Rep. Melissa Hortman (HD36B) Update: March 27, 2020

Dear Neighbors,

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy. Governor Walz’s Stay At Home order begins late tonight, and I urge you to stay home if at all possible.

Here’s an update on our state’s COVID-19 response efforts.

Minnesota Legislature passes COVID-19 assistance package

Yesterday, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed a package of legislation to assist Minnesotans coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and its related disruptions. The House also enacted a temporary rule allowing members to vote on legislation remotely during the current peacetime emergency.

Minnesotans are facing significant medical concerns and financial hardships, and the Minnesota House of Representatives took steps to safeguard their health and economic well-being.

We unfortunately could not reach bipartisan agreement on everything we wanted to pass, but we will continue working every day to help Minnesotans navigate this emergency. We’re continuing to work on:

Ensuring our hourly or contract school employees get paid
Housing assistance
Workers’ comp for first responders
Requests from the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and judicial branch
Ensuring Minnesotans have economic security during the pandemic and into the future

There is a lot more work ahead of us. We will continue working closely with Governor Walz and his administration as we navigate this pandemic. You can find more about our legislative efforts here. A summary is below and the text of the legislation can be found here.

What the Bill Does:

Support for Child Care Providers – Provides support to child care providers who are struggling due to the high numbers of families who have withdrawn their children from child care as they are now working from home or have been laid off from their jobs. Provides nearly $30 million in one-time grants to child care providers who agree to remain open throughout the peacetime public health emergency, prioritize spaces in their program for the children of essential workers, and use health and safety practices that prevent the spread of COVID-19 in a child care environment. All grant recipients are eligible to receive a monthly award of $4,500, with programs becoming eligible for an additional $1,000 per month if they serve children during nonstandard hours, children whose first language is not English, or children with special needs. Programs can receive up to an additional $15,500 per month if they are licensed to serve 15 or more children, with their total grant amount being based upon their capacity to serve children during the peacetime emergency.

Loans for small businesses — Appropriates $10 million from the General Fund to guarantee loans from private banks to small employers (up to 250 employees). With a $10 million appropriation, DEED will likely be able to leverage $25 million to $30 million in private loans to 100-200 small businesses.

Transfers $20 million from the Minnesota 21st Century Fund and $10 million from the Minnesota investment revolving loan account to a new account for the small business emergency loan program outlined in Governor Walz’s recent executive order.

Codifying executive order on Unemployment Insurance The bill puts into law the same provisions as Gov. Walz’s executive order making it easier for thousands of Minnesota workers to collect unemployment benefits when they are out of work.

Support for hungry Minnesotans — Appropriates $9 million from the General Fund to the Dept. of Human Services (DHS) to address food security related to COVID-19. The funding will go to address food bank, food shelf, and transportation needs in responding to the outbreak, and Hunger Solutions will allocate funds. Seven regional food banks and almost 400 food shelves will benefit.

Support for homeless — Makes the following appropriations to protect Minnesotans facing housing insecurity:

$5.5 million to increase Housing Support room and board limits and rates and supplementary service limits and rates. Housing Support assists persons over 65 with low income and individuals under 65 with disabilities, and helps roughly 20,000 Minnesotans each year.
$26.5 million for the Emergency Services Grants (ESG) program to provide shelter space, hotel vouchers, and other options for Minnesota’s homeless population. Grants can also be used to purchase hygiene/sanitation supplies and hire additional staff to provide services.

Emergency funding — Appropriates $200 million in emergency funding for state agencies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

REAL ID — Modifies and expands the types of proof of residency documents allowed to obtain a REAL ID. Appropriates $2.4 million from the vehicle services operating account to pay for a temporary increase in license staff at whatever level is needed to achieve a 45-day issuance turnaround.

Driver’s license extension — Extends the time frame for Minnesotans to renew driver’s licenses, permits, or disability parking permits that expire during the peacetime emergency. No additional fees would be charged for these extensions.

