Members got back to work after a Passover break this week. House business began on Wednesday, when committees convened and members gathered for a floor session to continue passing policy bills off the floor. These included:
SF 4579 (Hollins)/HF 4558 – Single and Sub-Metered Utility Service
HF 4661 (Wolgamott)/SF 4745 – Workers Comp Advisory Council Recommendations
House and Senate conference committees also ramped up their work and the House Ways and Means Committee, which I sit on, began to hear the different committees’ budget bills. Our House K-12 Education Finance supplemental budget bill was heard at its final committee stop on Thursday. Ways and Means will continue their work next week as they merge bills together to better align them with their Senate counterparts and we move onto floor passage of budget bills. You can find the live streaming schedule of these conference committees and watch online here.
Next week,our work will mostly shift to the House Floor to continue passing legislation, including our K-12 Education Finance supplemental budget bill. Then onto the next phase of session, conference committee where the difference between the House and Senate bills are worked on. There are 16 more days left of the legislative session and they will be full of very long hours. The last day that we can pass bills off of the House floor is midnight on Sunday, May 19.
Schools For Equity in Education
Today Rep. Mary Frances Clardy and I spoke to the education organization Schools for Equity in Education. They are administrators and school board members from 52 school districts throughout the state who come together to advocate on education issues. Among those issues is that every child should receive a high-quality education no matter their zip code. We discussed the House Education Finance bill that will be on the floor next week, fielded questions, and heard many thank yous.
Arbor Day Celebration
Today, April 26th is Arbor Day, and DFLers are taking action to protect our environment and honor trees’ vital role in our ecosystem. This year we are investing millions in tree planting grants for communities around our state.
Keep in Touch
Please continue to contact me anytime at rep.cheryl.youakim@house.mn.gov or 651-296-9889 with questions, input, or ideas. Email is the quickest way to get in touch!
Thank you for the honor of representing our Hopkins, St. Louis Park, and Edina neighbors at the State Capitol.
April showers bring May flowers! Our heavy rain earlier this week didn’t damper our progress in St. Paul, growing the middle class and helping Minnesota families thrive. The final budget deadline is today and committees wrapped up their work this week. We will now transition to spending more time on the floor debating the various supplemental budget bills. The Ways & Means Committee, on which I serve, sees all of these bills before they move to the floor. So, I will be spending the next two weeks getting a preview of the floor sessions to come. The Capital Investment Committee does not have a set deadline, so they are continuing the work of putting the bonding bill together.
Committee Action
This week, committees are vetting and passing supplemental budget bills to their final stop in the Ways and Means Committee before they go to the House Floor. I’m excited to share that we advanced the Education Finance Supplemental Budget bill (HF5237) out of our committee on Wednesday after a very robust discussion. The bill then made a brief stop in Taxes on Friday, because of levy interactions. And, now it is on it’s way to the Ways & Means Committee before going to the House floor. You can see some of the details in the non-partisan staff summary and the spreadsheet.
Floor Action
On Monday, the House passed SF 2904/HF 2774, the 2024 Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Lands bill. The policy package includes nation-leading legislation modernizing statutes on native rough fish, and expanding opportunities to protect native prairies. It also includes funds to prepare Minnesotans for a new Electronic Licensing System, including a mobile phone app, for issuing angling and hunting licenses, visitor permits, and outdoor recreation vehicle registrations.
Also on Monday, we passed the Commerce policy bill, which focuses on consumer and child protections, debt reform, net neutrality, and more. The HHS policy bill passed as well, and includes important provisions such as guaranteeing people with disabilities get to stay in their communities while they live in group homes, modernizing deaf and hard-of-hearing statutues, and ensuring opioid treatment programs are responsive to workforce shortages and availability of counselors.
Last year, DFLers legalized adult-use cannabis, along with the possession and growing of cannabis plants for personal, recreational use. However, buying cannabis legally at a licensed retail business in the state is not set to begin until early next year. The Cannabis Policy bill we passed yesterday is meant to expedite the process of setting up a good, legitimate marketplace for cannabis to displace that illicit marketplace that’s in place currently. You can read more about what the bill contains here.
