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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
01/26/2016
Contact: Carolyn Marinan, Communications, 612-348-5969
County board actions
Votes Tuesday set the board's priorities for the 2016 state Legislature.
County board approves 2016 legislative platform
At its meeting Tuesday, the Hennepin County Board approved its 2016 legislative platform. These are the priorities the board and county administration will support during pre-session committee meetings, and once the Legislature convenes in March.
Bonding
Hennepin County projects
- Regional Medical Examiner’s Facility—$25.9 million
- Access to I-35W from Lake Street—$25 million
- Hennepin/Ramsey Joint Juvenile Facility—$18.7 million Support others:
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Bottineau LRT/Metro Blue Line Extension—$20 million
Support others:
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Local road improvement bonding—unspecified
- Art-space/Hennepin Center for the Arts - $6 million
- Cedar Cultural Center - $3 million
- Local bridge and historic bridge—unspecified
Criminal justice and public safety
- Support increased funding to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to meet its obligations for timely processing of drug chemistry evidence to expedite the execution of justice at the county level.
- Oppose cost shifting to local governments for sex offenders released from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP).
- Increase Community Corrections Act funding to assure adequate state funding for supervision of offenders in the community.
- Support legislation and continued funding for offender reentry, including transitional housing, work opportunities and community-based treatment.
- Support full funding of the state No Wrong Door plan to address the identification, recovery, and safety of children who are victims of sexual exploitation.
- Support legislation that improves access to behavioral health services for pre-adjudicated clients detained in jail in order to reduce costly crisis interventions and produce better outcomes.
- Support the restoration of voting rights to persons on probation or parole for a felony conviction
Environment and energy
- Restore SCORE funding to its original purpose (funding county waste reduction, recycling and composting efforts to meet state solid waste goals) by eliminating the diversion of SCORE revenues to the General Fund.
- Support legislation and state funding for planning and response to the loss of trees due to invasive pests and pathogens.
- Ensure that Hennepin County receives a fair share of revenues from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment. 2 Generated 1/22/2016 12:46:19 PM
- Support the efficient, transparent and accountable management of water resources, which maximizes the use of financial and technical resources.
- Extend Hennepin County’s energy forward pricing authority from 24 months to 60 months.
- Support the Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board (SWMCB) 2016 legislative package
General government
- Allow Hennepin County to have the same contracting and purchasing authority as the State of Minnesota, including job order contracting and construction manager at-risk.
- Require PERA to provide Hennepin County with employee retirement eligibility data.
- Increase the population threshold to 80,000 for determining which cities should be subjected to campaign finance and disclosure of economic interest requirements at the county level.
- Remove obligations and liabilities created by easements and other encumbrances on properties when in tax forfeiture that result in costs to the county or taxpayers.
- Support improved efficiency of election administration through early voting, strengthen the integrity of Minnesota voting laws, and enhance voter accessibility, including e-Pollbooks with an electronic signature.
- Amend state statute to allow local governments to publish official documents electronically rather than in print.
- Support renewal of the allocation of Legacy/Arts and Cultural Heritage funding for libraries with a priority on technology and collection.
- Oppose any attempt to prohibit publicly owned broadband systems for governmental purposes.
- Remove outdated five-day waiting period before a marriage license is effective and valid. HCMC Assure access to the full continuum of health care services for all.
- Support the comprehensive reform of the state’s mental health system to ensure patients receive the appropriate level of care and to improve patient outcomes.
- Target increased payments to safety-net hospitals with the largest uncompensated and undercompensated care burden.
- Support Medicaid payment reform demonstration projects that benefit safety-net providers.
- Support funding and the development of policies that encourage the state’s adoption of best practices in health disparities reduction.
- Create a mechanism to reduce the burden of uncompensated and undercompensated care created by changes to Emergency Medical Assistance (EMA).
- Maintain or increase current state investment in medical education and health care workforce development funding for HCMC.
- Secure ongoing funding that promotes organ donations and transplant services and outreach.
- Obtain funding to support the Addiction Medicine Fellowship program and secure funding for the implementation costs related to the creation of care models that integrate addiction medicine.
- Eliminate the mandatory managed care intergovernmental transfer (IGT II), and modify existing IGTs to better reach upper payment limits.
Health and human services
Create an efficient and effective system
- Support modernization of Minnesota’s state and county computerized systems used for human services and health care eligibility.
- Ensure adequate funding for essential health and human services without reliance on maintenance of effort requirements or shifts in funding obligations from the state budget to county property tax dollars.
