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(inspiring music) (inspiring music continues) - Good evening and welcome to the 45th season of "Your Legislators."

My name is Barry Anderson.

I am your host and moderator of our program this evening.

This is the second of three "Your Legislators" programs that will be coming to you or have come to you in the legislative session in this year 2025.

Our third and final program of the season will be on Thursday, May 22nd.

We'll have a distinguished panel of guests that evening to discuss the results of the legislative session.

The legislature, of course, is in recess right now and will will be returning to the Capitol on April 21.

And we'll have approximately 28 days left of the legislative session.

We will be asking members of our panel this evening, I'll get to their introductions here in just a moment, what we can expect in those remaining four weeks.

We're delighted to have you with us, and we bring to you four distinguished members of the Minnesota legislature as we do each week.

This year, we have two state senators who are serving their first terms in office, and we have first terms in the Minnesota Senate, I should say.

And then we have two members of the House who are serving their first legislative term.

And we're gonna be asking them about their experiences.

So let's begin with introduction of our distinguished guests.

And we're going to begin with Senator Erin Maye Quade.

Senator Quade, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to our viewers, and I just want to tell everyone that I didn't introduce her first merely because she's my state senator, but in fact she's been on our program many times.

She's a veteran of these of these opportunities to visit with the people of the State of Minnesota.

Senator Quade, tell our viewers a little bit about your background, the committees you serve on, and also maybe you could share with our viewers some of the differences, if any, that you've noticed between your time in the House, which I believe actually it was several years ago, served as served a term there, and now your time in the Senate.

Floor is yours, introduce yourself to our viewers.

- Well, Barry, thanks so much for having me.

I'm Senator Erin Maye Quade.

I represent Senate District 56, which is Apple Valley, Rosemount, and a small portion of Eagan.

And I am in my first term in the Minnesota Senate.

I serve on the Education Policy Committee where I'm the vice chair, the Education Finance Committee, the Human Services Committee with Senator Rasmusson, and then the State and Local Government Committee where I'm also a vice chair.

And you know, yes, I'm in my first term in the Senate.

I came from the House, although there was a few years in between, so I was 2017 and 2018 in the State House.

And the differences, you know, it's a little bit more in the formality, a little bit more in the, you know, ego maybe, I think.

And you know, we weren't allowed to have water on the floor until I think last year or the year before.

We're still not allowed to eat on the floor.

I do remember when we passed the ability to have water, there was a very serious legislator who said, "Well, what's next, coffee?"

And I didn't think that that would be a terrible idea.

So it's a little bit more formal.

There's dress codes, you know, that you have to abide by more so than in the House.

And there's fewer of us, right?

There's half as many senators as there are representatives.

And so you get to know people a little bit better.

You get to, you know, we have just as many bills as the House does because you have to have someone introduce it in both chambers, but there's half as many legislators.

So you really spend a lot of time working with your colleagues and getting to know each other.

I think that was probably the biggest difference is I had a chance to get to know every one of my colleagues in both sides of the aisle.

- Well, thank you for that introduction.

Let's talk to your fellow member of the Senate, Senator Rasmusson.

Perhaps you could do likewise, introduce yourself to our viewers and also take a swing at the differences between the House and Senate.

- Great to be with you, Barry.

My name's Jordan Rasmusson, and I live in Fergus Falls with my wife Emma.

And I represent five counties in the Minnesota Senate, including Ottertail, Wilkin, Traverse, Grant, and Douglas.

I am in my first term in the Minnesota Senate, but I also served a term in the Minnesota House.

A couple of the roles that I play in the Senate, I am a assistant leader for the Senate Republican Caucus, and I'm also the ranking member on the Senate Human Services Committee.

I also serve on Capital Investment Committee and the Pension Commission.

So those are a couple of the different roles in addition to being on the Senate Commerce Committee.

And I would say, you know, one of the differences, I agree with a lot of what Senator Maye Quade said.

Another interesting difference that you'll notice during our floor sessions is that in the Minnesota House you have to pre-file any amendments 24 hours in advance.

And in the Senate you can have an amendment that's confidential and at the desk that any member can introduce at any time.

And so I would say one difference in the Senate, especially on the floor, is that you really have to be on your toes, because as a part of the debate, any member can stand up and offer an amendment that you may know about or you may not know about.

You have to be ready to discuss and debate that, versus in the House, you pretty much know all of the major votes and amendments that are gonna be offered well in advance.

So that's, you know, one of the differences that you'll see just in the process and the procedure, especially as we head into the final piece.

- Representative Jones, we're delighted to have you with us here, your first time on our program.

Introduce yourself to our viewers, and maybe Senator Quade and Senator Rasmusson have been with us a number of times, but I suspect many of our viewers don't know much about your background.

Maybe you could take a little bit of time to tell our viewers a little bit about that in addition to your service in the House.

And then maybe tell us what has surprised you about your time as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Maybe something you didn't expect, go ahead.

