When the clock strikes noon on February 20, no one knows what to expect. Will it be business as usual, or will we be in for a wild ride? With less than a week to go, legislators, their staff, and advocacy groups, like LeadMN, are gearing up for the 2018 legislative session. While legislative leaders and Governor Dayton have promised a fresh start and have some common ground for this session, you can never predict just what might happen.

Major Factors for Session

Since the 2017 legislative session, a lot has happened.

  • Governor Dayton and the legislature fought a Supreme Court battle over the Governor’s veto of the legislature’s funding. This led to the Supreme Court ultimately forcing the legislature to use reserve funds until they could vote on a new budget during this upcoming session.
  • Senator Al Franken resigned from Congress due to sexual harassment allegations, prompting Governor Dayton to appoint his Lieutenant Governor, Tina Smith, to the vacant seat. Due to the line of succession, Republican State Senate President Michelle Fischbach became the acting Lt. Governor.
  • Another court battle took place over whether Senator Fischbach could remain as both a Senator and acting Lt. Governor. Recently a Ramsey County judge dismissed the case, allowing Senator Fischbach to remain in both positions, however this case could likely be re-filed once session starts. If Senator Fischbach were forced to resign her Senate seat it would leave a 33-33 deadlock in the Senate.

Legislator’s and Governor’s Priorities

Setting the other issues aside, legislative leaders have agreed there is major work to do this session including passing a legislative budget, conforming the state tax code to the new federal laws, fixing Minnesota Licensing and Registration System (MNLARS), and passing another bonding bill. After passing a legislative budget, bonding will likely be the top priority for this session. While Governor Dayton has proposed a $1.5 billion dollar bonding request, legislative leaders have said they expect a bonding bill in the neighborhood of $800 million.

LeadMN Priorities

Open Educational Resources

There is a growing movement nationwide to switch to Open Educational Resources (OER) and reduce the cost of textbooks. After tuition and fees, textbooks are one of the largest postsecondary costs to students, with Minnesota State community and technical college student paying on average $1200 a year for books. While progress has been made in Minnesota on OER, LeadMN’s focus this session will be on further advancing the use of OER by supporting legislation that would require 15% of Minnesota State courses to utilize affordable textbooks or OER costing $40 or less, by 2020. By supporting this legislation we are working to keep the momentum behind OER and affordable textbooks going.

Along with this legislation, LeadMN supports disclosing textbook information like the cost, edition, and ISBN on the individual course registration page. This will prevent students from being blind sided by unexpected textbook costs and allow them to choose the courses that best fit not only their educational needs, but also their financial ones.

Improving Transparency

Too often we hear the horror stories of students who are impacted by unexpected costs from textbooks, tuition, and other charges. It is not uncommon that we hear stories of students showing up to class the first day and being told that they need to purchase a $300 textbook, or stories of students finding out that their financial aid won’t cover the full cost of attending college. This session, LeadMN is supporting legislation that would create an improved financial aid award letter. This improved award letter would provide students with a more accurate picture of what their financial aid will cover, the cost of attendance, what their options are to pay for college, and what their loan payments will look like when they graduate. By implementing this award letter at all of its campuses, Minnesota State can help its students truly understand the cost of college.

Minnesota State Bonding and Supplemental Budget

Minnesota State leaders have requested $224.5 million dollars in their capital budget request.

  • $130 million of this funding would go toward asset preservation.
  • $94.5 million would fund 13 critical campus projects across the state.

Minnesota State has also submitted a $31 million supplemental budget request.

  • $21 million would go towards replacing the aging Integrated Statewide Record System (ISRS) with a more secure system capable of supporting 21st century educational needs like mobile registration, online advising, and improved degree progress tracking.
  • $10 million would be allocated to Minnesota State’s colleges and universities for campus support. 

If you have any questions on the legislative process or what LeadMN is doing up at the capitol, contact LeadMN Director of Government Relations Matt Gutsch at 651-203-9458 or mgutsch@leadmn.org.