Southwest Minnesota legislators hear concerns about paid leave program, park transfer

GRANITE FALLS

— Like the ghosts of Christmas past, the bills of the prior legislative session dogged two southwestern Minnesota legislators as they heard from constituents in preparation for the upcoming 2024 session.

State Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, and Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, hosted a town hall meeting Thursday in Granite Falls where they heard constituent concerns about the impact of Minnesota Paid Leave legislation on rural businesses and about the process of finding replacement recreational value for the loss of the Upper Sioux Agency State Park.

Scott Van Binsbergen, of Van Binsbergen & Associates property management in Montevideo, said, “It’s a huge concern,” referring to the new Paid Leave program.

Paid Leave launches Jan. 1, 2026, to provide both family leave and medical leave, funded by shared premiums between employer and employee. According to the

Paid Leave summary

on the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development website, the program provides paid time off when a serious health condition prevents a person from working, when time is needed to care for a family member or a new child, for certain military-related events or for certain personal safety issues.

Van Binsbergen expressed concerns about finding temporary replacement workers and said that many employees will be taking lengthy leaves as a result of the legislation. It’s already a problem retaining people, he told the legislators.

Kevin Wald, of SpecSys, also joined in voicing his concerns. He said his engineering and manufacturing company will manage the added costs he attributes to last year’s session, and added that he would not be moving any of his company’s 300 Minnesota jobs out-of-state.

“We can get through what they did this year,” said Wald, but warned about the impact of a continued move to increase costs on businesses.

He argued that the Republican Party needs to put pragmatic politics over principles and regain the outer suburbs so that it can win a majority status in either the House or Senate.

“Fact of the matter is, these are ruby red districts out here. We could run a German shepherd out here and get him elected. He can bark just as loud as you. It does us no good,” said a frustrated Wald about the minority party status of the local legislators.

Both legislators said there are a lot of problems with the Paid Leave legislation, and they believe a corrections bill may address some of them at the start of the session. But Swedzinski noted that with DFL control of both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office, the ability of Republican lawmakers to address the concerns is limited.

The lawmakers cited their own concerns about the increases in state government operations and the spending of the $17.5 billion surplus that existed when the last session began. Voicing his own frustration about state spending, Swedzinski quoted the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”

Other attendees at the town hall meeting cited concerns about the process and the funding allocated for finding

replacement recreational value for the Upper Sioux Agency State Park.

Both legislators voted against the legislation authored by Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-Brighton, and Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, requiring the transfer of the 1,300-acre park to the Upper Sioux Community.

The Department of Natural Resources must submit a report to legislators on the barriers to the transfer in January 2024.

Dahms said the local legislators were not informed about the legislation. “It was done in a very unfortunate way,” he said.

He said there is a $5.5 million funding appropriation for replacing the recreational value being lost. The DNR has indicated that $4.5 million of the amount would be available for purchasing property or improving amenities on other public lands.

The Friends for the Upper Sioux Agency State Park provided the legislators with a letter describing a request for $30 million or more to replace the loss of a staffed and operating 1,300-acre park.

The legislators voiced doubts about their ability to submit new legislation to address the replacement value process or funding. If local citizens could identify land to purchase, they would seek funding for it, they said. They urged the local community to contact Gov. Tim Walz and DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen to address their concerns.