Protect children and support their development
- Substantially invest in early childhood development programs (including basic sliding fee child care, foster care child care, early learning scholarships, evidence-based targeted home visiting, etc.) to support low-income and high-risk families whose children are at risk of poor educational and health outcomes and to address disparities affecting targeted populations.
- Support reforms to and increase investment in the child protection and foster care systems to ensure positive outcomes for county-involved youth.
Address mental and chemical health needs
- Support state funding to meet the needs of individuals with mental illness in state-operated services and in the process of civil commitment, and to develop an array of supportive housing options and services required for placement of these individuals back in the community.
- Support efforts to improve our children and adult systems of chemical health treatment, such as detox services, to leverage federal funding and assure timely access to effective care.
- Support efforts to reform the state’s children and adult mental health system in ways that reduce gaps in services, facilitate connections to appropriate care settings and promote access and integration with substance abuse and supportive services.
- Support efforts to integrate behavioral health and criminal justice interventions, data, funding and policy to address mental health and chemical dependency needs for justice-involved persons, lower costs, eliminate redundancy and reduce recidivism.
- Improve health and advance public health initiatives
- Support legislation that promotes and sustains efforts to develop a comprehensive and integrated model of health care delivery to assure access to county health and human services safety net providers, as well as quality and cost effective care for low-income, uninsured residents.
- Support resources for public health interventions that focus on prevention, treatment and recovery in order to reduce accidental drug fatalities, such as those associated with opiate abuse.
Housing
- Support investments that provide affordable, permanent housing options for vulnerable persons and families receiving county services.
- Maintain funding for homeless prevention, outreach and emergency shelters to meet the goals established under Heading Home Hennepin.
- Support legislation and administrative reforms that provide a continuum of services and housing options in our communities, including 24-hour supervised care options, for persons with acute and chronic care needs.
Taxes
- Protect essential state funding that supports county-mandated services and reduces reliance on property tax.
- Support Hennepin County cities in the acquisition of tax-forfeited properties that are authorized for public use and that border public waters when the law requires consent of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources or the Minnesota Legislature.
- Revise inconsistent state statute that refers to “targeted neighborhoods” to the more widely used term “targeted communities.”
Workforce development
- Increase funding for regional training partnerships among employers, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and community-based organizations to create demand-driven career pathways into employment.
- Seek expansion and increase flexibility for existing programs (e.g. Pathways to Prosperity, Minnesota Job Skills Partnership) to provide more training and employment opportunities to better address the persistent employment disparities that exist in our community.
- Seek funding to increase vocational training and employment services to clients in correctional programs such as Sentencing to Service (STS), STS homes, probation and electronic home monitoring.
Transportation
- Support a comprehensive transportation package that provides increased revenue for highways, bridges and related infrastructure and includes a metropolitan transit sales tax increase for major transitways and bus system expansion.
- Support existing Counties Transit Improvement Board (CTIB) statutory authority, governance and revenue structure, which provides critically important authority for metro counties to advance regional transitway development. This statutory authority has been implemented and does not require any changes.
- Modify the special distribution of leased vehicle sales tax in the metro area to fairly include Hennepin and Ramsey Counties in the distribution.
- Oppose changes in the CSAH formula that reduce funding to Hennepin County.
- Provide funding for infrastructure improvements for safe routes for schools and seniors to promote safe, physically active modes of transportation for seniors and schools.
- Oppose any increase in weight or size limits for commercial trucks and other motor vehicles.
The Hennepin County Board will hold a public hearing during its regular meeting on Thursday, February 18, which begins at 1:30 p.m., in the Board Room, Floor 24 of the Administration Tower, Government Center, 300 South Sixth Street, Minneapolis. The purpose of the hearing is to receive comments about the proposed gate rate tipping fee for municipal waste disposal at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center and the Brooklyn Park Transfer Station.
Learn more about tipping fees.
The board will hold a hearing on Tuesday, March 8, at the meeting of the Libraries, Technology & General Government Committee, at 1:30 p.m., in the Board Room, Floor 24 of the Administration Tower, Government Center, 300 South Sixth Street, Minneapolis. The purpose of the meeting is to change the names of three lake basins ("Unnamed Wetland" to "Snyder Lake"; "Snyder Lake" to "Kreatz Lake"; "Kreatz Lake" to "Unnamed Wetland") located in the City of Plymouth.
At its January 11 committee meeting, the board appointed Commissioner Linda Higgins chair of the Hennepin County Housing and Redevelopment Authority.
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Look for more news on the Hennepin County website at www.hennepin.us/news.
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