Panel Reviews Local Business Economic Relief Package Set

today is december 10th 2020. this is a remote committee hearing and it is conducted pursuant to temporary senate rule 12-1 b the hearing will be facilitated through zoom senator pratt will be presenting his covet 19 economic business relief bill in just a bit and the language has been provided on the web page i want to remind everyone that this is an informational hearing and that no votes will be taken and before we get started i just want to acknowledge that today is a very special day for one of our members i don't see he is on here looks like it's senator cohen's birthday i'm not gonna mention his age but uh we can save our singing for later um we made us want to reach out and wish senator cohen a happy birthday so happy birthday mr chairman thanks a lot um but i didn't receive the gift you're going to send me you must have been senator pratt that was sending it it's it's it's uh it's in transit with all the rest of my amazon presence okay great great i'll look forward to that so i think we're ready with that to turn it over to senator pratt to to present the the bill we're talking about today well uh thank you senator icon of members and and everyone who's been able to join us today um just uh you know let me just uh take a step back and you know kind of walk through this um this was a bill that we we started looking at the day after the the governor announced the executive orders uh back in november and knowing that this would have a devastating effect on on many of our main street businesses our hospitality industry the fitness industry i know many of us have breweries family wineries um and how we could help these uh small businesses uh keep plywood off the windows while their doors were locked and so um before i you know before i dive into the um the the details of the bill uh i i want to thank everyone who was involved over the last the last week hammering this thing out uh senator champion uh was there and and a big help certainly uh commissioner grove with the governor's uh office uh was one of the lead uh leads in helping to pull this together we had representative mahoney and noor from the house and and representative baker from the house all committed to making sure that as many of our businesses impacted by this executive order survived and this is not about helping them thrive this is about helping them actually survive and stay open we spend a lot of time working with stakeholders we were in contact with hospitality minnesota the the licensed beverage association along with the chambers and other advocacy groups you'll notice we have some county commissioners uh on the line and and uh uh association of minnesota counties they were extremely important in making sure that we just didn't put money out there but that we allocated our money in such a way that it was most effective in meeting the true needs that our small businesses were having um so with that i'll dive uh just briefly into the program it took us eight days to negotiate i think i'll describe it in eight minutes we really went through this and very early on identified the fact that we needed to get get these funds out quickly this is not a long-term grant program this is an infusion and so we took it from the approach of fast faster and fastest our fastest category is really aimed at those industries identified in the executive order that had to that had to lock their doors maybe they could do some you know some of our restaurants could do limited takeout and uh curbside but for the most part a huge chunk of their business was hurt uh we'll put a hundred we'll send out a hundred million dollars in checks uh to these folks really looking at some very basic criteria um were they in the industry codes that we identified as being directly affected by the executive order how many employees they have whether or not they saw a 30 or greater decrease in sales in in the second and third quarter year over year uh and that they're in good standing with the with the department of revenue we can get those checks out we don't have a firm date but uh commissioner doty and his team have been absolutely terrific um in sharing our sense of urgency and hoping that we can we're talking those checks out in the mail that we'll be talking about that number in days and and not weeks or months um the second is the fast category oh and then you know that you know we just took a very simplistic approach um there's five uh groups small businesses that we don't have in the unemployment system would get a ten thousand dollar check small businesses with up to twenty employers would get fifteen thousand uh businesses with uh twenty one to a hundred employees would get a check for twenty five a hundred to three a hundred and one to three hundred would be thirty five thousand and businesses with over three hundred employees would get forty five thousand um the fast category is uh designated to be specifically for large convention centers and movie theaters um nine million dollars to help our local movie theaters who have really been shut down since uh march with very little income uh deed was able to share with us that those uh revenues were down 80 or 90 year over year and then the convention centers that have had to cancel their events with with statewide and regional significance and then finally we get to the fast category um this is a hundred uh a little over a hundred million dollars that would be going to the counties to administer they will be helping those those businesses out that didn't qualify for a uh an initial grant they may also be helping and that might be because their industry code wasn't one of the ones that we identified it might be that they had less than a 30 drop in sales but now they've seen a bigger drop in sales with the latest shutdown it could be that they weren't directly affected by the executive order but maybe indirectly affected uh you know one thought here was i might have a cleaning company that cleans restaurants and fitness centers they weren't necessarily shut down by the executive order but their clients were shut down um smaller event centers in our communities those that didn't meet the initial threshold we want to be able to do that and giving the counties as much latitude to design a program to meet their unique needs within their communities um we're not telling them that they have a maximum amount to lend or to grant or a minimum amount to grant we think that they know their business owners and their business owners needs better than we do here in st paul those funds will be distributed at the greater of seventeen dollars thirty cents per capita or two hundred thousand dollars so every county will get a minimum grant of two hundred thousand dollars um with that that's the uh the gist of the bill that we have in front of us uh mr chair i don't know who's on your list to testify next and then we can uh take any questions i think senator pratt i have uh commissioner grove first on the testifier list and then after commissioner grove i have commissioner dottie mr chair members of the committee thanks for having me today i will be brief i'm mainly here just to say a word of gratitude to my colleagues in the senate uh senator pratt senator champion our colleagues in the house representative bakers and mahoney for the hard work on this package we very much see this as something the state can do to really bridge the gap in funding from now until when federal funding can come we know things are very challenging today in minnesota's business climate given the timing of this spike in the virus it is uh truly the most difficult time of the year for businesses in q4 around the holiday season to have to hold