- Yeah, no, I am appreciative of being here, so thank you for having me.

I'm excited to have this conversation.

We actually don't get to talk with senators that often in kind of a formal space.

So that's, I guess one of the things that has surprised me, but a little bit more about me.

So I represent 61A, which is downtown, kind of Southwest Minneapolis, and I am on the Energy Committee, the Transportation committee, and the State Government and Finance Committee.

So, oh, am I frozen?

- [Barry] Nope, you're good, keep rolling.

- Okay.

So those are the committees that I sit on.

A little bit of my background, I'm actually originally from Indiana, but I grew from a family of small business owners, but came to Minnesota because of some summer language camps, near Bemidji, and ended up like meeting my husband there.

And, you know, he loves Minnesota, he's a Minnesotan boy, and he won me over.

And I have to say, it's one of the best decisions that I've ever made is to move here.

And I love living here.

My background is in engineering, and then I've done a number of service work in AmeriCorps and then energy efficiency in the last 10 years or so.

So excited, I've, you know, gotten to work with cities on policy and more recently with state policy in those areas.

So I'm excited to be able to bring that knowledge and that background to the state level.

I'd say the thing that has surprised me the most is, kind of like where things are siloed and where things, where information moves the most.

And as I mentioned, kind of the House side and the Senate side, I thought we would have more formal interactions, and really thankful for things like the Civility Caucus, so that those are opportunities where both Republicans and Democrats come together.

We kind of hang out, get to know one another, but also on a bicameral basis.

- Representative Jones, we cannot let you escape without telling us the language camp in particular.

You have to, we have to.

I assume this is the Concordia language camps up, up in Northern Minnesota, and which language would that be?

- Yeah, so the camp was called Waldsee, it's the German language camp.

My grandmother is German, and so my parents wanted me to learn it.

- I have four years of German, and I've completely lost the ability to speak any part of it.

But anyway, we're delighted to hear that.

So let's move to Representative Gander, representative Gander, if you could tell us a little bit about your background as we asked Representative Jones.

And also if you could help us with what has surprised you or not surprised you perhaps about the legislature having arrived in the House of Representatives.

- Thanks, Barry.

Happy to be here.

You know, I think I'm the oldest rookie probably to ever enter into the House.

I'm sure, maybe not the oldest, but I'm among the oldest.

I'm 63 years old, and I'm being mentored by 20 and 30 year olds.

And I just love it.

But I guess, you know, this is how it's been with my sons, you know, with technology and all different things.

So they've been mentoring me in their wheelhouse of where their expertise is.

So it's really the same thing all over again.

So I'm from East Grand Forks.

For 38 years, I've been practicing as an optometrist, also have gotten involved with real estate investing.

And that's only relevant from the standpoint that I think everything we do prior to coming into an elected office helps prepare us for that office.

And so I think my background in, you know, assessing the value of real estate and proper maintenance of real estate can help an awful lot.

For the last eight years before coming in, I served as mayor of East Grand Forks, and before that had served on the city council some years earlier.

They say that when you get to the House of Representatives, it's like drinking from a fire hose or into the Senate for the first time, I'm sure if you're coming out of state government, and it very much is like that.

The material is coming at you so fast and furiously, you sense that at first probably 80% of it is going right by, and you're only able to take in that 20%.

But if you're patient, it comes back around the second, third time, like, oh, that's what that was for.

And little by little it all starts to make more sense.

One more thing on my personal side, my wife passed away three weeks ago.

And again, why that's relevant is on both sides, my colleagues in the House, Democrat and Republican have been in amazing, the kindness, the compassion, the prayers, the thoughtfulness.

I mean, it's humbling to be the recipient of such as that, to my staff, Elizabeth and Dominica, my writer, on around to our leadership and everyone else.

It's been truly amazing, the freedom they've given me to be home and be at my wife's side, three weeks ago today when she passed.

And so clearly this is a chamber, and I'm sure the Senate's the same way, where it's family first, and yet I have this strong commitment to the duty that I have to the people that put me there.

So as quickly as I could, you know, two days after the funeral we're back and serving the folks and grieving in between.

So again, I just can't say thank you enough to the people who put me here all throughout the district, all the support and kindness and then on over to my colleagues and right across the aisle, truly amazing people with the kindness that I've received.

- Representative Gander, I was gonna mention to you that when you were talking about you're being mentored by people who are younger than you are, I came, reached Mandatory retirement as a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court, and for 25 years I've been hiring law clerks who are younger and smarter than I am.

And you do learn things.

There is something to be said for maturity and experience, and I'd like to think they learned a few things too.

So perhaps you'll be helpful to your colleagues in other ways.

I thought we would start this evening's program, you know, obviously there are some really major issues that we have to discuss, you know, budget questions and what it's gonna look like and so forth.

But I wanted to give each of you, because you're sort of in a new environment, to maybe talk about an issue or two that you think is really important and, you know, kind of what you might like to see coming out of this session.

