Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Home Care Worker Contract topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee lays over bill to fund SEIU home-care contract stipends and rate increases
Summary
House File 2367 (author Representative Jennifer Nadeau) would fund negotiated rate increases and one-time stipends for SEIU-represented home-care workers and extend similar increases to other provider classes; committee laid the bill over for inclusion in tax/omnibus discussions.
Representative Jennifer Nadeau presented House File 2367 to the House Taxes Committee on April 9 to carry the tax-related provisions of a statewide contract agreement between SEIU Minnesota and Wisconsin and the state.
Nadeau said the bill funds the compensation elements of the settlement covering more than 38,000 workers across four home-care programs, including PCA Choice, Community First Services and Supports (CFSS) budget-model workers, and consumer-directed community-support workers. The sponsor told the committee the package "invests $70,000,000 this biennium to fund the proposed contract agreement for SEIU home care workers," and that roughly $30,000,000 of that figure is one-time money intended to offset healthcare costs and support enhanced training.
Under the contract provisions described in the hearing, experienced workers in certain programs would receive annual wage increases and all workers would be eligible for one-time stipends: $1,200 per worker to defray out-of-pocket health-care costs (available in FY 2026 and FY 2027, per testimony) and a $750 stipend tied to completion of designated voluntary training. The testimony emphasized that stipends are not to be treated as income for certain means-tested public benefits and would be excluded from eligibility calculations for programs such as childcare assistance, general assistance and MFIP. Representative Nadeau also described an appropriation for administrative costs to the Department of Human Services to implement the stipend program.
Committee members had no substantive policy questions on the taxes portion and the committee laid HF2367 over for possible inclusion in the 2025 taxes omnibus bill; policy and programmatic provisions will continue to work through Human Services and other relevant committees per standard practice.
