House committee adopts amendment requiring legislative funding for nursing-home mandates; HF500 re-referred to labor committee

The Minnesota House Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on March 3 adopted an amendment (DE2) to House File 500 that bars nursing-home workforce standards from taking effect unless the Legislature first estimates each facility’s cost and fully pays that expense.

Representative Zalesnikar, the bill author and a retired nursing-home administrator who testified she has worked as a CNA and as an administrator, described House File 500 as an “insurance policy” to ensure legislative oversight and funding for mandates that providers say would otherwise threaten facility viability. The committee adopted the DE2 amendment by voice vote and later re‑referred House File 500, as amended, to the Committee on Labor and Economic Development, Finance and Policy after a roll-call motion, 9 ayes to 7 nays.

Representative Schumacher had earlier laid over House File 1419, a separate bill that would fund the workforce-board mandates and add annual updates to elderly-waiver rates; testimony at the March 3 hearing included supporters of that approach and proponents of HF500’s…