The first full week of the 2019 Legislative Session has come to a close and already we are seeing quite a bit of activity on issues important to ARRM and its membership. Here’s your weekly re-cap:
Best Life Alliance Legislation: (SF 6/HF 179)
The Best Life Alliance bill has been introduced in both the Senate and the House. The bill received its first hearing this past Wednesday in the Senate Human Services Reform and Finance Committee. ARRM Board member Cindy Ostrowski from Hiawatha Homes offered testimony to the importance of ending the 7% cut.
In addition to the Best Life Alliance legislation, alternative legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate. SF 92/HF 168 would set the Competitive Workforce Factor at 4.55% which would buy back about 3.8% of the 7% cut. SF 92 was also heard in the Senate Human Services Reform and Finance Committee this past Wednesday.
It is important to remember that while there are alternative proposals being introduced, the Best Life Alliance, as well as ARRM is committed to advocating for the full buy back of the 7% cut. Please watch for future action alerts for guidance on how you can lend your voice to the efforts!
ARRM Policy Bill: (SF 174/HF XXX)
We are once again bringing forward a policy bill that contains similar provision to the bill that was contained within the Supplemental Spending bill last year and was vetoed by Governor Dayton. The bill was introduced in the Senate this last week and will hopefully be introduced in the House next week.
In addition to our stand-alone bill, Senator Abeler has introduced SF 74, which is a “mini omnibus” bill of policy provisions from last session that had agreement on. All of the policy provisions that ARRM brought forward last session are also contained within SF 74- ARRM will continue to monitor the progress of that bill.
ICF Legislation and Unfunded Mandate Legislation
We are in the process of gathering authors for these two pieces of legislation and hope to have them introduced within the next couple weeks.
Service Termination Legislation
ARRM has a small group of members that are working on service termination legislation. The legislation would tighten the timelines for judicial review when a service termination is appealed and clean-up language within the current service termination statute. We are still in the process of meeting with stakeholders about this legislation and addressing concerns with the language that are being brought to us. We hope to move this language forward to the drafting process within the next few weeks.
Other Happenings at the Capitol and What to Look for Next Week
Many hearings this last week focused on providing broad overviews and information to committee members on committee jurisdiction and topics of interest to the committee. We anticipate that next week will continue to focus on informational hearings and will keep members updated if anything comes up that we need action on!