Good morning, and happy Tuesday.
New language being considered by a legislative conference committee working on a health budget bill would exempt some hospitals from nurse staffing rules contained in the bill. MPR’s Michelle Wiley and Dana Ferguson report: If approved, health care systems like Mayo Clinic could side-step some of the major provisions of the proposed Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act, including the requirement that a committee made up of nurses, executives and others agree to staffing plans or, if they can’t, resolve their issues through arbitration. However, according to draft language obtained by MPR News, this provision is only available to certain eligible hospitals that are “a national referral center engaged in substantial programs of patient care, medical research, and medical education meeting state and national needs, that receives more than 40 percent of its patients from outside the state of Minnesota, and that is located outside the seven-county metropolitan area.” This would prevent many major hospital systems, aside from Mayo, from taking advantage of this carve-out.
Negotiators at the Minnesota Capitol were closing in on a final version of a legal marijuana bill Monday. MPR’s Brian Bakst reports: They settled on an at-home possession limit of two pounds of flowered cannabis for adults 21 and up. In an interview, Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL- Burnsville, said there is agreement to set the marijuana tax rate at 10 percent. Eighty percent of proceeds are expected to cover state costs of regulation while the remaining 20 percent will spill down to local governments. Alex Hassel, a lobbyist for the League of Minnesota Cities, said much of the oversight will be at the local level, so it’s appropriate that there’s money, too. “It's going to bring some new costs to local governments, it's going to exacerbate some existing costs,” she said. “The inspections, compliance are part of our regulatory responsibility to this bill. But there are also some of the other impacts that this bill will have in terms of traffic safety, nuisance and other law enforcement responsibilities that local governments have.” The bill grants city and county officials power to cap the number of retail cannabis establishments. They could keep it to one license for every 12,500 people, but there is a caveat. “Many municipalities will not choose to cap it or might choose to cap it much higher than that,” Port said. “We wanted to put a floor on it rather than a ceiling, because we really don't know for sure what the market demand will be.”
A public safety budget bill that includes two new restrictions on gun ownership is on its way to Gov. Tim Walz for his signature. The House passed the bill Monday night by a vote of 69-63 after the Senate passed it Friday night. The gun provisions expand background checks to transfers of private firearms and allow for extreme risk protections orders that allow authorities to temporarily take guns from people deemed to pose a risk to themselves or others. The bill includes $880 million in new spending with $650 million for public safety and $230 million for the Judiciary. The budget includes pay increases for judges and judicial staff, increased funding for civil legal services and public defenders, increased funding for crime prevention programs in the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, funding for the Office of Justice Programs including new spending for youth intervention programs, and funding for the Department of Corrections.
Among the provisions of the public safety bill is one that Republicans have called a “get out of jail free card." The Star Tribune reports: The Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA), which Walz proposed in his budget, will allow qualified inmates a chance to shave an additional 17 percent off their sentences. "What I think Minnesotans should want is people who come into the system come out better than when they went in," said Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell. "That's what we want to incentivize." Sen. Michael Kreun, R-Blaine, countered: "We're focusing too much on the criminals and not enough on the victims and keeping our community safe." Upon incarceration, eligible inmates with sentences of more than a year will receive a personalized plan that could include a combination of mental health therapy, education, career training or treatment for chemical dependency. Juvenile offenders and the 516 inmates serving life sentences won't be eligible.
Gov. Walz signed a $1 billion funding bill for housing on Monday and one that expands service bonuses for veterans, funds veterans homes and focuses on ending homelessness among veterans. Walz is set to sign a bill today that will spend $240 million to replace lead pipes around the state.
A budget bill that contained an earned sick and safe time benefit for Minnesotans was sent back to a conference committee after it came up for debate in the Senate Monday. The Forum News Service reports: Republicans said since the language on sick time only passed in a House bill, it violated Senate rules. Following debate on the issue Monday afternoon, bill sponsor Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, moved to return the bill to a conference committee of the Senate and House for more discussion. The "sick and safe time" provision in the bill requires Minnesota employers to offer 48 hours of paid time each year for illness, medical appointments, child care or seeking help for domestic abuse. Around 900,000 workers in Minnesota do not have any paid time off, and most of them are low-wage, supporters say.
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