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April 16, 2024
Legislative Update
Public Safety Policy Bill Passes
Last week the Public Safety policy omnibus bill, which included my bill based on the work of the Predatory Offender Registry (POR) Working Group, passed off the House floor with bipartisan support. The POR working group began its work in 2021, and met biweekly to come up with areas of broad support for reform.
My bill, HF 3555, amends the list of offenses that require registration as a predatory offender to remove false imprisonment and clarifies that disseminating a pornographic work involving a minor requires registration. It amends the provision requiring a restart of the ten-year registration period to apply if the person is convicted of an offense that requires registration instead of a conviction for any offense.
There is more work to be done in this area, but I'm proud to have been a part of this group and I'm glad we were able to pass this in a bipartisan way.
Democrats Pass Massive State Employee Raises
On Thursday, the House passed HF 4310, a bill that funds massive increases in negotiated compensation plans. Because of changes made to the Subcommittee on Employee Relations (SER) last year, we had essentially zero say in whether or not these raises go into effect. The SER no longer reviews any of the state employee contracts, and no longer has the ability to send any of the contracts or plans back to the bargaining table. The Legislature no longer votes to ratify state employee contracts, we only see unrepresented plans (those who are not represented by a union). I offered an amendment that would restore these responsibilities to the SER and the Legislature, but unfortunately, I had to withdraw the amendment because it was not germane to the bill we were discussing.
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 There are a total of 19 state employee contracts and plans, five of which, are yet to be settled. To date, after these plans are signed into law by the Governor, we have committed the taxpayer to $12 billion in state employee salaries. The difference between the estimate and the actual amount spent on these contracts is nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.
In the bill that was passed one of the compensation plans, the Managerial Plan, which accounts for 1677 managers including Deputy and Assistant Commissioners, Bureau heads, and Division Directors, has increased the amount paid over and above the estimated cost to the tune of $57 million. This is an average of $34,000 per employee.
Minnesota Management and Budget negotiated across the board raises for all state employee unions contracts and plans of 5.5% effective retroactively to July 1, 2023, and another 4.5% effective July 1, 2024. Depending on the plan, there is also an additional 3.5% merit-based increase if the employee is not already at the top of their salary bracket.
I don't know of any business in Minnesota that is handing out these massive raises, and yet the government is committing taxpayer dollars to give thousands of dollars to state employees that already make more than three times the median individual income in Minnesota.
 I voted no on HF 4310, but unfortunately it passed. I will continue fighting for fiscal responsibility in state contracts.
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