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Minnesota House Ways and Means Committee refers public-safety bill with $12 million for victim services
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Summary
On April 23, 2026, the Minnesota House Ways and Means Committee referred House File 1082 as amended to the general register after adopting two amendments. The bill includes a one-time $12,000,000 appropriation for victim services, new task forces and grants for investigating nonfatal shootings, and adjustments to law enforcement training funding.
Representative Mueller presented House File 1082 to the Minnesota House Ways and Means Committee on April 23, 2026, saying the bill "provides, for victims of crime" and includes "$12,000,000 1 time appropriation for victim services." The committee adopted two amendments (A15 and A16) before voting to refer the bill to the general register by voice vote.
The A15 amendment combined provisions from two separate bills to expand eligibility for certain benefits to firefighters and other first responders killed in the line of duty, adding cancer and other conditions, according to Representative Mueller. Representative Novotny explained A16 as a fiscally corrective measure on the fiscal note: "the Office of Higher Education indicated that if we made a statutory change... they would come up with a 0 fiscal note," and the A16 changes award language so payouts would be limited to available sources if funds run out.
Mueller told the committee the one-time $12 million is intended to shore up victim services that have seen decreasing federal dollars, fines and fees over the past decade — services that include domestic-violence shelters, sexual-assault advocates and child-abuse centers. "I believe the number is, 20% cuts to these services if we don't do this this year," Mueller said, pressing urgency for the appropriation.
The bill also includes provisions the sponsor described as law-enforcement priorities: funding for training through the Philando Castile fund to close a prior shortfall (the fund previously requested $12 million for the biennium and was funded at about $10 million), penalties tied to specific criminal conduct, a domestic-violence task force carried as a separate bill, grants to support investigative work on nonfatal shootings modeled after Saint Paul's approach, and a Department of Corrections contracting reform intended to align practices with recommendations in a legislative-auditor report.
Committee members praised the bipartisan work on the package. After discussion, Representative Mueller renewed her motion that House File 1082 as amended be referred to the general register; the committee approved the motion by voice vote. No roll-call tallies were recorded in the transcript.
The referral means the bill will move to the next stage of House consideration on the general register.
