LIGHTLY EDITED CART FILE

           MCD 2022 Virtual Legislative Foru

                       Via Zoom

                  January 13th, 2022

                12:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.

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This file is being provided in a lightly edited format

and is the work product of the CART captioner.  CART is

provided in order to facilitate communication

accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record

of the proceedings, nor should it be considered in any

way as a certified document.  Due to the live nature of

the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled,

and the text may also contain environmental sounds that

              occurred during the event.

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    CART provided by Lisa Richardson, CRR, CBC, CCP
     Veritext/Paradigm Reporting & Captioning Inc.
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>> David:  Okay, thank you, everybody, for

attending today's 2022 legislative Summit by the

Minnesota Council on Disability.

Today's legislative forum is closed captioned and has

ASL interpreting she provided.

ASL interpretation is provided by certified deaf

interpreters.

To enable caption himself in the Zoom meeting, please

select the closed captioning button that says listen

tran transcript from the meeting controls to show

subtitles.

You can change the size of the subtitles and your

settings.

Captions will also be viewed in a separate link that is

a Streamtext link in the chat box.

If you're speaking, please provide a brief visual

description to ensure full access for everybody.

For example, my visual description would be a bald

White male in my 30s in my basement office with a

blurry background and wearing a blue suit jacket and

red tie.

I use he-him pronouns.

Interpreters will be spotlit during the duration of the

meeting to ensure everyone has communication access.

For the best, most accessible experience, using
the Zoom program on a computer is recommended

instead of a web browser or a mobile device,

because they may have some limitations.

All attendees will remain muted unless a person with

Admin privileges unmutes them.

And chat is set to only allow messages to hosts.

If you ever technical assistance or other questions

about participation, please use the chat function and

we can see that.

If you are attending through your phone, email

questions you may have to

Council.disability@state.MN.US, and during public

comment period over the phone, you can click star

nine to virtually raise your hand and, then,

again, to lower your hand when you're done.

And I believe that is the end of our housekeeping.

I will say a few opening words and then I'll pass

it on to our chair, Nikki Villavicencio.

Welcome, again, my name is David Dively, I'm humbled

and honored to be the executive director here at the

Council on Disability.

I would like to take a moment to thank the staff,

community leaders and community members who have

all come together today to make today's event

happens.
This event has wonderful speakers and -- this will

build...

We are in a pivotal time in Minnesota.

COVID is impacting Minnesotans with disabilities at a

higher rate than the general population, and it is

reducing the ability to get the services and supports

that people with disabilities need, whether it's from

staff shortages in congregate care settings or

home-based services.

At the same time, Minnesota has a tremendous

budget surplus that we can use to benefit the

people who are in need the most.

So, what that means is our elected officials and state

leaders have a very critical role to play in our '22

legislative session, 2022 legislative session.

We're excited to be here today and I hope you are,

as well.

I'll now turn it over to our Council chair, Nikki

Villavicencio.

Thank you.

>> Nikki:  Good afternoon, Minnesota disability

community.

My name is Nikki Villavicencio.

I use she-her pronouns and I am the chair of the

Minnesota Council on Disability.
I have short brown hair, I'm wearing glasses, wearing a

green sweater.

I have a blurred background today and I'm thankful

to be here with you.

I would first like to recognize all the Council on

Disability, the Council members and our ex-officio

members.

Thank you for your service and thank you for being

here today.

Becoming chair during the pandemic has been quite the

adventure, but the lesson learned is that society can

learn a lot from seniors and people with disabilities.

Health care as a human right is more obvious than

ever.

That is why we must lean into our Governor's message of

are unity to work on the issues of today and tomorrow.

I would like to introduce the Governor and the

Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, Governor Tim

Walz and Lieutenant Governor Governor Peggy

Flanagan.

They will kick offer our event and as we look forward

to hearing what they have to say about the role of

state government to serve Minnesotans with disabilities

and the commitments to an inclusive, fair and equitable

Minnesota for everyone, including people with
disabilities.

First, Governor Walz will speak and then

Lieutenant Governor Flanagan.

The Governor has asked that all attendees who feel

comfortable to turn on their video cameras.

We will need to pause a moment to ensure that the

interpreters and the access providers are set up

before we move forward.

[Silence]



>> Madam Chair, if you're ready?

>> Nikki:  Yes, thank you, Governor, and thank you,

Lieutenant Governor, for coming.

I will pass the microphone on to you.

>> Governor Walz:  Well, thank you, Madam Chair,

thank you for everything you've done, and good

afternoon to everyone who is on here today.

I certainly, like I know many of you do, wish we could

meet in person but, once again, it makes us think about

where barriers are pre-COVID, where they'll be

post-COVID and how do we make sure inclusion is a part

of everything we do.

I am Governor Tim Walz, a 57-year-old White male,

I have green eyes, very little hair.

I'm wearing a maroon shirt and my background is the
Minnesota and American flag in front of a window with a

desk of some of my personal memorabilia.

