State Updates March 2024

Legislative Session Begins

The Minnesota Legislature started the 2024 legislative session with approximately 14 weeks to address policy issues, bonding and address any additional changes to the budget. 

Each biennium has 120 legislative days in which they can act upon bills on the floor. With last year’s fast pace and need to move bills, the House and Senate burned a lot of legislative days – 77, to be exact, leaving 43 legislative days this session to decide which policy and finding priorities they want to move forward. 

On February 29, Minnesota Management and Budget released the 2024 February state budget forecast. Minnesota’s budget outlook has improved since the November forecast and the 2024-2025 biennium (of which we are in the middle) is projected to end with a surplus of $3.72B, an increase of $1.32B from the November forecast

The forecast of higher revenues throughout the FY2024-27 period means that the “structural imbalance,” still exists in the out years (FY25-27), but it has decreased significantly from $2.4B in November to $1.5B. Today’s news gives the legislature more cash on hand for consideration of addition spending in a supplemental budget, increasing cash to the bonding bill, or saving funds for the next biennium, with the most likely outcome being a combination of all three. 

This year, the first two committee deadlines are both on March 22. This means that the Legislature will have five weeks of heavy committee action to get policy-only bills moving. 

MDH has released 340B Reporting specifications for the initial round of reporting due April 1, 2024, the Form and Manner 340B Covered Entity Report. MDH has also released an FAQ, and MNACHC will be hosting a training session on Thursday, March 7th at 11:00 CT (Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/96827840304, Meeting ID: 968 2784 0304).