We also passed a strong Tenant’s Rights Policy Bill, which includes provisions to safeguard tenants’ right to organize, protect tenant survivors of domestic violence, clarify tenant’s rights to emergency services, prohibit rental discrimination based on public assistance, and more. Hopkins has many rental units, so this bill holds particular importance for residents in our district. More details in the bill are included here.
Connected to Community
As always, my favorite part about this work is connecting with the people I represent in Hopkins, St. Louis Park, and Edina. This week, I had a chance to meet with constituents from Moms Demand Action and the Educational Partnership Coalition which included Children’s First from St. Louis Park). Rep. Mary Frances Clardy (Vice Chair of Education Finance) and I also met with the Minnesota Association of Secondary Principals to discuss some of the items in the House Education bill.
Moms Demand Action
Educational Partnership Coalition
Minnesota Association of Secondary Principals
Free Park Day
Get your hiking boots ready — Saturday, April 27 is the next free entrance day to all Minnesota parks! Minnesota state parks are open year-round, and there’s a state park within 30 miles of most Minnesotans. With a free day in each season, it’s a great opportunity to get out there and explore someplace new! Whether you stay for the whole weekend or just spend a few hours outside, you’ll make memories that will last a lifetime. So be sure to get out and visit our wonderful parks!
Keep in Touch
Please continue to contact me anytime with questions, input, ideas, or to let me know how I can be of assistance at rep.cheryl.youakim@house.mn.gov or 651-296-9889. Email is the quickest way to get in touch.
Thank you for the honor of representing you and your family in the Minnesota House.
I hope this email finds you well! House committees are wrapping up their hearings as the final committee deadlines approach next week, which is when House finance committees, except for Taxes and Capital Investment, need to have their final budget bills passed out of their committees. Supplemental budget bills will then make their final stop in Ways and Means before they are up for a vote on the House floor. As this final committee work is happening, we will be spending more time on the House floor passing policy bills.
This week I also had three of my own bills up in committees. On Monday, I had a bonding bill considered for St. Louis Park that invests in improvements to the intersection of Oxford and Louisiana. The project would rehabilitate the roads, create walkability and connection to transit and trails, and mitigate pollutants before they run off into the Minnehaha Creek Watershed. I was joined by Mayor Nadia Mohamed and City Engineering Director, Deb Heiser.
On Tuesday, I had a bill up in House Education Finance that provides flexibility for school districts in their food service accounts to purchase lunchroom tables. Universal meals is popular and with more students eating meals at school, they need more capacity. That same day I also had a bill up in Taxes that would provide non-profit childcare centers who rent their space a break on their property taxes in the form of a state funded renters credit. Currently, non-profit childcare centers who own their facility receive a property tax exemption. Thank you to the Director Marcy Dearking from Kid Zone Early Learning in Hopkins and Director Kylie Cooper from Rise Early Learning Center in St. Louis Park from testifying on this bill!
Floor Action
On Monday, the House passed the Elections Policy Bill, which focuses on improved voter access and election transparency. It targets policy areas where the state can improve voter turnout and ensure that if voting is restricted, voters have a means of redress.
We also approved the Public Safety Policy Bill on a unanimous vote. The bill continues our comprehensive approach to public safety and crime prevention with support for victims, criminal justice reform, policy modernization, and more.
Yesterday, the House passed a?Labor Policy Package?that includes provisions to strengthen the minimum wage, ban shadow non-competes, and increase pay transparency. We also passed a?K-12 Education Policy Bill. This bill prioritizes policies to improve the experiences of students in Minnesota schools while also making sure the state is measuring and holding schools accountable for academic outcomes. Finally, we advanced bills stabilizing Minnesota’s Disaster Assistance Contingency Account and allowing photos of hunting and fishing licenses to count as proof of license.
Combatting Junk Fees
Last night I proudly voted in favor of two pieces of legislation that will protect Minnesota consumers from deceptive and unfair business practices by?ending junk fees?and?requiring ticket price transparency.
Junk fees are any type of fees or charges that are separate from the list price and not always listed separately. The average Minnesota family pays over $3,000 annually on junk fees that increase prices without a tangible benefit to the consumer. We are all familiar with buying a ticket to a concert, sports game, or other event and seeing extra “service” and “convenience” fees added that provide no additional value to consumers. DFLers are passing legislation to require fair, transparent ticket prices and other important protections for consumers.