And then we'll go from there to a more broad discussion about what the budget and related budgetary related issues are like, because of course that's obviously one of the principle duties of this legislative session.

Let's start with you Representative Jones as one of the new members of the legislature, the House of Representatives in particular.

Tell us a little bit about an issue or two that motivates you and what you might like to see come outta this session relative to that issue.

- Yeah, no, this, I'm so excited to be able to go first and talk about two areas that I'm really excited about.

One is around small business supports during roads reconstruction.

This is an issue that I'm finding bipartisan support on just because it's got, I was inspired by Hennepin Avenue here in uptown, that, you know, when we redo roads, it's really hard for small businesses, and when they close then it's honestly so much harder for us to get vibrancy back into our communities.

And so I'm working on a bill that would essentially provide small business supports, both in the terms of kind of better communications as well as grants to help them survive that reconstruction.

Another thing, and I believe that Senator Rasmusson has been working on this too, is around housing and making it easier to build more housing throughout our state.

We're short about a hundred thousand units, a hundred thousand homes in our state, and that's a problem in particular in my community that shows up in encampments.

And those can be very tricky and very dangerous situations.

We'd rather have people have a roof over their heads that's safe and stable, affordable, dignified.

And so I'm really excited to be a part of this group that is bicameral, bipartisan, that is looking for ways for us to make it easier to build more housing from the accessory dwelling unit that I am living in, to also, you know, more apartments along commercial corridors and everything in between.

We just need to make it easier to get that foundational, that foundational piece out of our lives for every Minnesotan.

- Representative Jones, now that I've got you here, I can lobby you on your first issue.

I had breakfast last week with one a capital participant that I'm sure you're familiar with.

I won't mention his name here, but it took a map and seeing eye dog to find my way to Keys restaurant where the Robert Street Construction is going on.

So in addition to the uptown areas, you're assigned the duty of fixing that problem so that we can get to the Keys, very good.

- Great, well I like- - Senator Quade, tell us.

Go, go ahead, yeah.

Alright, Senator Quade.

- I was gonna say, as an engineer, I like standardization when we can provide kind of a way to move forward that works for everyone and it help works not only in Minneapolis, but St. Paul, Waconia, Winona, let's do it.

- Well, we didn't have to quite drive to Minneapolis to park, but it was just about that bad.

Anyway, Senator Quade, talk about the issue or issues that you're most concerned with.

- Sure, so there's two that I'll mention.

The first is I have a bill, and it's a bipartisan bill.

This, I found this to be a widely bipartisan issue.

There are apps and platforms and websites that allow a person to take a picture or a video of a fully clothed person, maybe you from your wedding photo or you from your holiday photo and nudify you, make you appear as if you are naked or engaged in sexual acts.

And this is incredibly damaging technology.

It doesn't need to exist.

It has the potential for rampant abuse, and it's already happening.

Anybody can access it, young kids, adults, that adults do it to children.

And so I have a bill to prohibit companies from allowing this function, this nudification function to be turned on, on apps, platforms, and websites.

And, you know, it's just, it's one of the most horrifying things to learn about.

And oftentimes, you know, young people will download this app on their phone, they'll do it so they can turn themselves into a Lego or a Hobbit, but then it has these additional functions, and then of course they're nudifying their friends or their teachers or their friend's siblings.

And, you know, we are moving this in the Senate about a week after this got a bill hearing, there was a DOJ announcement that a school worker in Minnesota had been arrested for taking photos of children he worked with that were, you know, innocuous photos and using it to turn it into child sexual abuse material.

So this is a really important issue and quite frankly it deserves to be a federal bill, but until the federal government gets on it, we wanna do this in Minnesota.

- Senator Rasmusson, same thing.

- So I'll talk about two issues.

One is something I'm trying to pass, and the other is something I'm trying to stop from passing.

The first is on housing reform.

We see that the median cost of a new single family home in Minnesota is over $540,000.

And that has put home ownership out of reach for many hardworking Minnesotans.

And I hear about it from the, you know, rural constituents that I represent.

I know Representative Jones hears about it in Minneapolis where people had this idea that the American promise was, you went to school, you worked hard, you got a job, and then home ownership was that next step.

And is an opportunity for people to create wealth, to help create a family.

And it's just becoming too hard for too many Minnesotans.

And one of the challenges that we've identified from talking to housing advocates and home builders is overregulation at the local level.

And I think, you know, we're supportive of local control, but we're not supportive of local out of control.

And so we'll continue to have discussions around how we can legalize starter homes again here in the state of Minnesota and make sure that individuals who want to get into home ownership have that opportunity.

And so this has been a issue that I've enjoyed working on.

It has bipartisan bicameral support, it also has bicameral bipartisan opposition, but that makes it a fun challenge to work on.

The other issue I wanted to talk about, and oftentimes legislators have bills they're trying to get passed, but sometimes there's legislation that's out there that we're concerned about passing into law.

