Heintzeman: End of session review, part 2

Friends and neighbors,

Last week I sent out the first part of my end-of-session review, covering the fight to protect your gun rights, nuclear energy, and a significant minerals tax update for northern Minnesota. If you missed it, you can catch up here: https://www.mnsenaterepublicans.com/heintzeman-end-of-session-review-part-1/

There was too much to fit into one email, so today I want to walk through a few more issues from this past session that I think you should know about.

Fraud: We made significant progress on fraud, something Republicans have been warning about for years while Democrats dismissed concerns, ignored their responsibility, and even retaliated against whistleblowers. This session we created a statewide INDEPENDENT Office of Inspector General with its own law enforcement authority to root out fraud across state agencies. We passed a 100% tax on fraud criminals, so that every dollar stolen from taxpayers can be recovered and returned to you as income tax relief. We strengthened whistleblower protections and added mandatory transparency reports that should have been in place long ago. None of this fixes a decade of neglect by consecutive Democrat governors and their administrations, but these are important steps in the right direction.

On the topic of fraud, the U.S. House Oversight Committee released a report confirming that Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison knew about the fraud as early as 2019 and let it continue anyway. The state had the authority to cut off payments to suspected fraudsters on its own, with no court order required, but chose not to. State employees who tried to sound the alarm were pressured into silence. The committee estimates the total damage at $300 million in stolen child nutrition funds and up to $9 billion in Medicaid money stolen across at risk programs. It is long, but I strongly encourage everyone to read the report. 

Seasonal recreational property adjustment to help local schools: Minnesota funds its public schools partly based on property taxes. Each school district raises some of its own money by taxing the property inside its borders. Some school districts in Minnesota, especially in northern Minnesota, have a lot of cabins and vacation homes inside their borders. Those properties are worth a lot of money on paper, which makes the district look "wealthy" on paper too. The state uses that apparent wealth to decide how much extra state money to send each district. Wealthier-looking districts get less state help.

The issue is the families who own those recreational properties usually don't live in those school districts. Their kids don't attend school there, but the property still makes the district look rich, so the state provides less money, even though the local kids and families aren't wealthy at all.

This year we passed a fix for this called the "Seasonal Recreation Property Adjustment". When calculating how much state funding a school district deserves, we will no longer count vacation and seasonal properties the same way we count permanent homes and businesses. The end result is a much fairer distribution for northern Minnesota school districts.

Constitutional amendment to help local schools: Minnesota has a pot of money for schools called the Permanent School Fund. It has existed since before statehood, and the money comes from years of proceeds the state made selling land, timber, and minerals. Right now, schools can only receive up to 2.5% of that fund's value each year. This fall, election ballots will include a Constitutional Amendment asking voters whether to raise that annual payout from 2.5% to 4.5%. As of early 2025, there was about $2.2 billion in the fund.

I supported putting this question on the ballot, and I’ll vote for it in November. It will provide more money to schools without raising taxes or touching the state's general fund. In some school districts, the extra funding might mean the difference between keeping a teacher or cutting one, making critical repairs, and more. A lot of districts are struggling with their budgets because of Democrat mandates; this will be a much needed boost.

Unemployment extension for laid off miners: About 45 workers were laid off from Hibbing Taconite at the start of February 2026, coming roughly a year after more than 600 Iron Range workers were laid off when Cleveland-Cliffs idled operations at Hibbing Taconite and Minorca Mine. In this year’s Environment and Natural Resources bill we included a second extension of unemployment benefits for these laid off miners. This extension bridges the gap before miners on the Iron Range are forced to sell their homes, move away, or God forbid, leave the state permanently.

Finally, a temporary newsletter pause:  In election years, Senate policy prohibits us from sending out official “mass mailings of newsletters, questionnaires, legislative reports, or letters of congratulations” more than 60 days after adjournment sine die. Therefore after July 17, my office will not send electronic newsletters until January. However, constituents should still feel free to contact my office with issues or concerns during that period.

As always, if you have questions about any issue I didn’t cover here, or ideas for the future, please reach out any time. It is my privilege to serve you in the Senate!

Senator Keri Heintzeman