State Sen. 26A
By Senator Jeremy Miller
Fillmore, Houston and
Winona Counties
It’s been another busy week here at the Capitol as bills continue to get introduced and move through the committee process. This update provides highlights on two of those bills: Paid Family Leave, and the Veterans Homes supplemental bill.
Paid Family Leave
This week the Senate introduced a paid family and medical leave proposal. The proposal expands access and provides tax incentives to small businesses that offer this benefit to their employees.
We have heard from Minnesotans about the need to ensure more workers have access to paid family and medical leave. This proposal expands the availability of paid leave across Minnesota, particularly for those who work for small businesses. Businesses would be able to provide a competitive benefit that suits their workforce, and families will have more options to care for their loved ones in a time of need.
The proposal has two main components. First, it will create an insurance product to provide for paid family and medical leave insurance. Currently, this product is not allowed under Minnesota law and businesses self-finance their paid family and medical leave offerings. By creating this product, more businesses will be able to use insurance to finance a leave offering and the offering will be directly suited to meet the needs of families and employers. Unlike an expensive one-size-fits-all government run program funded by tax increases that is being proposed by others, this bill allows businesses and insurers to develop customized products to give more flexibility to workers and employers.
The second component provides a tax incentive to businesses with fewer than 50 employees to offer paid family and medical leave. The proposal would allow small businesses to receive a tax credit of up to $3,000 per employee enrolled. Small businesses employ nearly half of all working Minnesotans, and many of them have struggled to finance a paid leave benefit for their employees. Offering a tax credit will help more businesses offer paid leave to more Minnesotans.
Watch the full press conference here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_
Veterans homes
Today, I along with Fillmore County Veteran Services Officer Jason Marquardt appeared before the Veterans and Military Affairs Finance and Policy Committee to present Senate File 4181, a bill that helps fulfill the Legislature’s commitment to our veterans by fully funding three new Veterans homes in Preston, Bemidji, and Montevideo.
The veteran population in Minnesota is aging. There are currently more than 337,000 veterans in the state, but the number of veterans over the age of 75 is expected to increase by approximately 9% over the next 20 years.
The commitment to build three new veterans homes started in 2018 when the Minnesota Legislature and Governor Mark Dayton enacted a law that allocated $32 million for three new state veterans homes, including:
• $10.2 million for the Preston veterans home project
• $12.4 million for the Bemidji veterans home project
• $9.4 million for the Montevideo veterans home project
In late 2018, the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Administration finished up a series of community meetings in each of the three regions to review timelines and predesign to get ready to apply for the matching Federal VA grant in 2019. The federal process to be awarded matching funds is extremely competitive but Minnesota had an advantage over other states because we had taken the risk to commit state resources for these three projects.
In March 2021, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it would be making grants totaling $1 billion to state veterans homes throughout the country, including close to $80 million for Minnesota.
Due to the time lapse between the first application and final award of federal funds, value engineering was completed on the projects to proceed based on the available funding for the projects. Unfortunately, some of the important community priorities for the projects based on the series of community meetings with the agencies had to be removed to fit the project within the budget.
I am happy to say that all three projects are underway and have achieved approximately 20% completion. Senate File 4181, which was passed out of committee and is now headed to the Senate Finance Committee, adds back in the community priorities for these projects that were part of the design planning all along and fully funds these three veterans’ homes. I want to thank everyone who has worked tirelessly to help make this funding a reality.
As always, your feedback is extremely important to me, and I encourage you to share your input on the issues being discussed here at the Capitol. If you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas, please send me an email at sen.jeremy.miller@senate.mn or call my Capitol office at 651-296-5649. It’s a great honor to serve as your State Senator.