I want to thank the Council for Disabilities,

David, and all the work you've done, being

incredible partners and resource and advocates for

us during a time of COVID.

To understand exactly the things David said, the issues

that we had pre-COVID were exacerbated by the COVID

situation, making it much more difficult.

The issues of systemic ableism simply were more

pronounced during COVID.

As well as statements that arose.

But what I will tell you is, the focus on making

sure every Minnesotan was cared for and protected

was the focus of the Council and the focus of, I

know, everyone on this call, so I'm grateful for

that.

We've said all along, the Lieutenant Governor and

myself and others, state government needs to be an

example.

We need to be an employer of choice and we need to

set what is expected of things to happen in

society.

We know, again, David was absolutely correct,

unemployment is double amongst people with
disabilities.

That is simply morally unacceptable but it's

economically unacceptable.

Employers are desperate to get folks into the

workplace.

State government has a responsibility to make sure

we're providing the necessary tools and the

ability for everyone and the incredible amount of

talent and skills that is represented in the

community, we need to put that to use.

Minnesota, we know, is when everybody can participate

and everybody is part of the economic, social and

community activities.

Everybody does better with that, and I can tell

you, there's legislators on here and many

advocates on this call that made the Connect 700

program a reality.

Last year, state government employed 8.5% of state

government workforce were people with disabilities.

And I say that statistic and I will start by

saying, that is unacceptable, still.

We can do better.

I'm glad that we're making progress but I want to

be very careful.

We cannot rest on our laurels.
We cannot say, look it, we've done better than we

did in the past because the point of where we

started was so far behind, that the ability to

catch back up was paramount.

So I want to thank those legislators, thank those

advocates.

I want to thank the folks on here who continue to

expect better from both state government and

private sector, and hold those of us in positions

of responsibility accountable, to make sure that

results do matter.

I know there's going to be recommendations and I will

echo, Madam Chair's point, and David's point, this year

gives us an opportunity to invest back in Minnesota, to

make sure that those who were most impacted by the

pandemic are the ones that we look to, that we lift up

those opportunities, and I will echo the chair's point,

health care is a basic human right and the ability of

all Minnesotans to be able to access quality health

care at an affordable rate is absolutely paramount.

And there is nothing stopping us from making that

a reality in the current financial situation where

we're in.

So we look forward to advocating with you.

I know you have legislators on here and the good
news is, there's few things that are more

bipartisan than the care of making sure the

community is served correctly.

We have champions across the political spectrum who

want to get this right and I know that those pieces of

legislation, house file 2017, senate file 1570 are

based on the input of the people and the advocates on

this call.

We share your desire to see those outcomes.

That piece of legislation will work through and it will

be improved upon by the members who are on here, and

it's our desire, the Lieutenant Governor and myself, to

see that piece of legislation come to our desk in a

time when the COVID, we hope, is at a point where we

can gather and sign that legislation into law and see

the results that we know it can bring.

So I thank each and every one of you, I hear loud

and clear the expectations that results are what

matter, that we can need to continue to work

together and at a time when our financial

situation allows us to invest those resources

necessary, there will be a desire to make sure

that they are going to the programs and the

movements that folks on this call quite honestly

have spent a lifetime advocating.
So certainly glad to be with you and one of my great

bless sures is to have a partner who understands this

as well as any, Lieutenant Governor Flanagan.

>> Lieutenant Governor Governor Flanagan:  Thanks so

much, Governor.

Do some jazz hands for some applause here.

But Boozhoo, everybody, thank you so much for this

opportunity to be able to join you today virtually.

I am Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan.

I use she-her pronouns.

I have brown eyes, brown hair that I'm wearing in

a low bun.

I'm wearing hoop earrings and a white sweatshirt top,

and my background is a green, yellow-orange and red and

blue art piece that looks a little bit like a Trivial

Pursuit playing item from the game.

So excited to be here with all of you.

So thank you so much for having us today.

To, Madam Chair, thank you so much for your just

continued leadership and to David, thank you for

everything that you do on the MCD team.

Your continued work inspires me and so many Minnesotans

and especially in this moment that we've talked about

your work is more important now than ever before.

And as we enter into 2022, we will mark the
32nd anniversary of the Americans with

Disabilities Act and in order to make those

lasting and effective changes, it is important to

have Minnesotans with disabilities at

policy-making tables and serve in leadership

positions within state agencies.

I'm not telling you anything that you don't know but

when we sent the lived experience of people with

disabilities and make state government more accessible,

we are helping to improve the lives of all Minnesotans.

In having the Minnesota Council on Disability as

part of our administration has been an incredibly

important part of creating a more equitably

supportive state, frankly, for everyone.

Which brings me to my next point which is how important

the Minnesota Council on Disabilities has been to our

state's COVID-19 response.

We know that Black, Indigenous and people of

color, along with people with disabilities, are at

greater risk from complications from COVID-19 and

the intersection of those identities impact our

ability to make sure that we're getting the kind

of support that we need.

