NEW ULM — State Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, and Rep. Paul Torkelson R-Hanska, talked with Brown County commissioners Tuesday about what they expect to deal with in upcoming 2024 Legislative session.

“We’re hearing a lot about assisted suicide,” said Dahms.

“It’s high on the list but doesn’t appear to have the Senate votes. We’re also hearing about dedicated agency funding for what they spent last year plus inflation. That would be create automatic tax increases every two years,” he added.

“It’s going to be an exciting session. I think it’ll be as fast paced as 2023. Last year it was about money. This year, policy,” Dahms said.

Torkelson said the marijuana bill is in need of work.

“It’s really up in the air, unclear,” he said.

“A couple issues I hope they deal with are emergency medical services (EMS) and day care with great needs in rural Minnesota. We will find out if there is money available when the federal forecast comes. The governor may propose some form of supplemental budget,” Torkelson said.

He said incorporating inflation into the budget is an important point.

“It’s my understanding that if they do that, especially in the second year of the biennium, most of any surplus would disappear,” he said.

Torkelson encouraged people to vote in the presidential primary which is now going on and in all future voting opportunities.

“There are a lot of ways to vote these days,” he added.

Commissioner Scott Windschitl said mental health issues that need work include jails holding people without treatment.

“It’s doing no one any good. People with mental health issues don’t belong there. They need mental health treatment and they’re not getting it,” Windschitl said.

Rural emergency medical services attention too.

Commissioner Dave Borchert said the EMS Task Force is extremely important for rural areas.

“I’m on the South Central EMS board. We’re trying to assist rural EMS services that can’t staff their 24-hour operation. Some older people don’t resign because there’s nobody else to do the job, but they can’t physically do it. What may work in one city may be different in another. It’s part of quality of life and safety,” Borchert said.

Day care was discussed at length.

Dahms said the current day care system “doesn’t work and is not in tune with the times.”

“A task force is now meeting to reform rules and regulations and come up with solutions and regulation decisions to be made in 2025 and implemented in 2026. The problem we have is a two-year gap. We’re seeing more day cares closing, mostly due to rules and regulations,” said Dahms.

“Paul and I are meeting with people to try to get a temporary fix before the new rules and regulations come. We’ll continue to work on it,” Dahms added.

Commissioner Tony Berg mentioned excessive mandated public notice for drainage.

“Somebody that wants to improve a ditch gets a lot of push back from environmental groups. It’s causing very expensive bonds. It can stop people that want ditch improvements,” Commissioner Berg said.

Commissioner Brian Braun thanked Torkelson and his office for recent humanitarian efforts for a Brown County resident who was denied surgery by an insurance company and appealed it through the Minnesota Department of Commerce and was recently granted insurance coverage for the surgery.

Commissioner Braun thanked Dahms and Torkelson for their continued support of Border-to- Border internet that would speed up his rural internet download service by ten times.

Dahms said rural broadband improvements are strongly supported by both sides of the aisle.

“There has been a lot of money put into broadband the last five years and there will continue to be a lot of money put into it. There will be a lot of technology changes by 2026, so there will be new hurdles to meet,” said Dahms.

Automatic budget increases were not favored by anybody.

Commissioner Windschitl said he was glad to hear Dahms and Torkelson oppose automatic budget increases.

“What’s pushing that is a big move to transfer wealth. Once you get everything locked in. It’s an automatic tax increase,” said Dahms.

Brown County Veteran’s Service Officer Greg Peterson presented a letter to legislators citing three initiatives the Minnesota Association of County Veterans Service Officers favors:

• Modifying MS 197.75 (Educational Assistance; Surviving Children and Spouses; Veterans) allowing spouses and children of living veterans with significant disabilities to attend higher education.

• Allowing Veterans service posts that are 501c4 (social welfare) and 501c19 (Veterans Organizations) to receive property tax exemptions, the same as 501c3’s.

• Allow counties to appropriate funding for Veteran’s Day activities, as they do for Memorial Day, which allows the County to provide $300 to each Veterans service post.