And for me that has been online sports gambling.

And I'm really concerned about the impact it'll have on Minnesota families to effectively put a casino on everyone's mobile device across the state.

And we've seen from the states that have legalized online gambling in certain forms that it can lead to an increase in personal bankruptcies of more than 25% within just a couple years of legalization.

And so I've worked very closely with Senator Maye Quade, Senator Marty in the Senate, and I'm glad to see that the online gambling bill has yet to have a successful hearing in either the House or the Senate this session, which is very different from last year when it was sailing through committees and was ready to be voted on the House floor.

And I'm just really glad that my colleagues, I think, are looking at the national reporting that has occurred.

They're looking at the studies that have come out of other states, and it's actually an issue where it's been good for the legislature to take a slow and cautious approach so that we can hopefully learn from the mistakes that other states have made.

- Amen (laughs).

- I will just mention in passing, back in my stone age days as a private practicing lawyer, I'm not making an argument that this is universal or that these are the only reasons, nor am I taking a position on from a policy standpoint whether it's a good or bad idea or what the legislature should do with the online gambling bill.

But I will say I used to do some chapter seven work, and the two things that I saw fairly consistently practicing out in Western Minnesota were debt occasioned by as a result of gambling.

And then the second thing was uninsured medical expenses.

Those were two very common characteristics.

And I think that leads into what Senator Quade and Senator Rasmusson are talking about here.

Representative Gander, what about you?

What issues motivate you?

What are you working on?

- Well, thank you for that.

If you saw me leaning forward, I was having a bit of a lag there, but I think we got it corrected.

So coming off of fresh round of door knocking throughout the whole district, I think I knocked on every door in Polk County, Red Lake County, Norman County, a little bit of Clay County.

The number one thing I heard about from folks on the porch was, you gotta do something about the taxes.

The taxes are getting crazy here in Minnesota.

It's getting hard to justify staying here with that level of taxation.

So I am so appreciative of right now, the Ways and Means Committee got together in a bipartisan fashion, and they took a look at spending limits in every single department of our, almost said city.

I've been mayor for eight years, of our state, and really trimmed it and trimmed it and trimmed it.

As you know, the deficit projected for the second half of the biennium decreased from 6 billion to around 2 billion.

So that business of reducing spending, which the next phase coming out of that will enable us to reduce taxation, that's a really big deal.

Again, it's to the people that we represent and to the love of our state.

I mean, there's a point of taxation where somewhere along the way the goodwill starts to dry up just a little bit.

So there's that.

And I think the other one that I'm very thankful we talk about waste, fraud and abuse.

You know, we had some historic fraudulent activity over the last couple of years in our state, and it's really awful.

And so when it's time now to dissect that, how did that happen?

How was it missed?

Can we use some artificial intelligence to look for outliers?

You know, you have an agency that administers a hundred different people doing the same thing and two of those are doing 80% of the whole of that work, you know, hello.

Common sense tells you those two are probably doing something shady, especially if they're in Podunkville, Minnesota.

So we're gonna use every possible means to root out waste, fraud and abuse.

Again, lowering the cost of doing business and ultimately being able to lower that tax rate on our people.

And again, I'm happy to say every time that comes up, it comes from both sides of the aisle.

Let's get that done.

The people deserve that.

- All right, let's move to the topic that we probably can't avoid, which is the whole budget issue and where that's going.

Let's start with you Senator Rasmusson.

The Senate obviously has a position on the budget, the House has a position on the budget, and obviously there are differences within those two bodies.

We have a very closely divided legislature.

I think you all knew that, this is not news.

So that's going to affect what's realistic and what can be accomplished here.

What do you wanna see from your standpoint and what do you think realistically can be accomplished from a budget standpoint?

And Senator Quade, we'll go to you next after Senator Rasmusson.

Go ahead, Senator.

- So just to set the stage, Barry, I think it's important to remind folks that back in 2023, the state of Minnesota was looking at a nearly $18 billion budget surplus.

And after a big spending spree over the last two years that budget surplus is gone.

And now we're staring at a $6 billion structural deficit in the out budget years.

And what really happened is you saw- - Our viewers, for our viewers, I wanna make sure they understand, there's a surplus although shrinking in the next two years, and then it's the following two years where the deficit is, am I reciting that correctly?

- That's right, Barry, and basically, you know, even today, even this year, the state of Minnesota is gonna be spending more than we're taking it.

And so that is gonna lead to challenges both in the near term and the long term for the people of Minnesota.

And you know, one of the things that we're kind of dealing with is this spending hangover where we had a nearly 40% increase in state government spending over one budget cycle.

And now we're having to deal with some of the hard choices and consequences of that.

So if you just look at the timeline, we have about a month left before we're supposed to have our budget bills passed and have those negotiations done, otherwise it'll require a special session.

And if you look at when the new budget cycle starts, it's on July 1st.

