Virtual File - Item

Text: May 30, 2017

The Honorable Kurt Daudt
Speaker of the House
State Office Building, Room 463
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155

Dear Speaker Daudt:

On the advice of my General Counsel, to ensure there are no legal challenges, I am
signing Chapter 95, House File 470.

I believe funding Public Safety is not an optional matter and must be done to keep
Minnesotans safe. As my Commissioners have stated routinely, there were no bells and whistles
in my original budget. Every request was a need. Some of them, you approved:
• $38 million for The Department of Corrections (DOC) Employee Compensation:
This funding will allow Commissioner Roy to maintain 200-250 positions and avoid
layoffs.
• $4.3 million for food and utilities operating costs at DOC:
This funding will go towards the State's statutory obligation to feed and house
offenders in. Minnesota's correctional facilities.
• $11.4 million for offender health care:
This is another obligation of the state and is crucial to keeping offenders and staff in
facilities healthy. This also helps address the rising costs of Hepatitis C, which is
rising at alarming rate in facilities.
• $1.1 million for the enforcement of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA)
This funding will ensure DOC complies with the federal PREA regulations. Failure
to comply could have resulted in financial penalties and ineligibility for certain
federal funds.
• $6.4 million for Community services:
Allowing the DOC.to pass· through additional funding to counties to provided
community supervision.
• $6.4 million for the Department of Public Safety's (DPS) operational support:
Without this funding, DPS would not be able to maintain current levels of service to
local communities and Minnesotans ranging from suppo1ting crime victims to
assisting with natural disasters or violent crimes.
• $4.1 million for a replacement system for Predatory Offender Registry (P OR):
This system holds more than 31,000 records on predatory offenders. A new system
will provide more reliable, timely and accurate data to make the POR system more
easily integrated with other systems.
• $1.4 million for more investigations staff at the Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension (BCA):
Although this is not my full request, this funding is a start to allowing the BCA
Investigations Division to provide investigative assistance to criminal justice
agencies statewide.
• $300,000 for BCA Drug Chemistry Staff:
This funding will decrease the turnaround times at the drug chemistry lab and the
investment will increase public safety by providing evidence for cases to move more
quickly.
• $12 million for Police Training:
This funding aligns with the recommendations of the Governor's Council on Law
Enforcement and Community Relations and provides training for law enforcement
officers across the state on de-escalation and crisis intervention training.
• Additional funding for the courts:
The amount funded is not the full courts ask, put allows them to maintain a well-functioning
court system.

I appreciate the work of the legislature and leaders. However, I am disappointed that the
followi11g items initiatives that I believe to be very important were not funded:

•$3.1 million for Mental Health Services and $3.7 million for restrictive housing
reform at DOC: With this funding, DOC would have peen able to increase their
mental health programming, counseling and cognitive skills development. This is
extremely necessary as DOC has seen a 20% increase in the number of offenders
with a mental illness.
$6 million for DOC Security Staffing and Security Systems Upgrades:
Adequate security coverage is paramount to operating a safe and secure prison. This
funding would have hired additional correctional officers and updated or replaced
security systems.
$2 million for additional Medical and Nursing at DOC facilities:
Funding for medical and nursing services would have increased on-site clinical
services, mitigate ove1time, accommodate the medical needs of offenders in special
programming and expand 24/7 nursing services at one additional correctional facility.
$3.5 million for offender case management at DOC:
This funding would have increased the provision of integrated case management
services that are effective in reducing recidivism for high risk offenders.
$200,000 for a Drug Monitoring Analyst at the BCA:
This investment would have further supported public safety partners with addressing
the growing opioid epidemic.
$20 million for the Disaster Contingency Account:
Because there was no immediate resources into the Disaster Contingency Account,
local governments will have to wait until a special session is called to approve
emergency funding during a natural disaster.

Finally, there is one policy provision that I am particularly disappointed in: the DPS
rulemaking prohibition. As I have said continuously, this provision is not necessary as DPS does
not have the authority to engage in rulemaking. I still strongly support any legislation that gives
DPS express authority to engage in rulemaking to create a path for Driver's Licenses for Ail. It is
my hope that the legislature will look at this issue on its own and work to pass a bill. This is a
public safety issue that needs to be addressed and has broad support.

In closing, I again thank you for funding the core operations of my agencies and hope
that we can revisit some of my other funding requests in the future.

Sincerely,
Mark Dayton
Governor

cc: Senator Michelle L. Fischbach, President of the Senate
Senator Paul E. Gazelka, Senate Majority Leader
Senator Thomas M. Bakk, Senate Minority,Leader
Senator Scott J. Newman, Minnesota Senate
Representative Melissa Hortman, House Minority Leader
Representative Paul Torkelson, House of Representatives
The Honorable Steve Simon, Secretary of State
Mr. Cal R. Ludeman, Secretary of the Senate
Mr. Patrick Murphy, Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives
Mr. Paul Marinac, Revisor of Statutes