Finance committee adopts A17; approves funding changes including public TV grants and Medicaid-fraud staffing

The Minnesota Senate Finance Committee adopted the A17 amendment on April 20, folding fiscal provisions of Senate File 4059 into House File 2433 as the vehicle for the supplemental budget. Committee staff walked members through a spreadsheet of increments tied to enacted budget lines and highlighted the package's fiscal impacts.

Fiscal staff said Article 13 contains a $0.2 million increase to expand staffing in the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and a $1.9 million one-time appropriation for public television grants to support stations in Greater Minnesota that are losing federal funds. Staff also described an $800,000 allocation from an existing appropriation for a statue outside the state office building and a $1 million cancellation of an unused appropriation to the Department of Management and Budget related to the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Sen. Xiong, presenting the bill, characterized Articles 14 and 15 as licensing modernization for barbers and cosmetologists that would clarify definitions, streamline exams and allow limited online theory coursework. Mr. Erickson, the fiscal staffer, said the spreadsheet shows a $4.1 million change in the current biennium and $5.2 million in the tail biennium for the articles added by the amendment.

The committee also adopted the A21 amendment, which updates the budget reserve-account mechanism used by forecasters to determine surplus availability. Mr. Nauman explained A21 resets the reserve calculation to reflect the current balance and to provide a regular updating mechanism.

After adopting the amendments the committee laid House File 2433 over for further consideration and recessed until after the floor session; members signaled continued review of specific provisions, including Article 16 (payroll portal), before the bill returns to committee.