And we know that these communities, our community, face

heightened difficulties when seeking regular care and
services that they require when we are not in a

pandemic.

So I am so grateful for David, for representing

MCD in the community resiliency and recovery work

group in 2020 and just his continued participation

as an external advisor.

David and the other external advisors have input into

the development of our vaccine outreach plans, our

vaccine distribution plans, were just critical in how

the state was able to reach more Minnesotans with

opportunities to receive the vaccine as it became

available in 2021 and that work continues.

It helped with the creation of mobile vaccination

clinic, often stood up in partnership with

community partners on the ground, and these mobile

vaccine clinics were able to reach Minnesotans

across the state, better meeting people where they

are and had options and over half of the folks

that we are able to reach with these services were

Minnesotans with disabilities.

And that work would not have happened without MCD.

And in order to continue this work, we need to

make sure that we are hearing directly from people

with lived experience.

The Governor mentioned it before but it bears
repeating, that people with disabilities make up 20% of

the total population and while we are seeing an

increase in the number of employees hired, we

absolutely can do better.

And as the Governor discussed, as well, the

Connect 700 is the only affirmative action program

for people with disabilities in the State of

Minnesota and our government.

So people with disabilities aren't involved in state

government, they are often overlooked in policy.

Connect 700 can help ensure that people with

disabilities are not only at the table but are

also at the head of the table and that is our role

and our goal.

So I agree that we must make state government a good

place for all Minnesotans of all backgrounds, including

those living with disabilities and as someone who is a

first in this role, I know a little something about

clearing a path and that is what our responsibility is.

So I'm grateful for the work of the advisory task

force on state employment and retention, of

employees with disabilities, as well, and creating

inclusive work space.

Workplace for all continues to be part of our strategic

priorities of equity and inclusion.
And a few weeks back, I was at a different table,

a virtual table with a group of students where

they asked how they can continue to stay involved

and ensuring social justice as part of the

policy-making process and that's why I'm super

excited that we have our legislators who are here,

as well.

I told them there's opportunities and spaces, if these

spaces aren't accessible, that they should work with

their school administration to help create that space.

And I'm here to tell you that that piece of advice

also exists, of course, outside of school settings

and that is why so many of you are here today.

We have an important role in breaking down barriers and

develop a more equitable Minnesota for everyone.

And I know that the last 21 months have been

incredibly difficult, and I just want to say that,

you know, we are holding that.

Many of us have experienceds -- either have been

impacted by COVID ourselves, have experienced the loss

of a loved one and know that it has -- we are

continuing through this process and collectively our

experience -- are experiencing a lot of trauma.

So I just want to encourage you, as you continue

to do this advocacy work and continue to simply
live your lives to be gentle with yourselves, with

each other and know that the work of the Council

with Disabilities I think is the model of how we

care for each other in this moment and how we do

the work.

So, Miigwetch, thanks for all the work you have done,

and all of the work that we will be able to do

together.

Thank you so much for having the Governor and I

today.

We really, really appreciate it.

>> David:  Thank you, so much, Governor Walz and

Lieutenant Governor Flanagan, for your words.

I just wanted to briefly mention something that I

think would be important to note is we want to

show appreciation for the 5% increase for

expedited funding under DHS's emergency powers to

support services for people with disabilities in

home and community-based services and congregate

care settings and we're going to continue to

advocate for the Olmstead [indiscernible] for

giving people a choice of where they want to live

and the community settings they want to live in.

And that we will continue to advocate to ensure folks

with disabilities have the funding and ability toe live
independently, and we hope that the Governor's

administration and the DHS positions will continue to

support that goal.

And so we appreciate that.

You saw that coming and we want to celebrate and

recognize those efforts to increase the service

providers that we desperately need.

So thank you.

All right.

At this time I'll pass it over to Trevor and I

will turn off my camera.

Thank you, everyone.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, David.

I want to make sure we give enough pause if we

need to give a pause for an interpreter switch or

anything like that?

We're good?

Okay, perfect.

So, hello, everyone.

My name is Trevor Turner and I want to thank you

for coming to the Minnesota Council on Disability

legislative forum.

I am the public policy director for the Minnesota

Council on Disability.

I am a man of European descent, dark blonde hair
and blue eyes, I use he-him pronouns, way, a blue

shirt with a striped tie and blue jacket.

My virtual background is an aerial shot of the

Minnesota capitol building.

Today, I'm going to be talking about the Minnesota

Council on Disability legislative agenda and you

can find the full agenda on our public policy web

page at disability.state.MN.US.

The Minnesota Council on Disability will be pursuing a

new legislative agenda for the 2022 legislative

session.

This agenda was approved by our council members

unanimously last December and under the theme of

capacity building.

For MCD to fully execute its statutory mandates, our

state agency must be adequately staffed and have the

resources to represent and advocate for the over one

million Minnesotans with disabilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on

the Minnesota disability communities.