Connected to Community
Days on the hill are starting to slow down as we near the end of the legislative session, but I was fortunate to visit with folks who work in small businesses that focus clean energy. It was a great conversation on what we can do to help keep our environment healthy and sustainable for the next generations of Minnesotans and beyond.
Keep in Touch
Please continue to contact me anytime at rep.cheryl.youakim@house.mn.gov or 651-296-9889 with questions or input. Email is the quickest way to get in touch.
Thank you for the honor of serving our Hopkins, Edina, and St. Louis Park neighbors in St. Paul.
I hope you are having a great week and enjoying the sunshine and what is starting to feel like a true Minnesota spring.
On Tuesday this week, the legislature gaveled back in from the brief legislative recess to observe Easter. In the House Education Finance Committee, I presented HF 5237, the Governor’s K-12 Education Finance bill for the 2024 legislative session. This bill contains a one-time funding increase for the Professional Educators Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) for technology costs, expands voluntary prekindergarten (VPK) programming in 2025, makes technical and clarifying changes to last year’s laws, and adds an administrative set aside on Head Start funding.
It is customary for the Chair of a Committee to introduce the Governor and Lieutenant Governor’s bill proposal and then present it to the committee for discussion. Now that we have committee targets, our House Education Finance Committee will start to put together the final House Education Finance bill from the bill proposals we heard in committee. Our budget target is $43 million in one-time investments from the supplemental budget, which means that we will be looking at proposals that do not have ongoing funding.
On Thursday, the House began passing policy bill packages in major issue areas. These bills build on the work of our historically productive 2023 session that focused on improving the lives of Minnesotans. The House passed two policy bills supporting our Departments of Military Affairs and Veterans Affairs, which passed with unanimous support!
We passed a higher education policy bill that includes the clean energy sector in our Workforce Development Scholarship Program and expands support in higher education for students who have a disability. We also passed an early education policy bill focused on strengthening our pre-kindergarten and school readiness programs. Finally, we passed a transportation policy package that improves road safety, DVS wait times, child passenger safety, and consumer protections.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota House of Representatives Photography
Transgender Day of Visibility
We recognized Transgender Day of Visibility at the end of March. I’m proud that Minnesota is a state that accepts all people for who they are. I will always fight to make Minnesota a safe and welcoming state where everyone can live as their authentic self.
Connected to Community
While we have been spending long hours in committee and on the floor, there was still time to meet with a few constituent groups that were here at the Capitol this week. Meeting and speaking with constituents from our community is the best part of this job. This week, I was grateful to have had the chance to meet with folks from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Housing First Minnesota, and the Karen Organization of Minnesota.
The Karen Organization of Minnesota
AFSCME
Keep in Touch
Please continue to reach out anytime with input, questions, or to let me know how I can provide assistance. I can be reached at 651-296-9889 or rep.cheryl.youakim@house.mn.gov. Email is the quickest way to get in touch.
Thank you for the honor of serving our Hopkins, St. Louis Park, and Edina neighbors at the Capitol.
Dear Neighbors, I hope you’re having a great week! With week five in the books of the legislative session, the policy deadline is around the corner. By Friday March 22, a bill that originates in a policy committee must be passed through each committee that has jurisdiction and move to either the floor or to a finance committee when the bill also includes a cost. By April 14, all bills in a finance committee must make their way to the Ways & Means Committee. House and Senate leadership are working on budget targets along with the executive branch. We hope to have those soon so that our finance committees can finalize their work.
A big thank you to all of the District 46 constituents who attended our Town Hall Meeting in St. Louis Park on Tuesday. We covered several topics and had a lot of great questions. Your input is the foundation of our work in St. Paul and I appreciate your input and suggestions. If you couldn’t make it, you’re welcome to watch a recording of the meeting here.
Here’s an update from the Capitol:
With the policy deadline around the corner, this week has been extremely busy and we can anticipate many late night committees next week to wrap up legislation. The House Bonding bill will continue to take shape and will likely be the last item we get across the finish line before our constitutionally required date to adjourn on May 20.
