Session Update: Senate Passes Bill to

The Senate’s substantial omnibus health and human services policy and supplemental funding bill passed Tuesday, April 26, with nearly unanimous support. The comprehensive measure would use approximately $1 billion of the state’s budget surplus over the next three years to provide pay raises to workers in long-term care, personal care and disability services. The bill also includes reforms and flexibilities to streamline services.

Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller praised the bill’s focus on providing care to vulnerable Minnesotans. “This bill in front of us today is probably one of the single most important bills that we can pass this session,” he said.

Senator Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, chair of the Human Services Reform Committee, expressed hope that the House will agree to many of the bill’s reforms and provisions, “because without almost this amount of money, I don’t know how all the good that we want to do can come to pass,” he said.

While noting that the pay increases for the workers are important, Senator Melissa Wiklund, DFL-Bloomington, ranking minority member of the Health and Human Services Committee, bemoaned the bill’s lack of measures to address the high cost of childcare. “Access to childcare is one of the key reasons that parents have difficulty going back to work. This bill contains no funding at all to implement necessary changes that we need to make,” she said.