Minnesotans with disabilities experience higher risk

for disease and death to other Minnesotans, our

communities are experiencing major disruptions and

critical services, health care, education, employment,

transportation and even more.
For many in our state, the pandemic is a

disruptive inconvenience to but for Minnesotans

with disabilities, the pandemic is drastically

altering our livelihoods from which it will take

years and years to recover.

As pandemic fatigue has set in across the state,

Minnesotans with disabilities are experiencing a

Cavalier disregard for our lives from many of our

fellow Minnesotans through the rebuke of COVID-19

mitigation members meant to protect the lives of the

most vulnerable.

Despite the champs, Minnesota Council on

disabilities is working tirelessly to help the

community through the pandemic and ensure our

state officials do not forget Minnesotans with

disabilities.

Our staff has been deployed to the state operations

emergency center, is acting as disability advisors to

our state agencies and organizing coalitions through

past critical legislation and are serving as

unrelenting advocates for the disabilities communities

in Minnesota.

The challenges and barriers Minnesotans with

disabilities face existed long before the COVID-19

pandemic and those challenges and barriers were
highlighted and ex as bait find over the past two

years.

The pandemic has shown how critical little to have a

fully prepared, well-staffed agency in the time of

crisis.

The Minnesota Council on Disabilities is one of

the few representatives of over a million disabled

Minnesotans in state government.

Our agency does a lot, very little, but still our

capacity is limited and we are challenged to

effectively sect the mandate in our founding statute.

Therefore, the Minnesota Council on Disability

will be advocating to expand our capacity so that

we can serve Minnesotans with disabilities to the

fullest extent that our community is guaranteed

and deserves under Minnesota statutes.

MCD represents and advocates for a million Minnesotans

with disabilities and each and every one of those

Minnesotans has a story to tell and an issue to be

solved.

The diverse nature of the disability community

means that our issues are vast and complex, with

new leadership beginning in 2020, we performed an

audit of our founding statute and concluded that

we need dozens of employees to adequately carry
out these statutory mandate.

We have eight employees and are unable to hire more

with our current budget.

Since tour, MCD experienced several budget

reductions which has limited or reduced our

capacity.

MCD budget hand kept up with the cost of living or

inflation over the past 30 years.

Minnesota's cabinet agencies often rely on MCD for

our policy and technical expertise, which is with

increased capacity MCD could serve all of these

agencies as well as provide services and support

for the public.

With critical staffing, MCD often must choose between

with current staffing levels, MCD must often choose

between advising our state government or providing

programming for the public, despite our statutory

mandate to do both.

MCD is also the only independent state agency that

represents the -- all of Minnesotans with

disabilities and our state government, and we ask

that our elected officials support our agency so

that we can support our community.

But even with an increased budget, we cannot do it

alone.
We need more people with disabilities serving our

state government.

In 2014, employees with disability only represented 3%

of the state government workforce.

Despite 20% of Minnesotans having a disability.

At the time, Governor Mark Dayton issued an executive

order, 1414, which attempted to infuse the state

Connect 7 affirmative action program for people with

disabilities with more resources, accessibility and

enforcement authority.

It also gave oversight power to the disability

agency forum.

The Connect 700 program allows people with disabilities

to choose an alternative hiring path from the

traditional hiring process by working in the position

for 700 hours to demonstrate the competency and ability

to do the job.

By 2019, disability representation among the state

government workforce are rose from 3% to 7%,

suggesting progress from Governor Dayton's

executive order.

However, due to limited did it take on disabilities, it

was unclear how many of those employees with

disabilities were new hires or existing workforce aging

into disability status.
Another uncertainty of the success of the program

came from the media reporting and an internal

study revealed that more than half of the

employees with disabilities resigned from their

positions within the first year.

Many of those employees cited hostile work environment,

discrimination, inadequate workplace accommodation.

Governor Walz issued an executive order, 1915,

which established the goal to raise disability

representation in the state's workforce from 7% to

10%.

And ordered all state agencies to prepare a plan on how

they will hire more people with disabilities.

Provisions in the 2019 state government omnibus

bill also created the state employment and

retention and employees with disabilities task

force which was made up of different disability

agencies, councils, commissions.

They were tasked with investigating the issue and

providing recommendations in a report to the state

legislature by February, 2021.

Minnesota Office of Management and Budget also

contracted internal investigation held by the

Wilder Foundation.

The Minnesota Council on Disability leading efforts to
increase disability representation in Minnesota's state

government workforce and we believe that more

disability representation in our state enterprise

system, especially those in leadership positions, will

lead to more informed decision being made around the

state disability services and policy.

The Minnesota Council on Disability worked with

several legislators to introduce senate file 1570

and house file 2017, which could codify

recommendations made by the advisory task force on

state employment and retention of employees by

revising Minnesota statutes.

These bills would demonstrate the State of Minnesota's

commitment to hiring, retention and advancement of

people with disabilities by modernizing outdated and

potentially discriminatory language, creating more

clarity on employment policy, training and educating

and hiring managers, providing support structure for

employee with disabilities and providing capacity for

essential equity work.