And so I think, you know, we're gonna have to look at some hard trade offs and some hard decisions around what we should be prioritizing.

And the feedback that I'm hearing from folks, especially being, you know, back in the district this week, is that they expect us to put Minnesotans first.

They expect us to put their family budgets first.

Whether it's inflation, the high taxes that Representative Gander, we're talking about, increases in property taxes.

People really want us to put their budgets first and to not go back to increasing taxes to fix this budget deficit.

I think those will be some of the priorities you'll see from Senate Republicans in the coming weeks.

- Senator Quade.

- Thank you.

I think it's really important, if we go back to 2023, 2024, we had a budget surplus that included, you know, about two thirds of it was one-time money.

And with the remainder of that ongoing money, we reduced property and income taxes by about $4 billion.

We reduced social security taxes for 75% of Minnesotans.

We spent a hundred million dollars on literacy, and we spent, you know, hundreds of million dollars on mental healthcare services, and we spent money on roads and bridges, right?

So I think it's important for us to know that when you invest in things like community, when you, you know, stop taking in money, right?

Senator Rasmusson said we're spending more than we're taking in, well, we have more need than the money that we're taking in.

And that is certainly gonna be true in the '28, '29 biennium, or '27, '28 biennium.

And really where that deficit occurs is the high needs that we will have in long-term care and then the needs that we will have in special education.

And so what we're really experiencing is that we have an aging population in the state of Minnesota and we have folks, we have young children who are increasingly in special education, and those are the services that we need to make sure we're still investing in.

And so for me, my priority is to make sure that we are not cutting services for people, but that we are looking in that money that we're not taking in.

And I'll use data centers as an example.

We don't tax data centers, we don't, they don't pay the taxes that the rest of us pay to the tune of $230 million a biennium.

We could do a lot of PCAs for $230 million, we could do a lot of nursing home funding for $230 million.

We could do a lot of special education funding for $230 million.

And so I think we really need to take a look at who isn't paying taxes or who isn't paying their fair share like the rest of us are to make sure that we can still have the things that we need in the state to make Minnesota the great place that we know it can be.

- Representative Jones, budget issues.

- Yeah, thank you.

Something I wanted to piggyback off of Senator Maye Quade about is kind of how we do our budgeting.

So what is different about Minnesota is that we actually do more than just two year budgeting.

Most states only do two year budgeting.

We actually look out four years.

So one thing I think we should note is that in 2023, we couldn't know what was happening in '27, '28 because that's just not how we do budgeting.

Now this is the appropriate time for us to understand what was gonna be, what should happen in '27, '28.

And that gives us a runway for us to plan accordingly.

And I think that's smart budgeting.

That's why we do that here in Minnesota.

One another thing that we are expecting kind of in those tails, that's what we call that second biennium, is that we are just having a demographic shift.

Our state is aging, and so the way that we have to prioritize our budget is going to be changing.

And so I think it's important for all Minnesotans to realize that, that how our budget changes also follows our demographics.

One of the things that I've been looking at a lot because, you know, as a newbie and as representative Gander mentioned, like we're being thrown at, so much information is being thrown at us, we can only take in so much.

And so what I'm really focusing on are the budgets within my committees.

Within two of my committees, we have a zero budget target, which means that we just kind of need to stay the same, stay the stay the course.

And I think we can do that in energy and transportation for this cycle.

That's something I wanna mention particularly around transportation is that we have the fourth largest road system out of any state in the country, even though we are 12th in size, like physical size, and then 23rd in population.

I wanna start really challenging us about our ability to maintain that system.

How are we going to maintain that system and really question when and how or whether we are growing that system at all, because that really puts on a lot of financial stress for us, for later decision makers and people in the future.

So those are the things that are going through my head when it comes to this budget.

- Representative Gander, budget.

- Thanks, Barry.

You know, one of the ways that we're gonna improve the economic conditions in our state is when we become more of a magnet for business, more of a magnet for people who want to come here and earn and pay taxes.

There is a danger with high regulation, high taxation that you'll be scaring and chasing people away, but why not turn that on its ear and create that environment where you are a magnet for businesses and individuals wanting to move into the state.

We know they wanna be here for our lakes, our rivers, our streams, our woods, our hunting, our fishing.

We know they wanna be here for those things.

And so we have a natural draw with these great environment areas for people to come and just hang out and reconnect with nature.

And so let's add to that this sort of tax environment and regulatory environment that doesn't some way choke the joy out of them.

So I think that's important to come back to it.

It does feed back to the budget because if you can get that upward spiral going of growth of population growth, people coming here to work, people coming here to start businesses, this whole economy can take off and sing.

And so I agree with some of the other things that were said, but I think you need to also pay attention to the economic effect of being a really business and citizen friendly environment.

- Let's move to the topic of education.

Senator Quade, I'm gonna start with you, and then we'll go to you Representative Gander.

On the education topic, I know that this is a passion of yours, you've been involved in this.

