Legislative Update: Regular session comes to an end
By Amanda Bilek, senior public policy director for the Minnesota Corn Growers Association
The regular session of the Minnesota legislature adjourned on Monday. As I wrote last week, it was looking likely a special session was going to be necessary to finish the work of the regular session if the Governor and House and Senate leadership could reach an agreement on a two-year budget. On the last day of the regular session, May 17, legislative leaders and Governor Walz announced they had reached agreement on a budget framework but many of the outstanding policy issues would still need to be resolved through the conference committee process.
The budget framework included an agreed to timeline to ensure the legislature will be ready to act on approving a two-year budget during the June special session. Conference committees, or working groups as they are referred to since the legislature is not officially in session, will continue to meet to finalize a budget package for their individual area of jurisdiction. Spreadsheets reflecting the budget agreement are due to leadership May 28 and policy language June 4. It is anticipated the Governor will call a special session for mid-June. A new budget needs to be passed by July 1 to avoid a partial or full government shutdown.
The budget framework announced by leaders on Monday included budget targets for areas that encompass the state budget. Leaders agreed to a roughly $51.2 billion budget for fiscal years 2022-2023. For agriculture, the working group led by Chairs Senator Torrey Westrom and Representative Mike Sundin, will have a $10 million per year above base budget target. As a reminder the House passed an ag budget with a $11 million target and the Senate had a zero budget target for agriculture. The framework also calls for $70 million in broadband funding, but the funding source(s) still needs to be determined.
Another important element for agriculture in the budget agreement was full conformity on federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, ensuring those loans are not subject to state taxes. However, since a bill has not officially been passed by legislature and signed into law, tax filers had to file taxes without that relief secured and the Department of Revenue will need to give guidance to taxpayers for this change and others that will impact 2020 returns. There is additional tax relief included in the budget target for a final tax bill and should know more in a couple of weeks about what targeted relief the taxes conference committee will finalize.
Prior to the end of the regular session, the Agriculture conference committee had been meeting regularly to resolve same or similar policy differences between the House and Senate. On the last day of the regular session, the House and Senate approved a slimmed down conference committee report for agriculture focused on agriculture. The final policy included some changes to the Board of Animal Health by expanding the board to six members, including four livestock producers and requiring that one of the producers be a member of a federally recognized Minnesota-based Native American tribe. There were also changes to cottage food laws, small meat processors and restricting payments to producers under the Bioincentive Program to certify funds will not be used for lobbying expenses. For a more detailed summary on the ag policy bill, read Session Daily.
There could be other agreed to policy changes included in a final agriculture budget conference committee report. Most of the other conference committee budget divisions will still need to resolve policy differences including finalizing the budget agreements. As the working groups continue to meet over the next couple of weeks and head towards a June special session, MCGA will continue to advocate on key priorities for Minnesota corn farmers.
Be sure to follow the MCGA blog and its social channels (Facebook, Twitter) for updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@AjBilek).