Minnesotans often face difficult or even

insurmountable barriers in finding and maintaining

employment and the State of Minnesota is no

exception.

The state also does not have adequate disability
representation in its workforce and the policies to

have a great impact on Minnesotans with disabilities

are being decided by a group a small ground of

non-disabled policymakers.

We need not only our voices to be heard but a seat

at the governing table.

This is nothing about us without us bills and we need

people who are employment experts.

In creates a pipeline of future leaders and

policymakers in our state enterprise system.

When Minnesotans with disabilities are making the

decision in our cabinet agency, the disability

community in our state will be better off.

And with that, I conclude my presentation, and now

we will have a chance to hear from our legislators

through a panel.

But first, I would like to -- we're going to hear from

Speaker Hortman.

Is she available?

>> Speaker Hortman:  Yes, I'm here.

>> Trevor:  Great.

If you can go ahead and spotlight Speaker Hortman?

Okay.

Welcome, Speaker Hortman.

>> Speaker Hortman:  Thank you.
Good afternoon.

I'm Melissa Hortman, the Speaker of the Minnesota House

of Representatives.

I'm White female, I'm 51 with blonde hair and

glasses.

I'm wearing a blue shirt and a black jacket.

And I have my background blurred.

It's great to be with you here today.

I'm appreciative for the invitation and I hope

that you're all staying healthy and safe as we

move through the Omicron surge.

In forum is really important but even more important is

all your activity in the legislative process.

As Minnesotans, we care about each other and we

believe that all Minnesotans deserve the

opportunity to be safe, healthy and successful.

We believe in equity, equality and opportunity for all.

Easy to say, hard to do.

And that's something we strife for every day at the

Minnesota legislature.

I know you have some really great legislative

panelists after me and we're running a little

behind time so I will be very brief.

I'm proud of the work that we did last year in the

budget, including ratifying the SCIU contract and
raising wages for personal care assistants.

Significant dollars were advocated -- were

included for home and community-based service

goes.

We increased the rates for intermediate care

facilities, developed a pilot program to assist parents

with disabilities in child-rearing tasks.

Phase two of waiver reimagine and much more.

We know that there is much more work to do and it's

critical that we do not leave anyone behind during this

pandemic.

We are committed to supporting Minnesotans with

disabilities, their families, and those in the

disability services community.

Our projected budget surplus gives us an opportunity to

make meaningful investments on addressing the

challenges that people are facing every day and

improving their lives.

Including the areas outlined in your legislative

priorities, like broadband access, affordable

housing, affordable care, inclusive education,

access to mental health services, and so much

more.

There will be some very stark choices about how we

choose to invest the projected $7.7 billion surplus.
Some folks have come through the pandemic

relatively unscathed.

Some corporations are making more money than they ever

have, and some workers have suffered only minor

inconveniences by working from home.

As we work to invest the state's $7.7 billion

budget surplus, D.F.L.ers in the Minnesota House

of Representatives are going to be focused on

Minnesotans who have had the toughest time coming

through the pandemic and making sure that they

have the resources they need to thrive as we move

forward, and hopefully move beyond this pandemic.

We have some outstanding leaders and champions in the

legislature and we are excited to work with you this

session to try to make progress on many issues.

Please continue to share your personal stories and

experiences with us.

We all know that budgets are moral documents.

It's not about numbers on a sheet of paper, it's

about people's lives and what we can do to impact

people's lives and hearing those personal stories

and those personal experiences is really helpful

to us as we try to make the best decisions at the

state capitol to serve the people of Minnesota.

Thank you for inviting me to be here, for hosting this
event, and for all you do to advocate for Minnesotans

with disabilities.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Speaker Hortman, we appreciate

you coming to speak to us.

And now we're going to bring up our legislative

panel for the house.

We have representative Schultz, representative Reyer,

and representative Albright.

Representative Hamilton was going to be on the

panel, as well, but unfortunate leap he had a

family emergency so we will wish him and his

family well.

And we'll continue with our panel.

So go ahead and get our panel spotlighted up and

after that, I will throw it over toll

representative -- since representative Schultz is

first, I will throw it to her to introduce herself

and what district are you representing and, you

know, why did you agree to come here today?

Trevor:  Wait for one more person.

There she is.

Okay, representative Schultz, give us a brief

introduction and what district you represent and why

did you agree to be on the panel.

>> Representative Schultz:  Well, thank you, Trevor, I
wanted to thank everyone for being with us today and

sharing your stories, that will come later.

I'm Jen Schultz, a state legislator serving in my

fourth term in district 7A, which is the east part

of Duluth.

And I'm a middle-aged white female with blonde hair.

I go by she-her pronouns and my background is my

home office with a picture window that overlooks

lost creek in Duluth.

I chair human services finance and policy, this

session, and I was very excited to work with my

colleagues in the house on the D.F.L. side and my

senate counterparts on an incredible historic Health

and Human Services bill.

