Today, Senate Republicans passed legislation to stop devastating tax increases on small businesses and provide meaningful bonuses to frontline workers. The legislationresolves the differences between the Senate and House on repaying and refilling the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund and providing bonuses to workers who worked the frontline during the COVID pandemic.

Senate Republicans had initially passed the compromise language on the UI Trust Fund portion of the bill all the way back on February 15.

“Minnesota businesses were told at the start of the pandemic that we would not punish them for dipping into this fund to keep workers on the payroll,” Sen. Bill Weber (R-Luverne) said. “Yet despite our promise, our small businesses found themselves fronting the bill and facing daunting business crippling unemployment insurance premiums. We led the effort at the start of the session to fix that, and I’m happy today to see that we are finally fulfilling our promise to make UI whole and preserve a critical employee benefit.”

The agreement means $2.7 billion will be used to pay off the loan from the federal government and refill the UI fund to its necessary balance using primarily federal funds. As part of the agreement, $500 million from the surplus will go to frontline workers most at risk during the COVID pandemic. As the Senate proposed two weeks ago, the House DFL will choose which workers will get bonuses.

“This legislation also secures meaningful relief for Minnesota workers who willingly stood on the front lines and took the biggest risk during the pandemic,” Senator Bill Weber continued.  “Our nurses, first responders, correction officers, and long-term care workers didn’t have the option to work from home. They needed to show up every day. These bonuses allow us to recognize these heroes.”

The agreement spends the remaining federal ARPA funds available to Minnesota for COVID, which otherwise would have been available to Gov. Walz on June 1 if left unspent.