On Monday this week, the Minnesota House passed bipartisan legislation to combat price gouging, specifically for services utilized by a community after damaging storms. Minnesota’s most costly disaster year to date, 2022, had over $6 billion in damage. There was also over $3 billion of damage in 2017 and 2023 as more extreme weather events happen more often. The increased frequency of damaging weather events provides more opportunities for bad actors to drastically price gouge when cleaning up after a weather event, and DFLers are taking action to combat this immoral and costly practice.
On Thursday, the House approved my bill to adjust state K-12 forecasted funded programs to match the updated February 2024 budget forecast. The biggest changes in this bill are related to the overwhelming popularity of universal school breakfast and lunch programs, which DFLers enacted in 2023. Participation in the universal school meals program surpassed the initially anticipated increase by more than 20% and breakfast participation was an even larger increase. We made bold investments in our students last year, and the need for this bill speaks volumes to the successes we’re already seeing with implementation. We are committed to continuing meeting these basic needs of students so they can thrive in and out of the classroom.
Committee Action
A huge thank you to the media advisors and student journalists who testified in the House Education Policy on legislation I’ve been carrying for several years. The bipartisan New Voices bill allows students the freedom to express themselves and hone their critical thinking skill without the fear of censorship. It is more important than ever before for our students to learn media literacy and communication skills that they can carry with them in whatever path they take after high school.
Student Journalists and Media Advisors testify for the New Voices bill.
This week, I also had two other bills heard. One that would provide increased funding for our intermediate and cooperative schools who take care of some of our most vulnerable students (HF4333). This would enable cost savings for the home districts they collaborate with. It was brought to me by Intermediate District 287 which serves Hopkins, Edina, and St. Louis park along with nine other school districts in the west metro.
Superintendent Marcy Daud, Intermediate District 287
The other bill is for Hopkins Vail Place that has served folks living with mental illness in the west metro region for 40 years. Vail Place provides access to critical needs like housing, mental health support, and job training funded by federal, county, and state dollars. Vail Place is also a clubhouse model that provides a place where those with mental illness can grow in community in a space to call their own. Members run the clubhouse which provides space to build job skills, cook meals together, and join in activities with their peers. HF4514 provides one-time money to enable demonstration projects in three different clubhouse locations. There is also one-time money to have the Department of Health use the data from the demonstration models to create a Medical Assistant reimbursement for the service provided. The cost to provide clubhouse services to one person for an entire year equals a three day stay in a critical care psychiatric bed. This is a program that provides efficient and effective intervention and prevention services.
Vail Place partners testify on a bill to expand the clubhouse model.
Federal Assistance for Small Businesses Affected by Warm Winter
Our “winter” this year has been unseasonably warm. While many of us have enjoyed foregoing winter jackets this year, the low precipitation we’ve experienced this winter has had a real economic impact on small businesses that rely on snow and winter tourism. Federal Economic Injury Disaster Loans are available due to the ongoing federal drought declarations affecting 81 Minnesota counties. Small business owners should apply here for assistance as soon as possible.
Connected to Community
This week, I had the opportunity to meet with Superintendents from Grand Rapids, Princeton, and our very own St. Loius Park. I also met with constituents advocating on behalf of different organizations at the Capitol including: affordable housing, Hunger Solutions/Second Harvest, Physical Therapists, MN Land Title Association, and MN Bike Alliance.
Affordable Housing Day with Bring it Home
Hunger Solutions/Second Harvest
MN Bike Alliance
Physical Therapist Day
MN Land Title Association
Friday, I started the day visiting students at the Junior Achievement North and ended the day taking a tour of the newly opened Rise Early learning Center in St. Louis Park. I was grateful to see firsthand the good work both of these organizations are doing for the learners in our communities. And of course, I forgot to take pictures when I toured Rise Early Learning because it was too much fun watching the kids play and explore in their incredible classrooms and the outside space.
Students finish in the classroom experience with a day at Junior Achievement North’s St. Paul site, with financial literacy hands-on learning experience in a town center model.
Keep in Touch
Please continue to keep in touch at rep.cheryl.youakim@house.mn.gov or 651-296-9889 with questions or ideas. I appreciate hearing from you!
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