Minn. lawmakers probe fiscal-note process after paid-family-leave estimates shift

Members of the Minnesota House Ways and Means Committee spent a session reviewing how fiscal notes are produced after contested fiscal estimates for the state—s paid family and medical leave program changed between the 2023 enactment and analyses prepared in 2024.

The committee heard a detailed presentation from Legislative Budget Office Director Christian Larsen, who used the paid-leave law (Laws of Minnesota 2023, ch. 59) and House File 5363 as a case study to explain why setting a consistent baseline, documenting agency assumption changes and clarifying when actuarial estimates are used matters for accurate, timely fiscal notes.

Director Christian Larsen, director of the Legislative Budget Office, told the committee the office concluded the October 2023 actuarial analysis was the most appropriate baseline for 2024 fiscal notes because it was the most recent, consistent estimate available and because the 2024 fiscal notes relied on updated actuarial work by Milliman. "If you have a consistent methodology between those two ways of measuring, then you're really measuring the changes," Larsen said. He also described three principal problems that complicated the 2024 paid-leave fiscal notes: an unclear baseline, a post-enactment refinement in DEED—s interpretation of a seven-day qualifying period, and DEED—s use of permissive authority to adjust the first-year premium rate.

Larsen summarized the second problem this way: the October actuarial work and later DEED interpretations treated the first…