Support for our veterans — Directs $6.2 million from the General Fund to the Minnesota Dept. of Veterans Affairs (MDVA) to provide financial assistance to any veterans or surviving spouse of a veteran needing assistance as a result of the COVID-19 disaster. It may be used for emergency financial relief, hospitalization assistance, medical care or treatment, or any other assistance related to COVID-19 deemed appropriate by the MDVA.

Agriculture and Food – Modifies the Rural Finance Authority Disaster Recovery Loan program to allow applications related to: 1) Any highly contagious animal disease, instead of just highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI); 2) An infectious human disease such as COVID-19, for which the Governor has declared a peacetime emergency.

Waives requirements for a commercial pesticide license for employees of cleaning companies for a temporary period of time. The cleaning agents in question are considered safe and are used and purchased by the general public all the time at grocery stores.

Commerce – Grants the Dept. of Commerce additional flexibility to modify deadlines, licensing registrations, continuing education requirements, business filing deadlines, and other requirements for regulated entities if meeting those requirements would be more difficult during a declared emergency.

Health and Human Services — Lowers application and renewal fees for medical gas wholesalers, manufacturers, and distributors; and removes requirement that certain pain relievers not be initially dispensed more than 30 days after the prescription was issued, as well as requirement that prescription not be refilled more than 30 days after the previous date when the prescription was filled/refilled.

Higher Education — Gives the Office of Higher Education (OHE) the authority to hold students harmless by paying work study payments through the end of term, suspending SELF loan rules, extending in-school status for students who are forced to drop classes because of circumstances created by the current emergency, completing promised state grant payments, and guaranteeing payments of childcare grants and other grants and scholarships, no matter the status of a student at the end of the term during a peacetime emergency.

Gives OHE authority to hold state grant recipients harmless to ensure best outcomes for students by providing flexibility for schools that are working to help students complete the term in which they are currently enrolled. This will cover State Grant, Teacher Candidate Grants, Grants for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Childcare Grants, MN Reconnect, and Indian Scholarships. It also covers the Safety Officers Grant program.

Public Safety — Authorizes the Medical Director of the Department of Corrections (DOC) to make health care decisions for certain inmates lacking decision-making capacity and who are placed in an outside facility on conditional medical release.

Amends current law relating to place of confinement so that when an inmate has 90 days or less to serve on their prison sentence, the DOC may be able to contract with a county jail or detention center for placement for the remainder of their prison term.

Allows for the BCA to temporarily delay the fingerprint requirement for any background check required for persons classified as an essential worker during a peacetime emergency.

State Government — Exempts Department of Administration purchases made during a peacetime emergency from workforce and equal pay certificates. The Department is required to create a report of all purchases made under this exemption.

Taxes — Pushes back the deadline for petitioners with property tax appeals from April 30th to May 30th of 2020.

Tribal Relations — Allows each Tribal nation to access up to $1 million for emergency response activities.

Executive Orders from Governor Walz

Stay At Home Order

On Wednesday, Governor Walz announced a Stay At Home Executive Order, directing Minnesotans to limit movements outside of their homes beyond essential needs from March 27 at 11:59pm to April 10 at 5:00pm.

Minnesotans have done an excellent job social distancing, but we need to keep fighting to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed. I thank Governor Walz for his continued steady leadership during this public health crisis.

You can learn more below and at http://mn.gov/stayhomemn.

Eviction Moratorium

On Monday, Governor Walz issued an executive order suspending evictions during the peacetime emergency. Loss of housing is catastrophic at any time, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this loss endangers the health and well-being of all Minnesotans. While this order clarifies that tenants who can continue to pay rent during the peacetime emergency should continue to do so, landlords and financial institutions cannot begin eviction proceedings that would remove tenants from stable housing.

More information about COVID-19 can be found on MDH’s website. MDH also has a public hotline that you can call at 651-201-3920.

MDH has also set up webpages in several languages. Please share these links to help keep Minnesotans informed.

As always, please contact me anytime with your input. I appreciate hearing from you! You can reach me at 651-296-4280 or rep.melissa.hortman@house.mn. You can also keep up with what’s happening at the Capitol by liking my legislative Facebook page and following the Minnesota House DFL on Twitter and Facebook. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Melissa Hortman