VOTER VOICE – PLEASE COMPLETE!
Please do this voter voice and send it to as many people as you know to complete it. DAV is including our CTF / Legion preferred disabled vets property tax bill and the MDVA education bill in it. The education bill is not on our platform, but the disabled vets property tax bill is exactly as I wrote it in our point paper. It is our ideal state for this issue, knowing some parts may be subject to negotiation.
https://www.votervoice.net/DAVMN/Campaigns/112587/Respond
BILLS WE SUPPORT THAT ARE IN PLAY
- HF 3677 / SF 3876 county funding for Veterans Day observances
- HF1666 / SF 3452 county veteran service officers authorization to receive vital records without a fee
- HF3962 / SF 3456 Jewish War vets plate
- HF4338 exempting vehicle registration fees for Gold Star Spouses (no Senate companion)
- HF4259 (no Senate companion) disabled veterans property tax exclusion modernization
- HF4038 / SF3953 eliminating property taxes for post homes of Congressionally chartered veterans service organizations
***I will reach out to committee chairs on the issues we’ve not seen movement on to get an update.
MN HOUSE ACTIVITIES THIS WEEK
There’s a hearing in the House State and Local Government Committee Tuesday starting at 8:30 a.m. in Room 10, and I’ve been given a very short amount of time to testify for HF 3677.HF 3677 Status in the House for the 93rd Legislature (2023 – 2024) (mn.gov). Elkins and I already presented this bill to the House Veterans & Military Affairs Committee, where it was laid over for possible inclusion in the Veterans Omnibus Bill. This matter also affects local governments, so that is why it is in this committee now. I expect little to no controversy or questions.
The Senate heard the companion bill for this last Thursday, and MACVSO’s Executive Director offered testimony where there was little discussion. The discussion was whether or not there should be a monetary cap on county funding for Veterans Day and Memorial Day observations at all, as another lawmaker had a separate bill doing away with the $300 cap on Memorial Day observances (SF 3743 Weber). We of course would be very happy to not have a cap on the funding so that counties could use their discretion as to how much they want to fund veteran service orgs’ events on those two holidays. This is not on our official platform, but we did voice support for Weber’s bill. I can contact the House committee chair to ask for a house companion to Weber’s bill.
HF1666 and its senate companion SF3452 were heard last week. It’s the bill to allow CVSO’s to request vital statistics documents for free from county recorders. There’s some scuttlebutt about the fiscal note on the House side, because the state doesn’t seem to know how to do it, although we’ve given them advice multiple times. Regardless, the fiscal impact will be in my estimation very minimal. They just need to move on and hopefully they will. The bill isn’t tied to the Health Policy committee any longer – it’s in veterans where it belongs.
MN SENATE
SF 1949 (Klein, Hawj, and Kunesh) is being heard in the Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee Wednesday 3/5 at 12:30 p.m. This is the sports betting bill. The bill doesn’t really concern us, other than sports betting is the likely source of funding for our charitable gambling tax cuts. They’re proposing a 10% state tax rate on sports betting revenues, which will generate funding to the State’s General Fund, where they can give some of that back to charities. Our tax cuts will likely be stepped up over the course of a few years as sports betting comes online and generates increasing revenue each year until it’s become mainstream.
CHARITABLE GAMBLING
You may have noticed Lislegard’s bill HF 4086 which lets us keep 50% of our net revenues from charitable gambling for post home upkeep / repairs (code 22). The bill currently doesn’t have carryovers year to year. I am pushing for 2-3 years of carryover. I’ve connected with the lawmakers, and apparently this bill is a placeholder. The text will likely be incorporated into a bill combined with charitable gambling tax cuts. Lislegard will also be the chief author of that. It will likely include annual carryovers, we just don’t know how many years yet, as that is still under negotiation. So take HF 4086 with a grain of salt, as that bill will not be passed into law as a stand alone bill.
DISABLED VETERANS HOMESTEAD PROPERTY TAX EXCLUSION
Rep. Knudsen had her bill heard on an informational basis in the House Veterans Committee last week. It is not the bill we’d like to see as it only raises the caps of the exclusion limits. The bill we really want is HF 4259 Norris and Newton’s because it raises the caps, indexes them to inflation, deals with some technical changes related to character of discharge, and expands the benefit to 50-60% disabled veterans it is our cadillac bill and the DAV and other CTF orgs will push strongly for it.
It should be noted that MACVSO does not support HF 4259 in its current form – they are hoping for a state offset to the shift from disabled vets onto other residential taxpayers. CTF organizations do not see a state offset as feasible (because that comes with tens of millions of dollars cost to the state) given what lawmakers are saying about this year’s budget. CTF orgs fear asking for a state offset will kill the bill and they do not see it as necessary.
POST HOME PROPERTY TAXES
Our bills are HF4038 / SF3953. If you look at the list of authors for both bills, it’s a bipartisan list. We really think this issue will move this year and eliminate us having to pay property taxes on our post homes.
DC TRAVEL
Thanks to all who traveled. If you want me to enter your report for you to national, I can still do that. If you want to do it yourself, use this link: https://www.votervoice.net/AmericanLegion/Surveys/7747/Respond
It was a privilege and a pleasure to travel with the Legionnaires and family members in the Auxiliary and SAL. Thanks for letting me be your tour guide, and I look forward to doing this with you again next year.
-Kristy Janigo
American Legion Department of Minnesota Legislative Chair