back to keep our hospital capacity uh where it needs to be and to protect uh the health of our state and uh recognizing that and the budget surplus that we were fortunate to see happen in this state this year moving with some state funding here we think will be really powerful it is somewhat unprecedented to have the department of revenue to directly issue payments in this way but again senator pratt's point after countless conversations with industry stakeholders across the state this idea of speed really was top of mind what uh what the stakeholders told us was don't let perfect be the enemy the good construct the best program that you can with the levers that you have and move quickly and so it is very much our goal to do that and we know this money is desperately needed i will say that we uh are very adamant that a ui bill passed as well and that's at the top of our discussion today but we do want to make sure that workers are taken care of in this package uh on monday too as a separate discussion but um we fear that uh over a hundred thousand workers by the end of this month will be without unemployment insurance payments unless we ask to help them because the federal government has not done that yet so a lot a lot to contemplate here but we are excited about this tentative agreement for businesses grateful to our partnership across party lines on this and i'm looking forward to seeing this come forward next monday so thanks very much mr chair and uh i appreciate the time to chat thank you commissioner robin we've only got a handful of testifiers so we'll save questions for the end i've got commissioner dottie up next and then uh liz reimer from hospitality minnesota after the commissioner uh thank you mr chair um by the way it's dodie just uh just go to your party i've got a local constituent whose name is spelled the last way same exact way as yours but they go by dottie so sorry no no problem i just uh just throw it out there uh so first of all thank you very much for uh for allowing me just to take a couple seconds here and and i wanted to first echo the same thing that uh commissioner grove did i want to definitely uh say a big thanks to uh um uh senator pratt and and others um um on this uh from this committee uh looking at um how we can work together on this this is an important this really is an important um endeavor um i think last night senator pratt said something that stuck with me which was the whole idea of this is really about helping our neighbors and how important that is and um so i really appreciate that um and i do believe that um that minnesotans will appreciate this as well uh again this will not be perfect there there's a lot of room for um for for mistakes to happen uh we are um as commissioner grove mentioned uh the department of revenue this is not our wheelhouse necessarily of getting doing these kind of direct payments and so we're doing the best we can and we will uh the one thing i would i would just correct uh uh senator pratt what he said early on was that we're looking to get these out in days versus weeks or whatever i was very careful not to specifically say days and i want to keep saying that this is going to take us um at least a couple weeks to get these out so i just want to i just want to say that and and kind of tamper down the uh enthusiasm to get these out as quickly as possible we will work as quickly as possible but i don't want to be lynched when i get back to the office from my team about you said days and so i want to be clear so again but in all honesty though thank you all very much really appreciate that and we look forward to uh to being a part of this uh really important endeavor thank you commissioner i have uh liz from hospitality minnesota then matt hilgert from the minnesota counties so go ahead liz as soon as you're ready thank you and uh thank you mr chair we really appreciate your leadership and to all of you working in a bipartisan manner to provide emergency relief for the hospitality industry here in minnesota it's really a dire situation as you have heard and uh the industry here is a key economic driver for our state and it's really been unprecedented in this year with all of the closures that have confronted our businesses and our operators and our employee teams have really been decimated during this time and the industry is as i said a key economic driver one in ten good main good paying minnesota jobs and that in normal times is three hundred thousand jobs and as we know indeed we've already lost eighty thousand jobs and our projection is if these continue run path to lose another 70 000 jobs without financial assistance in a significant manner coming in very quickly so while the current executive order closed indoor dining and limited travel as you heard from commissioner grove coming at the worst possible time this is the time of year when operators are looking to generate up to 40 percent of their annual revenues and this holiday season being closed and having their workers out of out of a job is really calamitous and they're seeing the bills pile up for the many obligations that continue and as i noted this is truly an ecosystem there are many complex uh it's really a complex web with interdependencies with multiple jobs spurring from these core hospitality jobs and as we think about the future and what our data shows uh we see that over 50 percent of restaurants face permanent closure 30 percent of hotels and 33 percent of hospitality firms face permanent closure without additional help here 60 600 of minnesota's 1 000 hotels are also facing foreclosure in the next six months eighty-five percent of restaurants expect sales are going to decrease to uh levels in the next three months and 63 of restaurants expect their staffing levels to decline in the next months so it really is a time for emergency action and we're very grateful as i stated for all of you negotiating team and all the staff and supporting this process to bring this relief plan forward it's really critical so the case is clear and we really have an opportunity here to provide that lifeline to these operators and give them some financial relief until more assistance come from the federal government and in recent weeks hospitality minnesota has really been advocating for the state to provide this relief for these distressed businesses through the creation of the direct grant programs deed loans expansion of the program sales tax relief property tax relief regulatory relief really all kinds of opportunities to pull tools of the toolkit that can help create cash flow and extend the life of these businesses until more assistance can be available certainly other aspects of this that include the food donation alcohol to go all of these things can come to bear to help these businesses survive to the other side of the crisis so hospitality minnesota is very supportive of these efforts and uh supports the 215 million dollar grant proposal that's been put forward today uh we do understand that there's some limitations with the state's ability to provide some of the financial aid which of course is crucial and to really capture all of the businesses that are very deserving of this financial assistance right now so we look to you and ask for your commitment in working to ensure that those who don't receive this immediate direct payment right away from the department of revenue due to the fact that they may have multiple locations and you know less ability to get that immediate relief that we really look quickly to those county-based relief programs to assist and we really want to speak with each of you about how we might be able to help in that effort we're certainly concerned about the distressed lodging properties