Dear Neighbors,
I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. I know that this is a difficult time and we are all having to make significant sacrifices. Please know that your sacrifices are making a difference. You are saving lives and protecting our health care workers. We will come out the other side of this — please continue social distancing and wear a mask when in public. Thank you for all you are doing to help Minnesota get through this crisis.
Here’s a quick update on Minnesota’s response to COVID-19.
House and Senate DFL outline economic security agenda
This week, House and Senate DFL leaders and legislators outlined their economic security agenda to assist Minnesotans during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Minnesotans want a good life and a better future for our families and for our neighbors. DFLers are working to ensure the health and economic well-being of Minnesotans during this public health emergency. Despite the challenges and uncertainty ahead of us, we have an opportunity to pass forward-looking legislation in order to build a better future for all Minnesotans both during and after this crisis.
In response to the pandemic, House and Senate DFLers are focused on the following priorities:
- Keeping Minnesotans safe in their homes with a $100 million investment in housing assistance
- Providing economic security for our education professionals by ensuring full pay for our hourly school employees
- Providing economic security for the personal care assistants who care for vulnerable Minnesotans through a well-deserved and long-overdue wage increase
- Keeping Minnesotans connected by ensuring all Minnesotans have access to the broadband they need to go online
- Helping families make ends meet by using available federal funding to boost payments for low-income working Minnesotans in the Minnesota Family Investment Program
On Monday, the House Greater Minnesota Jobs and Economic Development Finance Division approved legislation to increase funding for high-speed broadband internet across the state. The bill invests $10 million in the state’s Border-to-Border Broadband Grant Program to expand high-speed broadband. It also invests $8 million in a new Distance Learning Broadband Access Grant Program to provide students with the equipment necessary to access learning materials on the internet and reimburse school districts for costs to provide broadband access. Finally, it invests $2 million in the new Telemedicine Equipment Reimbursement Grant Program to reimburse health care providers and counties that purchase and install telemedicine equipment to provide COVID-19-related health care services.
On Wednesday, the House Ways & Means Committee passed legislation that provides compensation for hourly school employees and allows entities that contract with schools to provide services such as school bus operators to be reimbursed for paying their employees, for changes in school employment practices as a result of COVID-19 related school closures, and the conversion to distance learning programs.
Today, the House Ways & Means Committee heard legislation allocating $100 million to the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency (MHFA) to assist thousands of Minnesota renters and homeowners with their monthly payments.
Ways & Means also considered HF 168, which delivers a 15 percent temporary rate increase for personal care assistance (PCA) services during the COVID-19 pandemic and makes other program modifications.
Legislators are also working on legislation to provide a one-time, $500 supplemental payment for individuals enrolled in the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). MFIP helps families with children meet their basic needs while helping parents move to financial stability through work.
Governor extends Stay at Home Order, provides additional business flexibility
As the state continues to make progress in preparing for the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Walz extended the Stay Home Order in Minnesota until Monday, May 18th. The Governor also announced that retail businesses and other non-critical businesses can resume operations with curbside pick-up.
During this pandemic, Minnesota’s government is faced with excruciating choices as we work to preserve the health, safety, and economic well-being of Minnesotans. I am pleased to see some increased flexibility for businesses and consumers under the Governor’s announcement. The sacrifices we have made have been difficult for all of us, but have been necessary to allow us the time to prepare for the surge that appears increasingly inevitable.
We cannot lose sight of the reason we all are sacrificing so much — we are working to preserve as many lives as we can. The Walz Administration and our health care professionals have used this time well to dramatically upgrade our level of preparedness. We have substantially more hospital capacity, ventilators, and personal protective equipment than we did when the stay-at-home order began. We have to stick together and keep doing all we can to slow the spread of this disease so we have the supplies we need to care for Minnesotans and to protect our health care workers.
Governor Walz strongly encouraged all Minnesotans to wear a manufactured or homemade mask at all times when they leave their homes to any place where social distancing is difficult.
Starting May 4, retail businesses and other non-critical businesses may begin offering curbside pick-up. This will put up to 30,000 Minnesotans back to work in a safe, coordinated way. Businesses must:
- Develop and publicly post a plan for how to open safely.
- Use online payment whenever possible.
- Employees and customers should wear masks and protective equipment.
- In curbside pick-up scenarios, social distancing guidelines apply. If possible, customers should not leave their vehicle.
- In delivery scenarios, items should be deposited outside a customer’s residence.
Minnesotans should also continue to telework whenever possible, wear face masks in public, screen for symptoms and regularly check their temperature, and maintain physical distance from each other.
In the time Minnesotans have bought by staying home, Minnesota has:
- Announced a testing strategy that will allow us to complete up to 20,000 tests a day and test every symptomatic Minnesotan.
- Built hospital capacity and finalized a lease on an alternate care site to make sure that all Minnesotans who need care can receive it.
- Worked to acquire more personal protective equipment to protect our frontline workers.
Minnesota House Agriculture Committee holds hearing on food supply concerns
On Tuesday, legislators received an update about COVID-19’s impact on Minnesota’s food supply from Thom Petersen, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA), and Dr. Beth Thompson, executive director of the Board of Animal Health. Click here to listen to a recording.
Many in our agricultural community are suffering significant hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Legislature has taken action to help, and we remain ready to do whatever we can to be of assistance during this difficult time. Chair Jeanne Poppe and her committee have done outstanding work, and I’m pleased they’re tackling this issue.
As a result of the Legislature’s quick actions in March and April 2020, farmer-lender mediations have been extended by 60 days and farmers impacted by COVID-19 losses are now eligible to receive financial assistance from the Rural Finance Authority’s Disaster Assistance Loan Program. The Legislature also increased funding for Second Harvest Heartland to purchase and distribute milk and protein products such as pork, poultry, beef, dry legumes, cheese, and eggs and distribute them to local food shelves to help Minnesotans facing food insecurity.
House Committee passes mail-in voting legislation
On Monday, the Minnesota House State Government Finance Division approved House File 1603, which authorizes the Minnesota Secretary of State to direct that the 2020 state primary and state general elections be conducted primarily by mail.
All Minnesotans deserve the opportunity to safely participate in our democracy. In the middle of a global pandemic, we should take every opportunity to make our elections more safe and ensure every eligible Minnesotan has the opportunity to vote without putting their health at risk. Expanding mail-in balloting is essential to ensuring Minnesotans can vote safely.
The standards and procedures provided in current law for conducting a vote-by-mail election, which is currently an option for certain towns and small cities located outside of the metropolitan area, would apply to the upcoming primary and election, as would all other existing laws and rules governing the election process. The Minnesota Secretary of State would also be permitted to include specific requirements related to polling place closures and the availability of vote centers as part of the mail balloting directions.
Give at Home Minnesota campaign launches today
GiveMN has launched a “Give at Home Minnesota” campaign running from today through May 8th. Thousands of Minnesota nonprofits and schools are supporting our communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. #GiveAtHomeMN is a celebration of Minnesota’s generosity during tough times, and a call to give back as we’re able to help the organizations that make our state a great place to live, work and play. May 5th is also a national day of giving.
Everyone is making sacrifices during this difficult time, but if you’re able, please consider donating to a worthy cause. You can learn more here.
COVID-19 Resources
State and Federal Resources
Our excellent House team continues to keep a list of COVID-19 state and federal resources — you can find the full document here.
The State of Minnesota also has a great COVID-19 webpage. MDH has a public hotline that you can call at 651-201-3920.
MDH has set up webpages in several languages. Please continue sharing 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