So we are very proud of the work we accomplished

last year, although we know that there is a lot of

unmet need and so I'm here today to learn about

what the needs are that continue.

I also want to be a strong advocate and champion for

your community this year and into the future.

We do have a small budget surplus and I definitely

want to make sure that we invest where there are

unmeet needs.

Some of my colleagues would like to see that returned

in a tax cut, I know that we have bigger investments to
make that will have a bigger impact on the lives of

people of Minnesota and I hope that my colleagues will

join me in prioritizing those needs and invest --

making those key investments that will help people who

have been negatively impacted during COVID and who have

struggled even priority to COVID -- even prior to

COVID.

So I'm proud of the increase in the wages for

PCAs, I'm proud of the work we did on the DWS

formula.

I'm very happy that we were able to invest the Federal

money from the Biden administration in home and

community-based services but I also realize there is a

lot of work that we still need to do.

So thank you for inviting me.

Appreciate it.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, representative Schultz.

Representative Albright.

>> Representative Albright:  Trevor, my name is

Tony Albright, I represent Prior Lake and Jordan.

I am a middle-aged white male, if you think about Santa

Claus, that's basically my picture.

White beard, white hair.

My background is actually of the ice rolling up on

shore along the North Shore of Minnesota.
I want to thank you and your staff for inviting me

here today and for the conversation.

I think it's probably one of the most important

conversations that this legislature going forward into

the next several months needs to have.

And the reason that I say that is because of the

isolation that we've all faced over the last

several months, with regard to -- and the

inability to share one another's difficulties with

one another in a three-dimensional way.

Our legislature has been isolated from our constituents

and isolated from those that come to the capitol for a

number of months for reasons that have been shared

previously but that needs to change.

We deal best when we're in a three-dimensional

arrangement where we can see the expression on

people's faces, to see the expression and the

faces of the people that are really, really in

need of our services.

While it is true that this state is experiencing a

surplus currently, I would remind people that the

disability landscape has changed, as well.

And I would dare say that investments, as they

have been called, in a one-time fashion, only

really rectify maybe the symptom of a broader
problem.

And it would be my hope that this legislature really

take a look at the true problem and rat than make

investment of a short-term variety, that might be

disappointing later when future funding is not there,

to really look at the line items of the programs and

the services provided to those that are in the shadows

of life, if you will, that we provide meaningful

services, supports and opportunities to those for the

long term.

This is visionary topics, I hope we don't get lost

in the numbers when we're talking about the future

lives and careers of those that we serve through

your organization.

So thank you and I look forward to the conversation.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, very much Albright.

Representative Reyer.

>> Representative Reyer:  Thank you so much.

I am Representative Liz Reyer, I represent Eagan house

district 51B.

I use she-her pronouns, a white woman in my 60s

with short blonde hair, blue eyes and black

glasses.

I'm in my home office with a blurred background and I'm

wearing a black jacket, green sweater and a colorful
green and red scarf.

First, my changes to the Minnesota Council of

disabilities for hosting this event today and

especially for your advocacy for people with

disabilities.

I'm honored to be here today and I wanted to attend in

order to affirm my commitment to work on behalf of the

disability community and to learn from all of you.

I ran for office out of a commitment to work for

equity and to address structural and social

disparities that limit opportunity for too many

Minnesotans.

One of my earliest conversations while still a

candidate was with Executive Director David Dively and

then as a representative, I've had the honor of

carrying legislation to support legal protections for

workers with disabilities.

Last session, we passed a bill that explicitly

included interactive process as part of making

reasonable accommodations within the Minnesota

Human Rights Act.

I also chief authored a bill, house file 2017, which

we've heard about a couple of times today, to implement

recommendations from the task force report, strategies

for attracting and retaining state employees with
disabilities.

Our state should lead, and right now we fall short

as an employer for people with disabilities.

This harms all of us.

Our state will benefit from proportional

disability representation across our state system.

This bill did not move forward last year and this is

the year.

We will get it heard and we will get it passed.

The Council has outlined a powerful legislative agenda

and I thank Trevor Turner for sharing that today.

I'll just touch on a few other items from that

agenda.

I fully support expansion of the Council's budget in

order to be able to meet their statutory mandate.

And even more importantly, to do the good work

that is needed to support cabinet agencies and the

public alike.

To improve true accessibility, I'm authoring

legislation to require a percent of units in projects

funded by housing infrastructure bonds to be truly

accessible and a percent to be sensory accessible.

I'm carrying a bill to expand family hours for

providing PCA services and I will continue to be

involved in discussions about the relocation of
the area disease advisory council to ensure that

it is housed in an organization that will best

enable it to achieve its goals.

Today, I offer you my commitment to be a steadfast

partner, to ensure that the rights and needs of

disability communities are met.

And I look forward to your input during today's

session and beyond.

Thanks for having me.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, representative Reyer and thank

you for obviously for being our chief author for house

file 2017.

