Dear Board Members,

I am reaching out to ask you to send a letter as an MHCA Board Member to two legislative finance chairs: House (rep.liz.olson@house.mn.gov) and Senate (Sen. Marty contact form). Legislators are going on spring break tomorrow so you can send it now or wait until after the board meeting – should you have questions.

ISSUE: we continue to be concerned about the paid time off legislative bills that don’t provide funding, especially for Medicaid funded providers, who already have extremely low reimbursement rates. Senator Hoffman’s weekly update included the following statement:

Many people are excited at the prospect of Earned Sick and Safe Time to care for themselves and their families in times of need. This legislation has traveled to many committees in the Senate, including the Human Services Committee. After hearing from nursing homes, assisted living facilities and those providing services to disabilities, it was clear that providers who receive all or most of their funding from state and federal sources have no way to pay for this employee benefit. By a unanimous vote, in my committee, an amendment was added to the legislation to cover the increased expense of this benefit. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee removed that funding on a party-line vote. The cost to providers in the Human Services world is 170 million dollars of real money. Given the fact, these employees are the lowest paid people in Minnesota for care giving I find it disingenuous to say you care about our states most vulnerable and then put a fee on them even though their payment comes from the state. Our committee put that on as a hold harmless provision and finance took it out. We count on our care providers to sustain and improve the daily lives of the Minnesotans who are most in need and those providers have identified a massive shortfall in the funding they need to provide a living wage to existing and new employees. I am disappointed to see the current form of Earned Sick and Safe Time does not address the unique issues facing this industry. The cost to extend this benefit to these essential workers should be a priority for the Legislature and the administration.

We are asking our grassroots champions to contact the Health and Human Services committee members and I’d like you to join me as board members in reaching out to the finance committee chairs for both the Senate and House – to express our concern and request an investment to cover the costs of this program. We want to be careful NOT to disagree with the paid time off, as that approach won’t be productive at this point. Instead, we need to emphasize the need for funding. A template letter is attached; I encourage you to personalize it.

I wanted to get this out to you, but as stated in the beginning, feel free to bring questions at the board meeting Thursday and send this later this week. Thanks everyone!

Kind Regards,

Kathy Messerli

Executive Director

Minnesota Home Care Association

1265 Grey Fox Road, Suite 2 | Arden Hills, MN 55112-6929

Direct: 651.635.0038 | Main: 651.635.0607