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Education
The House and Senate Education supplemental budget bills appropriate $43 million in FY25 and $18 million in the FY26-27 biennium. Most of the funding goes to support four key initiatives focused on voluntary prekindergarten, funding for schools to implement new literacy instruction (Read Act), addressing student attendance, and the teacher shortage.
Key components include:
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Providing school districts with additional flexibility and funding to implement the Read Act.
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Funding to support costs needed for educators and other school staff to be trained in the Read Act ($31 million in the House proposal and $23.8 million in the Senate proposal).
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Development of student attendance pilot programs ($3 million in the House for targeted school districts and $5 million for a grant program in the Senate)
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Teacher shortage initiatives for student teachers and teachers of color ($6.8 million in the House and $5 million in the Senate).
Housing and Homelessness
The House and Senate Housing supplemental budget bills appropriate $10 million in FY25 and $1 million in the FY26-27 biennium. Most of the funding goes to an increase in the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program (FHPAP), but both proposals also fund a homelessness study. The $1 million in FY 26-27 is appropriated to buy down some of the debt the state will incur because of the passage of $50 million in housing infrastructure bonds in the 2023 Legislative Session.
Both the House and Senate bills also re-appropriate onetime $50 million in unspent appropriations to establish a new Housing Affordability Preservation Investment grant program, which will support recapitalization of distressed buildings to stand up affordable housing. This financing includes physical and financial needs, including paying down debt, principal and interest paydown, capital improvements, and property operations.
Higher Education
The current spending target for the House Higher Education Committee is $500,000 — all of which will go toward the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees to participate in the Kids on Campus initiative with the National Head Start Association.
However, the supplemental budget bill also covers areas where proposed funds will be moved around (such as the Fostering Independence grant program, the new scholarship program for students who have been in foster care). The plan as proposed by the House will see funds allocated by transferring $5 million from the North Star Promise Scholarship Grant, another new program enacted last session for students from families making less than $80,000/year.
Another area would make updates to the Senator David J. Tomassoni Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Research Grant, which passed in 2022. Both the House and Senate Higher Education budget bills provide that the Commissioner of the Office of Higher Education can award grants to the ALS Association and similar organizations to award and administer competitive grants. The bill extends the Tomassoni Grant to 2029 and simplifies the allowable uses of the grant to include clinical and translational research, developing outcomes and objectives to better the lives of individuals with ALS, and work finding a cure for the disease. The bill proposes a re-appropriation of the $396,000 in funds left over from 2023 to create $19.6 million in 2024 for competitive grants to applicants for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The House and Senate bills are similar but have distinct proposals — with the Senate bill including provisions on consideration of criminal records when applying to a higher education institution and other criminal provisions. Because of these differences, conference committees will most likely need to work out the differences before sending a final bill to the governor. As of now, the House bill is awaiting its turn in the Ways and Means Committee. In the Senate, the bill just passed through Finance and is on its way to the floor.
Human Services
The House and Senate Human Services Finance supplemental budget bills include $42.6 million in FY 25 and $14.8 million in the FY 26-27 biennium. Most of the funding in these bills goes to support disability services, aging services, substance use disorder services, and funding to establish a human services response contingency account.
Key components include:
In Both:
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Funding to address priority admissions issues in state-operated hospitals and treatment facilities.
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Establishing the Department of Direct Care and Treatment as a separate state agency.
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Additional funding for caregiver respite care services grants.
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Funding to reimburse personal care assistant (PCA) services provided by parents and spouses.
House Only:
Senate Only:
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An additional $5 million for caregiver support programs with an ALS-specific respite service.
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Funding to establish emergency relief grants for rural early intensive developmental and behavioral intervention (EIDBI) providers.
Health and Human Services
The House has a Health Committee and a Children and Families (C&F) Committee and has two separate omnibus bills that will be merged later. The Senate’s Health and Human Services (HHS) has jurisdiction over both the health and the children and families areas. These bills cover issues relating to economic assistance programs, Medical Assistance, adult and children mental health, and health access.
The budget targets for health and human services include:
Highlights from the House and Senate bills include:
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Additional funding for the Emergency Services Program (C&F and HHS).
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Making college students eligible for the supplemental nutrition assistance program (C&F and HHS).
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Kinship Caregiver Grants (C&F and HHS).
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Funding to develop a County Administered Rural Medical Assistance/County Administered Medical Assistance model (Health and HHS).
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Additional funding for respite services (Health and HHS).
The House Children and Families budget includes:
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Funding for the Minnesota Food Shelf Program, the American Indian Food Sovereignty Program, and the Minnesota Food Bank Program.
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Reviews and reports on child protection, including fatality and near fatality review and child maltreatment.
The House Health budget includes:
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Authorizes oversight of health maintenance organization transactions by the commissioner of health.
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Funding for a report on the development of a Medical Assistance benefit for Children’s Residential Mental Health crisis stabilization.
The Senate Health and Human Services budget includes:
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Funding for the American Indian Food Sovereignty Program.
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Funding to establish the African American Family Preservation Act.
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Additional funding for school-linked behavioral health grants.
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