an attachment for you in the e-mail
that gives an overview of the three different budget
approaches taken by the Senate, House and Governor.
In this weeks survey, I am asking your preference.
Which direction do you support? If you do not agree
with any, let me know why and what you would do
differently in the comments section of the survey .
In addition, the DFL Senate Media Team put together a
fun tool that allows you to make some hypothetical
budget decisions to see which approach you align with.
You can do this for fun here.