that may not see those initial payments going through the department of revenue and again we know that they would be eligible for the county-based aid program and we know again that there's a dire need for many of these operators that i mentioned earlier that they get also access to this and receive your help in partnership and communicating with the counties to make sure that they are really at the top of the list to be able to be receiving this much needed relief and also understanding there's a few more limitations to the state's ability to track employees aligned with the different restaurant locations and so under this framework we know that some of the operators that have these multiple locations may actually receive less per location than they might have otherwise and so again with the situation with the individual ein numbers we understand that there's a challenge there but if again there's a goal of the program to allow these operators to receive additional relief from their counties we would just ask again that they would be given heightened consideration in this process so thank you very much mr chair committee we appreciate your assistance and let us know how we can be helpful in the process going forward thank you for your testimony i have matt hilgert up next and then kyle odair from rock county thank you mr chair and members good to be with you here today first of all thank you senator pratt sender champions uh their staff and commissioners grove and dodi uh we really appreciate all your work on this it's not easy to negotiate a multi-hundred million dollar relief package especially when we're doing it remotely but what unites us all is the need to do something and to do something now county commissioners across the state are seeing first hand as liz pointed out the impacts their residents their business owners and homeowners are witnessing as the cobot pandemic is continuing into 2021 and we share your goals of providing relief to minnesotans during this time of need members may be fairly asking right now why are counties on this call are in this bill and that is a very good question i suspect one of the reasons that the legislature approached us this past few weeks is that they saw the success that we had in administering the federal cares act dollars especially in regards to the relief funds on business and nonprofit assistance through hard work collaboration and creativity counties work to provide food mortgage rental support along with creating business and non-profit assistance programs from scratch and operating emergency shelter operations this is all of course on top of the local public health efforts that we have been doing from a survey that we just started this week 53 counties responded saying that they had dispersed over 163 million dollars externally into their communities specifically these 53 counties provided more than 8 000 grants to nonprofits and for-profit businesses this aid and thank you to the senate senator rosen and others for in the house for getting these funds out in july has been a lifeline to our businesses our homeowners renters and those in need and we are as counties ready to help out again as senator pratt and others started reaching out to us this week working towards a three-tiered structure of business relief that had a local level of discretion and assistance amc underscored the following two tenants for any successful county administered program first and foremost we've underscored the need for the program to be flexible and this is really to meet the core unique needs of our diverse state that means no minimum or maximum grant amounts flexibility and structuring who can apply as well as documentation requirements an ability to help provide additional relief to entities that may have already received funds and flexibility on timeline and administration timelines the second thing that we underscored was a meaningful amount of dollars so we had mentioned to senator pratt that splitting 30 million or 40 million across 87 counties might result in a menial amount of funds that wouldn't actually be able to good for what the program has been created for i want to pause there and just thank senator pratt and his staff um and others in the house who have been working so hard to meet many of these requests and make sure that whatever program comes out is as as effective as it can be because really what you're asking counties is to be the catch-all um the shortstop uh the folks who are going to be creative and trying to address the needs that liz just um eloquently stated in the previous testimony at first glance and i just want to stress this is my only first take it's been i had to watch the house ways and means hearing but i did get to read the bill a couple times and i have a few pieces of feedback if that's okay with you on lines 4.30 to 4.31 um it says we're in good standing with the department of revenue as of november 1st 2020 counties just want to make sure what does that mean let's be clear about that and who's communicating with us with us on that element is it going to be the businesses are they going to have to prove that will estate agencies get in touch with us to make sure we just want that to be clear and not cause any timeline delays to getting these funds out i want to say thank you very much for lines 5.1 to 5.2 it says

counties can decide uh their business grants based on who were directly or indirectly impacted by the eo we think there's going to be a lot of gray area on folks coming to us for assistance and we are fine operating that gray but we need flexibility and so we really appreciate that strong language it wasn't included in the house's original draft but we think that is very good um i'm a little concerned about lines 5.3 5.4 and 5.5 and i believe that liz mentioned something to this as well and it's really that it says a county shall determine grant recipients in the grant amount awarded per grant the county may award a grant to a business affected by the eo that did not receive a grant under section one or two i just asked that i believe the intent in our conversations were counties having the ability to provide additional grants for folks who might have already received a department of revenue grant the example is a restaurant who had to shut down lost their kegs lost their food ten thousand dollars might be nice from the state but really what they need is twenty five thousand dollars and we want rock county to have the ability to meet their residents where their needs are and to amplify the cash assistance for those folks to stay open and keep local folks employed the other thing in that paragraph is just to be once you become starting to become prescriptive over nonprofits what kind of nonprofits are applicable our counties are going to be risk averse and they're only going to think in context of the nonprofits that you spelled out so we think that it should lines 5.1 to 5.2 are great