You were very instrumental in ensuring that

language got submitted last session, which gives

it a really good shot in this upcoming session so

we really appreciate that.

You all actually addressed a lot of the questions that

I had for us today, so for the sake of time, I think

we'll stick with just one question.

And that question is, you know, do you believe and

would you support that a -- an expanded Minnesota

Council on disability with more resources that

could give our Disability communities would be an

effective use of our state funds to get a nice

return on investment for an agency like ours which
we're very scrappy, small agency with eight staff

but we do a lot and can imagine that we would do

even more with, you know, a staff that was, you

know, big enough to do our statutory mandate.

Would you support that?

And I'll start with representative Schultz.

>> Representative Schultz:  Thank you for that

question, Trevor.

I absolutely support your request and all of your

legislative priorities this session and I'll be excited

to work towards achieving those goals.

I've always been so impressed with our agencies

across the board ability to work for the people of

Minnesota, given their very limited resources,

especially now during the pandemic when so many of

them are working nonstop and they've been doing

that for more than two years.

And I always brag about our state employees when I'm

with other legislators from across other states.

So I'm impressed with what you're able to do with

your limited resources and definitely would

support in Deliseing your budget so you can

hire -- in increasing your budget so you can hire

more staff so you can meet the needs of the people

of Minnesota.
>> Trevor:  Thank you.

Representative Albright.

>> Representative Albright:  Trevor, that's a very

intriguing question and I served on the state

government finance for a couple of terms.

I've also served on the health finance and the health

policy committees for a number of terms.

Now, one of the things that is often asked is,

would you support an increase in the budget for

any agency, and while on the prime facie of that,

it certainly sounds promising and I want to make

sure that I disclose, I am in support of

increasing funding where there is a budget and

where there is a bona fide return that has merit.

And with your question, I would support an increase in

your budget but I would like to see the P and L on

that, the profit and loss, in terms of what you're

going to do with it.

Too many times, and I don't want to be sounding

like a curmudgeon, too many times, requests come

before the legislature that ask for additional

money.

Intention is one thing but the response and to identify

how you're going to use that money is really, really

important because while emotion can certainly drive the
momentum, it really comes down to, is it a cognitive

and logical progression for your work.

And so I would support the initiative but I look

forward to the details.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Representative Albright,

and I look forward to meeting with you and happy

to meet with you and walk you through our budget

request and assuage your concerns.

Now I go to Representative Reyer.

>> Thank you.

Well, I've already at this point my hand in terms of my

support for the budget increase and it's based on both

conversations with both Trevor and David as well as

review there is a very detailed outline on how the

funds will be used and the benefits of driving the

increase.

So from my analysis of the request, I think it's

very well-founded.

I would also argue that budget for an entire agency

that does so much important work that's still under

$three million the secretary will an excellent deal for

the state.

I think that we can't afford the risk of not

making this investment and ensuring that we can be

supporting our disability communities through
policy through action, through education and

through the types of more structural material,

captioning and other types of technology that are

required in our current technological times to

make sure the needs of the community are met.

So I am a strong endorser of this.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Representative Reyer and

just want to point out that our budget actually

was under $1 million up until this last year when

our COLA, companies of living adjustment tipped us

just over a million dollars.

So and our budget is actually -- our request is still

under $3 million so we would continue to do that and we

would like to -- you know, this is an investment -- I

think it's kind of -- a lot of people think it's really

boring to talk about budgets and state government, but

this is, for us, planting seeds so that we can do more

and more and more for other people in the disability

community.

So many people come to me every day with issues

from across the board, from transportation through

health care to human services to education and

unfortunately, I'm only one person and I wish I

could clone myself and be a million people and
help all these different people individually but I

can't so -- but I'm looking forward to continue

and try my best to, you know, meet the needs of

Minnesotans but, you know, be able to have a staff

that's still under $3 million would be able to do

a lot, lot more and help the people in Minnesota.

So thank you.

That's all the time we have today, so I would like

to move on to the next panel, but I really, really

appreciate every single one of you for being here

and have a wonderful day.

>> Voice:  Recording stopped.

Recording in progress.

>> Trevor:  Okay.

Our next speaker is majority leader Miller, I want

to make sure -- there he is, perfect.

Majority leader Miller, welcome to our -- the

legislative forum.

I want to give you a chance to, you know, talk

about the senate side of things before we go on to

our senate panel.

So, welcome and how are you today?

>> Good, afternoon, Trevor.

Thank you so much for having me.

I hope everyone is having a great day.
I came on a little bit late but sounded like

people were describing themselves a little bit so

my name is Jeremy Miller, I'm a 38-year-old White

male, brown hair, brown eyes and wearing a gray

sweat thirty with a black vest today and my

background, two pictures in the backgrounds here

at my office at the scrap yard, the first one is a

picture of the golden horses on the Minnesota

state capitol and the other picture is a picture

of the statue of liberty with an eagle.

