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Hi I'm Richard Kolodziejski, MAPE's Legislative and Communications Director coming to you
from the Capitol with our weekly Legislative update.
The first week of the Legislative session has been completed now, and a few things have
become more clear; and that is what are the priorities of this year's Legislative leadership.
The first thing we know for sure is the Health Care Exchange is going to be a priority for
this year's Legislature. The Healthcare Exchange bill is going to have to go through
approximately 10 different committees in a very short period of time with a March 1 deadline.
The second priority of the Legislature has been through an introduction of a new minimum
wage bill that increases the minimum wage in Minnesota to $7.50. Currently the minimum
wage in Minnesota is $6.15, well below the national average. In fact the federal minimum
wage is $7.25. Third, there has been a significant amount
of bills introduced already that make various changes to the tax code in Minnesota. One
thing we know for sure is that all tax proposals are going to be on the table. It looks like
both leadership in the House and Senate are willing to take a look at all different sources
of tax reform and revenue that may come forward at the end of the session to balance the budget
without borrowing on future budgets. Senator Bakk has also made it clear in his
meetings with the business community that number one, we will see additional revenue.
Number two, they should plan to see tax reform. And number three, they should anticipate an
increase in taxes to the top two percent of income earners in the state of Minnesota.
In addition, the MAPE contract, which will pass this session, has yet to be authored
and introduced in either body. We're working each and every day to make sure that does
get authored and put through the various committees it needs to travel through in order to become
part of session law and for the two percent to take effect for all our MAPE members back
to January 1. And the last priority we're seeing through
the initial bill introductions is a bill that increases the threshold of legislative approval
to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot. This bill would require a 3/5 majority from
both bodies, which in a sense requires that any constitutional amendment that goes on
the ballot be non-partisan. Next, in just over a week we will see the
governor's budget proposal come out and in that governor's budget proposal we expect
to see significant cuts to state government. The governor has asked all his agencies to
prepare a five percent cut to their state budgets and we will see what that amounts
to on the 22nd of this month when that gets released. We anticipate and we're hearing
some rumblings from state agencies already that that requires significant cuts to jobs,
and that includes MAPE jobs and jobs from other state unions as well.
Those are the headlines for this week. We'll back in a week with more coverage from the
Capitol. In the meantime, be sure to check out our website, our weekly e-newsletter,
MAPE's Facebook page and Twitter feed for the latest news on the 2013 Legislative Session.
If any of you have a question about the legislative session, please email us at action@mape.org
or send us a question on MAPE's Facebook page. Every week we'll answer a question
from one of our members. One last thing -- don't forget to go to
the Team MAPE website and sign up for MAPE's Day on the Hill, which is March 14. It's
your opportunity to speak with your senator and your representative.
We'll see you next week for MAPE's legislative update. Thank you.