and that 5.7 to 5.10 are not necessarily needed the last thing i'll mention um is the auditing and reporting paragraph that's kind of 5.16 to 5.21 we are interested in kind of what it means when it says the commissioner of deed shall audit the use of the funds under the section in accordance with standard accounting practices again our is it going to be clear on what counties are expected to on the front end i know that speed was one of the things that senator pratt has really wanted from us all and we are going to be encouraging our members to get that out the door but we are also going to have to cover our bases for any kind of audit the house we had we preferred their language which was more of a report by the commissioners of deed and dor to say how the money was spent we think that this would facilitate a faster spending by county to get things out and the last thing i would suggest is just and i i've spoken to commissioner doty about this as well is the ability for counties to know which um folks dor issued their checks to and how much that will help us get our process started on which folks in our communities didn't receive funds and we can directly reach out to them and get them funds potentially much quicker than having to have an application period which might last a month or two for transparency's sake so we think that data sharing is critical to counties being creative with their programs and helping those most in need and i will end senator pratt i know that was a lot i apologize but i i want to end just by saying thank you this has been a lot of hours and i know because i've been the recipient of some of your calls later at night and i know that your night ends even later than mine so i appreciate all the work that your team has put into this it's been bipartisan work and we stand with you and ready to be uh of assistance however counties can be so thank you uh mr chair brad yeah and just uh just to mr hilgert's comments before we get the county commissioner on we do have a difference in language right now we wrapped this up very late last night and so we'll be working to align the house and the senate language as we go forward mr hilgren is right we did talk about allowing businesses that did receive a grant through the dor to get additional funds based on number of locations because we had to do it on a per owner basis through the department of revenue so all that will be worked out in the coming days so that we have common language going in on monday all right thanks senator pratt last up we have uh kyle alder from rock county and then after that uh members if you got questions if you want to use the raise hand button to get in line we'll go to that as soon as the commissioner is done and senators thank you so very much for allowing me uh sometimes this afternoon matt really stole almost all my thunder i don't i don't have a lot to add to be honest with you and that's probably a good thing what i will relay though is is a desire for you to to trust us let counties do what we're really good at we're consider us your boots on the ground we can identify those second and third order effects those areas that aren't going to specifically be identified by the state let us get get the helping hand out to those folks and we will meet your speed requirement or exceed your speed requirement in every case um our county for example we're a small county we're a 200 000 recipient i'm grateful very grateful um but those dollars will be out the door uh within 30 30 30 days to 45 days tops and they'll be working and they'll be helping minnesotans and and that's what we're all about um and and i just i just want to tell you it's it's hard to express over a video call how grateful i truly am uh to see to see the senate house come together like this and recognize the need that's out there in this in the incredibly short timeline that you've you've accomplished it i'm grateful i've sat in this chair in the county for a long long time and it's and it's uh a pleasure to watch how this has come together and you're helping the minnesotans out there so if if i can be of any assistance i i certainly would like to do that senator pratt i appreciate uh having a chance to visit with you yesterday and the work you've done is phenomenal thank you so very much um so i uh senators i stand for any questions if you have any for me and and i'll be quiet well thank you very much and i i will say that you know in working with my counties as well the counties have been great partners with the state through covet in general so we appreciate the partnerships you guys have there first on the list i have senator cohen and then senator housley thanks mr schuman um and i would echo some of the comments that uh you know i know sarah pratt and others have worked uh syrian champions worked very hard on this um and it meets a significant need and the only the significant negative is it's too bad as a state government we don't have access to more money we're not the federal government but let me raise a couple of concerns maybe a smaller concern than a larger concern if i might in the second section uh relief grants to convention centers movie theaters now there's probably nobody in the senate who utilizes movie theaters more than me um having said that in terms of ownership uh is there a distinction between the large theater chains in independent theaters for instance uh if you look at the theaters in my district the highland theater and the grand view theater each of which have two screens those are independent theaters owned by their it's a minnesota business through review in south minneapolis is a single screen but the amc in roseville which probably has somewhere 15 to 18 screens that's a national chain so my question relative to that is does that money go to the national chain for uses they might determine as opposed to being of help to minnesotans who are out of work because of covenant senator pratt uh thank you and and uh sarah cohen i'll defer to commissioner grove on this one he's worked more closely with the the movie theaters commissioner grove sorry guys i'm just really good enough mute uh mr chair senator cohen great question um the the question in many ways applies to any sort of franchise business think of your mcdonald's or your burger kings or your red robins or others who have uh you know national uh franchises but local ownership the goal here is to help local ownership and so you take a look at somebody like steve mann who owns man theaters we want to help those theaters survive this time we have local arts organizations which you've been a champion of for your entire career succeed through money in that county bucket the goal is to help local minnesotans who've taken the risk to create jobs in our state and supplied them with the funding they need to try to get through this really difficult time so we're not writing checks to los angeles we're writing checks to minnesotans and that's why having a location in the county is critical such that we're making sure that minnesota business owners and minnesota entrepreneurs benefit from these funds so so mr chairman just to follow up commissioner again my example of the amc in roseville so obviously that's in roseville minnesota it employs minnesotans so does the check for 150 000 go to a minnesota subsidiary of national amc it is our this is why there's a this is why for this particular program i'm sorry mr chair uh senator cohen uh that is why this particular pokemon is being run through a grant program at deeds we can make evaluations on that i don't know enough about the specific roseville theater you're speaking to to walk to that individual use case but we felt this is one where having an our deed team take a look at the individual dynamics of each of these theater groups to ensure the money goes to minnesotans is the intent of the program and you know whereas the the revenue component of this the department of revenue component is a direct payment which we think we can make based on the the nature of those industries that are highlighted in that section you know convention centers and movie theaters have some complexities to them and frankly their financial model is different enough from just a pure sales tax model you got property tax issues etc that uh require further analysis um and so uh and so that is the intent is to pay minnesotans on this and help make sure that they can keep their doors open and get through this time thank you for calling so mr truman if i could go on