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Weekly Legislative Update for the Week of March 19th

By ARRM Admin posted 03-25-2018 23:00

  

Best Life Alliance Responds to Governor’s Supplemental Budget

Following the release of the Governor’s Supplemental Budget last Friday, the Best Life Alliance delivered this letter to Governor Dayton and leadership in the House and Senate, expressing frustration over not being included in the budget proposal. Please watch for an action alert early next week with directions on sharing this letter with your local legislators.

First Committee Deadline Comes and Goes

This last Thursday, March 22nd marked the first committee deadline in the House and Senate. This means that if a bill has not been heard in either the House or Senate the bill is now “dead” and can no longer move forward.

The second committee deadline is next Thursday, March 29th; this is the deadline for which bills need to be heard in the body they had not previously been heard in. For example, if a bill was heard in the House Health and Human Service Policy Committee by the first committee deadline, it now needs to be heard in the Senate Human Services Reform, Finance and Policy committee by the second committee deadline.

ARRM’s Policy bill has met both the first and second committee deadline, as it has already been heard in both the House and Senate, this is the same for the Best Life Alliance legislation. ARRM’s unfunded mandate bill did not meet the first committee deadline and will not be moving forward this legislative session. ARRM is committed to continuing to work on this issue during the next biennium.

Upcoming Legislative Break- Watch for Events in your District

The legislature will meet next week and following the second committee deadline will be on break the week of April 2nd-6th. Historically, legislators have used this week long break as an opportunity to host town hall forums in their district. ARRM tracks all of these events on our town hall forum calendar and will send out individual notices if an event is coming to an area your organization provides services in.

Stop the Cut Resource

ARRM shared earlier this week that we have developed a new “Stop The Cut” resource on our website. Please utilize this site for up-to-date resources on the 7% cut as well as an Action Alert that you can use when communicating with your legislators.

Questions

As always, please contact me with any questions at sgrafstrom@arrm.org

-- Sara Grafstrom, Director of Member Advocacy and Government Relations

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