I recall our discussion when you were in the House, and I want you to talk about that generally.

Very briefly though, I do wanna introduce one topic on the education piece and that is this.

We know that special is driving a lot of these costs.

I raised a question, and I think you might have been on the program, but I know I raised it before the pandemic, which was, is there something worth considering here about moving away from the federal model?

There's federal money that comes in, not as much as the federal government has ever promised us for special education, but it brings with it lots of bureaucracy, lots of rules, and I'm just wondering if we couldn't construct a system that runs special education without federal money, but runs it much more efficiently and for fewer dollars than we ultimately spend.

So I'm gonna throw that in to the general education question, which I know you're gonna be discussing, and we'll go around the table and folks can take the question how they wish.

The floor is yours.

- So, you know, when we're talking about education, I think one of the things that is so important to bring in is that school districts now in this next coming fiscal year are experiencing the end of the federal dollars that came in during covid.

And so districts were able to do a lot with that money.

It was very flexible.

They were able to do a lot of things higher, more teachers, do transportation, update their buildings, tech, you name it.

And that is coming to an end.

And so because of that, districts are seeing over, you know, year, they're seeing a reduction in their funding.

And we were able to invest $2 billion and more into our education system than we had before.

We were able to raise the per pupil formula, we were able to lower the cross subsidy, which is how much a general, out of a general education budget you take special education funding because the federal government doesn't put in their full amount.

And you know, one of the concerns is we get a pot of money, for example, on July 1st every year for special education.

It's a complex formula that is run by the people who used to work at the Department of Education, the US Department of Education, and then districts draw down from that pot of money over the course of a year.

And one of the largest fears that I hear from districts, from teachers, from parents is what happens if that money doesn't come in on July 1st?

What if there's nobody there to transmit it or to run the formula?

And so I guess that kind of leads into your other point is, could we do this without the federal government, you know, the way that special education services work is, it's a contract, it is a legal document between the student and the parents and the district on what kind of services and goals and metrics and benchmarks.

You know, there's so much to it, and there's a lot of case law then also that has developed.

And so you think, you know, we talk a lot about the rules and their regulations that we have from the federal government.

A lot of that doesn't actually exist in rules or regulations from the state or from the federal government, but it exists in case law that has been developed over many, many years through lawsuits related to the 504 section of the Rehabilitation Act or IDEA, the Individual's Disabilities Education Act.

So the answer to your question is some of it's tied up in more just rules and policies and regulations.

If the state of Minnesota didn't transmit federal dollars to the federal government, if we retained that, we would keep more money than we get from the federal government, and we could certainly look at something like funding our own special education system or Medicaid or Medicare, right?

We could do all of those things, but until that is figured out, this is a legal system and structure that exists that I think folks are really worried about not existing because we've heard a lot of talk about kind of, you know, eradicating types of people who have disabilities, particularly kids with autism, and that just strikes fear through the hearts of parents who have those kids.

And so, you know, the special education system is complex, and there's a lot of of folks there at the table, and I think there are things we can do within the state, but I think, you know, divesting ourselves in the federal requirements, I don't know if that's something that's really on the board for the foreseeable future.

- It would certainly be complicated to do.

There's no doubt about that.

Representative Gander, education issues of concern there from your perspective.

- Thank you, Barry.

I do believe education is another of those subjects where top down control from the federal or from the state is destined to fail.

You need to customize the organization of the schools, the running of the schools at a local level, bring it down to the school boards.

So this top down nonsense where the fed or the state has to like spoonfeed every school district, how they're gonna run, that is not as it should be.

I think we're gonna have to figure out our retirement situation for teachers.

We right now have a tier one, tier two retirement system where the older teachers got a really nice retirement package.

The younger ones a really poor one.

I remember as a kid in Minnesota schools growing up, it was the, our schools were a magnet for the best teachers because we had great pay, great benefits including retirement.

But if you take a look at our current retirement package to the adjacent states around us, it's, we have fallen back.

They've upped their game, we have fallen back.

I know another concern I have in education with regard to also local control.

I know we've tried to bring in some kind of different morality teaching into our schools, kind of mandating curriculum to do certain things.

And again, I know I don't agree with that.

I know the people that I've spoken to don't agree with that.

And a lot of that will take care of itself if we can move this back down more toward local control.

So those are the kind of things that I would like to see in education.

I touched on retirement, touched on MDA, you know, probably sizing that down, turning the control local, and generous funding.

Wanted to get one more thing in schools, post-secondary.

You know, if you think about why should the state fund post-secondary education, our college system, I think the answer to that is, if we can do that, properly fund that, the quality stays high, and we keep it as affordable as possible to the students.

And that's the goal of post-secondary is high quality education as affordable as possible.

So as many people can benefit from it as they can.

And those are my thoughts on education.

- Representative Jones.

- Yeah, thank you.

A part of this conversation that something that came to mind is that last Friday as I was leaving my desk, I saw the Minnesota constitution that we were given at the very beginning of our term.