if that's okay yeah let me let me go to the third section where i do have some so i appreciate commissioner grove's uh comments and and you know just the reference to the pillar theater in roosevelt's dmc theater which again has 15 18 20 screens and so it's a large movie house um but you've suggested that because this is going to be under the jurisdiction of your agency that there'll be some control over where that money goes to make sure it goes to minnesotans um let me raise a different concern though in section three and i've i talked originally to senator pratt about a couple of my concerns we haven't talked since um so listening to the commissioner commissioner olderly and mr hillagar i have no doubt that of 87 counties in minnesota 82 counties or thereabouts some very large percentage will handle this in a responsible way and and i do like the fact that there are businesses that fall out of the category of say the restaurants bars which you know which are significantly impacted as a quick example um i've had conversations with the owner of the dry cleaners i use and that's an independent operation and he has said his business has been clobbered by this business model has changed because it's maybe coming in you know with uh you know business attire to be dry cleaned and so i'm glad that there might be some opportunity uh for the ramsey county board to help out a business like that um what i'm concerned about is in terms of the county grants is anything open uh and i'm not quite sure maybe either the commissioner or consul mr oil fontaine can help me in terms of the executive order as to what's eligible or not but why wouldn't a non-profit political advocacy group be appropriate for money and having said i trust most of the counties i'll tell you a couple of companies i don't trust that regard that would be hennepin and ramsey county um just to name two um you know would you stand would there be the opportunity for grants to those kinds of organizations again i'm not totally familiar with the definition of the executive orders let me start with that commissioner senator cohen uh the county bucket to the points that mr hillgard made was designed to be as flexible as possible to ensure that businesses either affected directly or indirectly by executive order 2099 are eligible and that does include non-profit organizations we want to get that maximum flexibility for counties to target the funding directly the kinds of non-profits and arts and cultural institutions that you know we've discussed in these negotiations are such things as independent music venues or museums or ymcas or ywcas where the sales tax revenue from their sales can't be measured in the way that the department of revenue could administer those grants again directly as payments so that is the intent of of including nonprofits as an available uh an allowable recipient of grants for that county bucket and the flexibility there for counties to make the decision of what makes the most sense in their county based on local knowledge is the intent of the language so mr chairman and commissioner or senator pratt let me ask the question let me just give you a couple of examples um take action minnesota are they eligible for a grant if the ramsey county board decides they've been impacted by covert and they should get a grant i don't know if there is a local office for the national rifle association but if they're in a particular county should that county give them a grant because because it seems to me those aren't the kinds of organizations uh where there's an intent to provide this kind of help and and i'm fearful of counties uh you know given an initial take a mile and end up utilizing this money for things that are far beyond the scope of what's intended as i mentioned i would trust just about any county in the state but i think there are a handful that might take advantage of this for political purposes so is there any protection against that senator pratt senator cohen um if you look at lines 5 7 through 5 10 that's where we're trying to define those as nonprofits that earn revenue similar to businesses including but not limited to ticket sales membership fees that had to cease operations due to executive order 2099. um the the folks that you mentioned in my mind would not qualify under that criteria because they do not have a revenue similar to businesses that are covered above and their operations were not um forced to cease due to the executive order so mr chairman and senator pratt i have no doubt whatsoever that what you say is correct in terms of what your intent but as we know from having been around the legislature for a number of years once we're gone who knows maybe i could direct my question to miss uh doyle fontaine if she's here somewhere on the screen somewhere well there she is um okay so um it was a lot tougher than in committee when you just you know look down the committee there she is um so as bill fontaine let's let's use my example of political advocacy advocacy groups would they be absolutely prohibited from a county giving them a grant they're non-profits can they make an argument they were impacted by covet i don't know maybe um uh mr chair and senator cohen i i think that what what uh senator pratt said with regard to this is this package seems to be very targeted to being impacted by eo 2099 directly or indirectly and i think what you've been saying is by covid and i think there's a bit of a distinction there in all the drafting um it really doesn't even i don't know if it it might mention covet a few times but it's mostly about eo2099 um there was there were a few discussions about political organizations um they're not mentioned but but that sentence also that senator pratt mentioned about nonprofits and ticket sales and memberships that had to cease operations due to executive order 2099 i think speaks to those the types of organizations that were contemplated i would also say in regard to what mr hilgert said about the auditing function i think the counties knowing you know if this is the intent of the legislation that it should not be going to political organizations that that an audit feature and some deed oversight um would be a message to the counties that that's really not contemplated and the door is not wide open to political organizations so that's what i would say about how it's drafted and some of the oversight and whatever the legislative intent is as this moves forward so mr chairman and i should let others get in but uh so mr chairman as doyle fontaine at the risk of cross-examining um is there an absolute prohibition again i can't presume to know the detail of the executive order and what kind of constraints that places on accounting but is there an absolute prohibition uh relative to my hypothetical an absolute prohibition and i understand what you're saying about the oversight of a deed which obviously i trust and the oversight of the state legislature but once the money's out the door it's out the door so is there an absolute prohibition given the definition of the executive order with my hypothetical ms fontaine uh mr and senator cohen i there is not an absolute prohibition but though given the things i mentioned before um and this discussion uh it it is contemplated however if you would like that language included and and the rest of the legislature would like that included then that language could be offered as an amendment or agreed upon by everyone if that if that is the intent and and the will of the committee and the and the bodies yeah so so mr chairman let me just leave it at this and then i'm sorry i was going to say i do not know to the specifics of eo2099 if it mentions anything about about political organizations or activities i uh so i cannot speak to that executive order on on that that i just wanted to add that so mr chairman let me just make another comment so constantly you indicated that you know you can do this by amendment i can't do it by amendment what we know is once we get a session monday there are no amendments um and i i forget i think uh senator raricus something's called i think with senator eric or or i believe who who made a comment on one of the special sessions about you know what happened to conference committees and whatever and i wanted to have to say yeah you're right exactly so we know that once some resolution has been achieved then it's untouchable so if so mr chairman sarah pratt if i've raised a concern that is not absolutely addressed i hope that you'll have language to this draft that will make sure that this is going to the folks both profit and nonprofit that have been impacted in a way of uh of detriment um and hope you'll consider doing something to type the language senator cohen also uh mr hillgart from uh the counties might be able to add some context for you on your question there as well so i'm going to give the floor to him for a second to see if he can help add some context to your question go ahead matt thank you senator according senator cohen i'm trying to jot down notes as you're speaking too because um we obviously don't want the intent to be what you're what you're saying at the same time our members are telling us if you expect us to get a program out in this short amount of time to do the most good uh and be the most impactful we can be we need to you need to trust us to structure our programs and so i i want to i i want to write something that is helpful to what what you're wanting at the same time i don't want us getting into a prescriptive list where the counties want to give money to you know wedding facilities photographers chiropractics nail salons therapists folks who aren't going to be on commissioner grove or commissioner dodie's list and they're going to want flexibility to to hit those businesses so it's i know we're kind of battling between guidelines and uniformity versus um flexibility customization and i think impactfulness and those are the two things that as you you as legislators are having to debate i think mr malik's mother's jump in and maybe come back all right i have senator housley up next mr chair and uh uh thank you senator pratt for all of the work that you and the staff have done i know you've been working around the clock and this is a this is a pretty good bill um in such a short amount of time so so thank you there are so many businesses out there that are hurting and i know i'm not the only one who are getting emails and texts and and facebook messages and phone calls we need help please please please their businesses are hanging on by a thread so any little bit that we can give them uh to help them out is is huge so thank you for putting this together and getting all the stakeholders on board um this is really good um just to senator cohen's point to uh which by the way senator cohen i didn't know you were such a moviegoer uh a happy birthday and i hope you get to see something tonight um in the theater that's not yet open um but anyway um to that uh the non-profit i don't know if there needs to be clarification there or not because i i um agree that there should be some sort of oversight but give counties the flexibility uh but in that non-profit um we've got we've got chambers of commerce throughout the state each little community has their own chamber and they've really been hurt um with you know less than half their membership fees uh and they're not able to have any events to get money um they had ticket sales would they be included are we going to let the counties decide that on their own and i don't know if that goes to maybe that's matt or or commissioner grove team mata muted do you want to touch on that first and then if commissioner grove wants to add on to he's certainly welcome to senator icon and senator housley the way that i read the sentence language right now that would be a county by county decision based on the impact to covet but what's nice about that too senator housley is rather than being prescriptive and potentially having counties just give standard uniform checks of five thousand dollars to each um nonprofit that might may or may not be helpful the local counties would be able to determine impact their need and maybe even customize the amount of level of support to each of those nonprofits depending on if the anoka chamber was less hurt then let's say the red uh red lake county uh chamber was hurt so i think you're gonna see a different level of customization across the state great thank you you know i i would say senator housley that um and this is you know this is the position that i come from and we can we can continue to clarify it but um we do want that we would not be here talking about this this this business relief program if it weren't for executive order 2099. and so as as much as we can i'd like to keep the focus on that executive order but understanding um there are businesses not directly impacted by the or identified within the executive order that have been impacted as you said um if there's a cleaning company that's cleaning the local restaurants or fitness center they have been impacted if we have a trucking company that's that has to bring supplies or inventory to a business let's say an event center they have been directly impacted um so those are those are why we were a little bit vague um in the in the description and allowing the counties to kind of determine how well they they fit that description but i've had the same conversation with my chambers of commerce as well again the focus of this package is to keep plywood out of the windows and keep these businesses from from going dark forever rather than helping to make up losses mr chair senator housley thank you thank you mr chair uh to that point um and and when senator cohen was saying you know not having it go to political organizations there are there are some chambers throughout the state that have pacs or lobbyists um wondering if if that in the criteria or again do we just leave that to the counties to decide and they can decide if they want to give it to a chamber that has a packer of a lobbyist just curious just throwing it out there come on man that was my question senator housley that was my question too um senator icorn or chair icorn center housely my question when senator cohen was going over kind of his concerns was how would counties and they're trying to get this out to folks as quickly as possible how are they going to assess what's political and what's not political and is there a clear list of that does deed have that list does dor have that list i don't know that anyone has that list so i think it would be um complicated thank you thank you all right i have senator drayheim up next thanks chair and and uh thank you uh senator pratt and everybody else that worked on this bill it's much needed um so i do appreciate it i had a couple questions um one on line 1.19