And I honestly just like took some time to like review it again, and you know, there's a clause in there or section that talks about uniform system of public schools.

We have for a really long time here in Minnesota had a value of having a statewide uniform system of public schools here.

And I'm worried that we've maybe kind of lost sight of that a little bit, that that should be our top priority and where we put our funding and where we put our time and attention.

And so I worry a little bit about, you know, kind of going back on either that or the Minnesota miracle that happened 50 years ago.

You know, one of the reasons why we were able to fund schools throughout the state is because 50 years ago we said no, the state should take more of that on so that local property taxpayers don't have to, you know, have that that tax burden.

And so I think, you know, there is a balance to be sought here, and we have in our foundational document some guidance on what should we should be doing there.

And that's really focusing on statewide uniform service of public schools to Minnesotans.

- Thanks, Barry.

I think when we're looking at A through 12 education, I always start with the premise that every Minnesota kid deserves a quality education.

And I think it's our job at the state legislature to partner with local school boards across the state to figure out what are the tools and resources they need to do that successfully.

I think one of the key metrics that I spend a lot of time looking at is reading proficiency.

And I think what we've seen and what we've learned is that in order for students to be successful, they have to have those core literacy skills down by an early age.

Because if you first learn to read and then you read to learn the other subjects, and if a student is progressing beyond the third grade without being proficient in reading at grade level, we see academic challenges start to pile up, and it can be really hard to get those students caught up.

And so that's an area where I think we need to have a laser focus and make sure that we're seeing results across Minnesota school districts so that we're not taking opportunities away from Minnesota students just because of their zip code or the background that they might have.

And so I think it's really important that we get literacy right, and states that have put a focus on this have seen just phenomenal results in terms of higher test scores, more student success.

And so I think this is an opportunity for us to monitor the work that we're doing in this space, learn from other states and what they've done and just be laser focused and make sure that we're actually yielding results.

- I promise I did not pay Senator Rasmusson to like hype up the redact, but that is what he did.

And I wanna say thank you so much (laughs).

- And there's been a lot of bipartisan support for making sure that literacy is a focus.

And unfortunately we're seeing that, you know, right now about half of Minnesota elementary school students are not reading at grade level, and that's a problem that should concern every Minnesotan regardless of where you're at.

It's something that we need to fix in order to ensure that the next generation gets the opportunities that they deserve.

- There've been some interesting test results nationwide, and I track this pretty carefully, and I've noticed with some interest that Mississippi has made remarkable improvements from a state that was way towards the bottom and is now rapidly moving up and focusing on some of the programs that I think the legislature passed two years ago, if I recall correctly.

So let's talk a little bit about bonding.

For our viewers, you may have gotten used to the assumption that bonding is kind of an off-year event.

Turns out that it's gonna be an on-year event in the sense that I think there's gonna be a bonding bill this year.

That's the way I'm reading this, reading the situation.

Let's start with you Senator Rasmusson.

I don't think we've started with you.

Give us a quick presay of what's happening with a bonding bill and how big you think it's gonna be and so forth.

- I serve on the Senate Capital Investment Committee, and when I was in the House, served on the House Capital Investment Committee.

So I've had the chance to spend a fair amount of time going around the state of Minnesota looking at local projects, looking at state agency projects when it comes to capital investment.

And I think there is bipartisan bicameral interest in doing a bonding bill this year.

I do think people understand that we have to get the budget work done first, that that's our first priority is to make sure that we have a state budget that's responsible and responds to the needs of Minnesotans.

But there's a lot of folks, myself included, who are working behind the scenes to, you know, make sure that we understand what the priorities are of Minnesotans, and in a budget constrained environment, what should be the priority.

And I know from talking with the colleagues in my caucus, our number one priority is focusing on core infrastructure, roads, ridges, wastewater facilities and local communities.

And I think given the debt guidelines that the state of Minnesota has, we would be looking at a maximum size of a bonding bill for this year of around $700 million.

And there's some different scenarios that you can look at, but that's, when you've talked to Minnesota management budget, that's what they have forecasted for this year.

It's traditionally not a bonding year.

You usually have that when you're not in a budget year, but I think there's conversations happening and some interest to move forward with poor infrastructure that focuses on the needs of Minnesota.

- Senator Quade, your thoughts.

- Yeah, I mean I think, you know, Representative Jones talked earlier about how Minnesota does budgeting different than most states, right?

We look out for years and part of the outcome of having such responsible budgeting practices is that we have the highest bond rating that you could possibly have, which always is something we should be proud of in the state of Minnesota.

And so I do think we'll have a bonding bill this year.

I'm really invested in making sure that it is a clean bonding bill, that we don't have strings attached to it, as, you know, I'll vote for the bonding bill if this other piece of the budget comes through or if this other piece of the budget doesn't come through or if this policy gets passed or repealed.

You know, those important projects that Senator Rasmusson had talked about, right?

Roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, wastewater treatment, lead pipes, those are really, really critical and shouldn't be held hostage by political negotiating or posturing.

And so I think figuring out what goes in the bonding bill should be its own project, and it should live separately from pretty much everything else we're doing.

- All right, bonding, Representative Jones.

- Yeah, so when it comes to bonding, I have more of an experience from the city level.

I sat on the city's infrastructure committee in Minneapolis before coming to this.

I don't sit on the Capital Investment Committee at the state level.

However, something that's been interesting I guess from a freshman point of view is that our bonding bill, it kind of serves as the place where a lot of the individual like district projects, that's where the funding usually lies, is in bonding.

And so it's kind of, I guess neat and interesting to me to see how on the regular budget side of things, the legislature provides, usually just provides guidance to the state agencies about how, you know, various programs should be funded.

And then it's in the bonding side that that's where we're really, like individual legislators are saying, hey, this is an important thing for my district, and this is what I'm hearing from my city that needs to come forward individually.

So yeah, I am also hearing that we should, that there's a lot of momentum for a bonding bill, and that from the House side, or at least the House perspective, they used the 2024 bill as kind of a basis to start the conversation this year.

So if folks were paying attention in '24 and had something in there, you may like see that coming back again here in '25.

- Representative Gander, bonding.

- Thanks, Barry.

Bonding is a funny thing.

Some folks have a philosophical disagreement with bonding in general.

I talked to one rep who was approached by one of our constituents to bring a bonding bill forward and her response was, you know, I will do it.

I'll author your bill, you'll have to drum up the support among other representatives, and I can't even promise you that I'll vote for it myself when it comes up for final vote.

And so just know that that does exist, you know, to use borrowed money for these kinds of things.

Some people have a kind of a philosophical disagreement with that.

I will be honest, I am not among those.

I see bonding as an essential tool to accomplish the infrastructure kinds of things that others have talked about.

You know, when you think about a lean cycle that we're in as a state, think about if a family is in a lean cycle, you take a look at your spending and you say, hmm, maybe we don't have to eat out twice a week.

Maybe we don't have to do this or that, you know, we can, instead of going to Maui, we can go to Red Lake Falls or something, just anything.

Well, it's the same at the state level.

You carry that into your bonding package, and you're back to the essentials, you know, the infrastructure kind of things, public safety.

And that is not all bad because those are the areas where I think you get the biggest bang for the buck in your spending.

So I have no complaints for the fact that we're in a lean cycle examining every dollar that we spend and making sure that we get the best bang for the buck.

And it's even hitting the bonding bill and it should.

- We only have a couple of minutes left.

Very quickly, name an issue that we should talk about that should be of concern that we haven't talked about.

Just give us a brief presay of it.

Let's start with you, Representative Gander, very quickly.

Any issue that we haven't talked about that you think is significant?

- Hmm, an issue that we haven't talked?

I think we've hit on every issue that I can think of.

Maybe come back to me.

- Alright, we'll come back to you.

Think about the DNR questions.

You probably get DNR issues.

Representative Jones, very quickly.

- Just climate in general.

We've seen, we've got a warming planet, and there are lots of ways that we as a state should be taking action for that.

And when we take that action, that actually has a lot of other benefits with regards to livability, to affordability and things like that.

I'll just leave it there.

- Very good.

Senator Quade, very quickly.

- You know, I'm really worried that our budget forecast only is current up to February 10th.

We've had a lot of economic downturn, you know, 145% tariffs on China and 20% on Canada and Mexico, and the costs of products are gonna go up so much.

We've had a lot of people fired and laid off.

We've lost like $300 million from the Department of Health.

I'm really concerned that we actually aren't looking at the full economic picture as we make the budget.

And, you know, I think that we should be making sure we factor that in as we continue to make our budget, including not exempting people like data centers, I'll bring it up again, from paying taxes, because that is blowing a hole in our budget as well.

- Senator Rasmusson.

- Barry, I think the topic taxpayer funded healthcare for illegal immigrants is going to continue to be a conversation as the budget negotiations continue.

And I especially am concerned that we could see the projected cost of that program far exceed what was originally planned on.

And if we look back to the February forecast, it was about $220 million over the course of four years.

So I think that will be a big item that'll get talked about as we look at the Health and Human Services.

- Representative Gander, you get the last 15 seconds.

- Thank you so much.

Agriculture, productivity, profitability, new products, new uses, and passing on your farm to the next generation without major tax hit.

- Alright, I want to thank our distinguished panel of guests this evening.

We've had a great program.

We've outlined some of the issues.

I wanna invite our viewers to continue to follow the work of all four of our guests.

I also wanna remind our viewers that we will be returning to you for our third and final program of the year on May 22nd, the evening of May 22nd.

We'll have an opportunity to discuss what happened as compared to what we think is going to happen.

We're delighted to have you with us.

Thank you for your support of your legislators.

We'll see you in a month.

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