physical presence um i don't know if council or or someone can you know what what is that defined as miss fontaine you're on mute stolen uh i'm sorry mr chair and senator drake i'm a physical presence um in this sense it really i believe the intent of this language was more of a a bricks and mortar presence in in the state of minnesota in the business the previous business grants program we had it was similar language where um you you needed to have a physical presence and have um more of a bricks and mortar type of of situation in it down in the county program it says must be located in in the county applicable county which gives it a little more um flexibility as far as if a business is coming in to conduct services in the county maybe they're located in a different county um but i i believe that was what was part of the negotiation if someone else could correct me if i'm wrong on on that as far as physical presence sergey heim i in my mind this goes directly to the executive order where certain places of public accommodation are closed to members of the public and that's where we list out the restaurants food courts cafes fitness centers the whole bit and to make sure that since it's these brick and mortar businesses that have been most impacted that the checks that go out from the department of revenue go to those brick and mortar businesses first the cleaning company that maybe runs two vans and doesn't have a specific office space is more is is probably a better example of a company that would go through the county uh versus say your your restaurant or your local gym um or or you know any of the other uh local businesses that have been hurt uh another one we contemplated was uh vfws and legions they're coded as non-profits on the department of revenues sheet but we know that they have restaurants and bars that have been gravely impacted and they would certainly qualify under the county programs as well so really focusing on those brick and mortar businesses for the fastest process um and then just to say that the 30 drop in sales was meant to exclude um maybe some of the fast food franchisees who aren't seeing the same type of impact as our sit-down and limited order or limited service restaurants thank you and if i could follow up here thank you so and then my next question has to do with the uh event or the centers um i call them convention center i guess that's what the words used here a definition in the capacity that is used here um mr chair senator drayheim i i heard there was a concern about the terminology of capacity and there is not a definition in this language but um when i look out at when i think about capacity it's not necessarily how many seats there are like in a convention center but i would think of it more as a fire marshal what the code what they would allow for maximum occupancy and that if if that needs to get clarified um we can certainly do that but the 1500 capacity so for example in some of the executive orders like a restaurant can only operate at 50 capacity the way that that was calculated as far as i know under some of the eo limitations was using the um the fire marshal the fire code occupancy load so for right now i would say that that's kind of what the capacity is in my mind i can certainly put that in we can add that language and i don't know if um revenue or deed had a different idea about that but that was just what i was thinking for now and and they kind of came to us with the 1500 capacity and um so maybe maybe they have more information about that well that that would be helpful because i i i don't know you know i assumed it was the fire code on that but and then my uh senator dray last comment if i if you if commissioner grove might be able to to answer he unmuted and raised his hand quick so he might be able to touch on exactly what you were just asking miss fontaine yeah mr chair senator it's a great question the 1500 is the number of seats that a convention center can hold right the number of folks that can come in uh and engage and you know we think that there's around 10 in the state that meet that 1500 and above cut off the thought here is that these convention centers you know they are big regional economic development drivers and the state can reasonably issue a program to that end there are a lot of events centers and venues that also need help we know that and we know the counties will spend a lot of their money on those venues but for these big kind of statewide venues many in greater minnesota many in the metro we think that that deed can do a quick and efficient program to get money to them and we know kind of the outsized impact they play in the regional economy those areas so that was a reason that the legislature and uh the governor agreed to do that um but we know there are convention centers who don't meet that threshold will who can get money from the counties um and the same goes for other types of venues senator graham thank you commissioner and thank you chair and commissioner um you know i guess my point being that i own a convention center event center as i call it and and we've we have a thousand people and uh you know for the community that it's located in it's a huge economic driver um and it's all relative you know so you're drafting the bill to help out the metropolitan areas and not the rural areas um so i i have a real problem with that and i've just got discussed that with the author um and and my other big problem with the bill is the hotels lack of help from hotels and uh some of the hotel owners in my district have contacted me and their capacity um is wide open um you know some nights they're getting one or two people and uh let's see which hospitality minnesota one of the handouts that we were given this afternoon right before the hearing it says 600 of the minnesota's 1 000 hotels will face foreclosure in the next six months and there's absolutely nothing in here for them um you know i i i have a large building they have a large building um you know it's you know my overheads fixed overheads over 10 grand a month and i've been shut down for at least six months this year and effectively shut down the rest of the three months i guess uh since cloaking uh with the limited capacity and it's just frustrating that uh you know we're carved out of a bill um that does help a lot of people i get that and and i know we have that section three in this bill that goes to the counties and um you know my issue there is that um i don't think the counties have have the personnel um or or the application that i have seen in a couple different counties that i operate in different businesses um the applications are real simple which i like um but if you're trying to be equitable on uh handing out grants um you know if you have a uh a very small coffee shop with an example that we used earlier um compared to a hotel or an event center in my case uh you have the same application there's no way for that county to know uh what your economic impact is um so i i do think there needs to be more um guide rails on the county portion and and maybe we could hear um from one of the county uh people on uh on their thoughts on that and i know they want the flexibility and i can appreciate the flexibility but but maybe at least if there was an application requirement um you know overhead you know what property taxes or rent paid utilities paid whatever um to give the people at the county an idea of what the base need is um and if they've been shut down 100 or just limited in capacity thank you uh mr hilger from the counties do you want to respond sure and then i think uh kyle might have some insight too because he's operated a program himself but i would say to senator drayheim um i'm sorry if that was not your experience in the first round of the cares funding which counties administered i think you have three counties that you that you have in your jurisdiction i do know several counties that use the impact-based decision so they asked for loss they asked for impact they asked if other if your entity had received other funds either state or federal assistance they set up commissions with city council members and economic developers and even business communities that were involved in helping vet some of these application periods but i also know that some counties and elected county commissioners prioritize speed and when they saw that on an application they had set aside five million dollars and they had way above the amount of applications that they were expecting they said rather than disappointing folks and giving less where we think the equity is important so i do i i'm not disagreeing with anything that you're saying i'm just saying that uh what we kind of witnessed through cares i suspect that that is kind of how you will see a layered approach throughout the state again and kyle did you want to mention anything on kind of how you ran your program uh mr insurance mr chairman senators um certainly matt's hit it right on the head we had about a million one initially given to us back in july and we put eight hundred thousand of it in businesses um we had 160 grants that we were we did five thousand dollar grants because it was it was a matter of the demand versus the supply if you run ag programs you know once the money runs out the money runs out we saw a lot of metro counties were able to do 10 and 15 000 grants i don't know if they were putting some county dollars in or how they did that but we went with trying to get dollars to as many folks as we could i know the city of laverne used their dollars in a similar manner with what they did with utility relief so it was i i certainly feel what you're saying senator and as a matter of fact doing the stubby math while you were talking we have a convention center in la verne that seats about 600. if you do 500 000 to a 1500 seat that's 333 dollars per chair if we did the equivalent rock county that'd be 199 000 my grants 200 000 so they would be the only recipient locally it makes it virtually impossible to do it i i feel what you're saying senator but i also recognize that you've had a a tremendous task with trying to figure out a way how to get these dollars out to us i apologize if i didn't answer the question all i can say is i i certainly feel what you're saying and it and i wish i had a better answer senator drahan no i i appreciate the response and and i know uh you know we can't please everybody um you know i'm i'm more worried about the hotels than i am my own business um you know i i having a kid in hockey uh and traveling throughout the whole state um you know from laverne the thief river falls the rochester to wherever uh getting a hockey or getting the rooms for hockey tournaments sometimes a challenge and uh you know i i do think it's an economic engine for the local communities that these hotels are um and i just think we're being a little short-sighted uh by not trying to give them some relief so thank you thanks senator draham i have uh senator goggin up next okay thank you chair uh can you hear me okay yep we can hear you just fine okay thank you um i want to go back to the non-profits uh because i received an email from my local ymca regarding the fact that they they had a child that tested positive for covet so then they were shut down for two weeks are they would that qualify them to apply for grants under this legislation was that the senator proud to answer that or was that to counsel like to senator pratt or or ms fontaine um i'm just trying to get an idea if they could say that you know because they're they're helping out the front line workers with the clinic and and uh all that and you know can they can they get help with those two weeks that they were forced to be shut down so senator gagan if if i recall correctly we have uh through the cares money uh funds going to child care centers like like you described already this was meant for uh really those those portions of the business of of the y mainly the fitness center um that had to shut down and and isn't being subsidized by existing uh by existing funding so it's it's hard it's kind of hard to say when you're talking about a y who runs so many programs within um within one building and you know that's where i think the counties would have to look and say is this has this been impacted by the latest executive order thank you any additional senator goggin uh no mr chair i'm good thank you so much senator isakson thank you again i apologize i have a double booked at three o'clock and so i want to get back and if you covered this i'm really sorry about that if you could just give me a quick answer but uh when we did the last one you and senator anderson put out that was 62 million dollars obviously that was a limited amount of money and i'm just wondering when you are thinking about like how we arrived at the 102 million i think that's what i read in the bill um do we have a sense of how much it would take like and this might be just an astronomical number if we were to really double down on keeping as many people whole as possible or trying to provide as small of a negative impact as possible by providing more money if we were to do that just as a sense like how did you come up with 102 you know is it just like you could never do enough money if you really wanted to make all these businesses whole if we wanted to like we wanted to include what senator was talking about do we have a ceiling on like what that would look like did anybody run a some numbers on that just to get an idea of what it would take to keep as many of the businesses whole as possible because i assume that 102 will run out before march and so and that there will still be businesses that need it and i know a couple of businesses that i knew if i needed it didn't get it this last time and so i'm just wondering what that looks like and what that top looks like if we were to you know hypothetically examine that do we have an answer for that senator pratt um this might be a better question for commissioner grove since i know he's got the he's got the data on number of businesses impacted by directly impacted by executive order 2099 in each county but let me let me take just maybe a little bit um let me take a high-level approach to this and maybe let the commissioner uh fill in the gaps or correct my errors um the uh the idea sarah isaacson is that we would try to catch as many of those businesses through the department of revenue process get those checks out to the restaurants and fitness centers and and dance studios and you know all these people that have directly been shut down um you know we're hoping that we we kind of hit that that spot um we've talked to hospitality minnesota certainly they would have liked to have seen bigger checks go out sure um and even though we we have a 640 million dollar surplus this biennium we know that every dollar we're spending potentially adds a dollar of deficit to the 1.2 billion dollar deficit we're facing next budget cycle which will start to have a real impact on health care and senator housley i know is extremely interested in long-term care facilities and child care it will have a direct impact on our schools it will have a direct impact on our higher education it will have a high it would a direct impact on what we can do in this committee for workforce development um and so we we wanted to try to balance being substantial in getting that out as well as balancing but but not just not just uh is kind of spending it now and and paying for it later but but hopefully balancing out what that uh what that impact might be can i just comment on that before you go to the next yeah that's okay mr chair uh senator isaacson thank you so and i i hear that and you're i'm not disagreeing i'm like trying to understand let's see the scope of it right uh my thought would be that when we look at uh keeping the economy going and providing for these it has a double positive effect because then it keeps the jobs there which keeps

2020-12-21 04:15

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