Trevor, first, I want to say thank you for all the good

work that you do representing the disability community

across the state of Minnesota.

This is my -- this will be my 12th year as a

member of the Minnesota senate and during my time

in the senate, I've worked very closely with the

disability community here locally as well as at

the capitol to try to get good things done for

folks living with disabilities, including the

staff.

I think it's incredibly important that not only do we

support our disability community but we also provide

support to the folks who are caring for them.

As we look ahead to the 2022 legislative session,

the state has a very, very large projected budget
surplus of about $7.7 billion and when the

February forecast comes out in a month or so, it

sounds like that surplus might even be higher, so

senate Republicans will be working together with

our Democrat colleagues in the senate as well as

our colleagues in the house and the Governor to

really try to figure out a way to make that money

work for the people of Minnesota, and when you

have a surplus that large, it's -- we're simply

collecting too much money from the taxpayers so

we're going to figure out some targeted way to get

that money back to Minnesotans, especially those

Minnesotans who are struggling during this really

challenging time of COVID and high inflation and

other challenges that are facing people:  Trevor,

I look forward to learning more about your

priorities and as I do with any group or anyone

trying to pass legislation at the capitol, I would

encourage you to bring the stakeholders together,

bring legislators on both sides of the aisle

together and sit around the table or get on Zoom

and try to figure out what the best path forward

is and those ways of trying to get things done

generally lead to better outcomes than doing it

other ways.
So I know you have a lot of supporters on the call and

I'm going to hang on here as long as I can, until my

next meeting to hear from the other panelists.

And, again, Trevor, look forward to visiting with

you and others to learn more about your priorities

this session.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, majority leader, really

appreciate it and really appreciate all the work

you've done for the Minnesota Cowan sin on

disabilities in the past and disability community

in general.

So, thanks again, and we are now going to go to our

senate panel, which comprises Senator Abeler, senator

Bigham, Senator Hoffman, senator Nelson and senator

Draheim.

We'll go ahead and get them spotlighted and we'll

begin.

Okay, everyone is here.

I think I'm going to have every one of you

introduce yourselves but instead of the question,

why did you agree to be here today, I would like

too jump right into the question that we asked our

last panel, you know, would you support, you know,

expansion and capacity building of our budget so

that we can serve the disability community even
more than we already do.

And then I'll start with the first person that I ever

here is Senator Abeler.

>> Senator Abeler:  Thanks for having me.

Can you hear me okay?

>> Trevor:  Yep.

>> Senator Abeler:  Okay, technology.

Thanks for doing the panel and thanks for all you guys

do.

We just came off a hearing about workforce and,

you know, maybe I'll get into that, too, but I

can't get that off my mind.

The workforce needs, in the disability community, group

homes and people with special needs is grievous and the

system's about to collapse.

And it just makes me -- if you watched the

hearing, it was a very interesting hearing, the

first hour would be very meaningful to all your

listeners, all the viewers here about what can be

done.

We heard from some operators and some staff that

they're 30% short, working all hours, sleeping in the

basement, sending people home, no respite, half the

people that are living independently are now -- they

couldn't get respite so they're back in the group home
which is exactly the way we don't want to go.

Just a grievous thing.

And so to your question about this expanding your

functions, specifically, I think somebody better

coordinate this.

And I frankly don't know if it's you, I do not see

coordination coming out of the administration.

Irsee a bunch of well-intended people working in

departments as a bunch of medieval castles, remember,

Europe was a feudal empire, they had castle and a

castle and a bunch of well-intended things and they are

not coordinated.

And they're not collaborative and the individuals

who need the services so greatly suffer.

If you were to expand, you would have to be given some

authority and so just another louder voice yelling at

the castles doesn't do any good.

If I was going to put someone in charge of more

coordination, it would be you all because you

actually live on the front lines and caring.

We, Senator Hoffman and I and my committee have been

struggling with getting the agency to actually be

interested in the needs of individuals, especially

through the changes as we've been going forward, so...

I'll leave it at that for now.
Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Senator -- sorry, go ahead.

>> David:  Pardon me, Trevor.

Thank you, Senator Abeler.

I wanted to jump in and redirect the question to

something a little bit consistent with what Senator

Abeler was talking about and a little bit broader, as

well, which is issues around employment for people with

disabilities, economic success for people with

disabilities, whether that's support services they need

to be independent and living in the communities that

they want to live in, just as Senator Abeler was

saying, but himself about -- if you are aware of our

employment, retention for employees with disabilities

bill, improving how employees are protected,

accommodated and retained as part of the state

workforce and make for this part we'll switch away from

the Council on Disabilities specifically and just talk

about the disability community at large and their needs

for independent living and employment opportunities.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, David.

Obviously I wish we had a lot more time to discuss

a wide range of issues but that's also the point.

There are so many different issues to talk about and I

want to thank Senator Abeler, he was also -- he and
Senator Hoffman were very instrumental in helping us

get the Connect 700 and hiring and retention of hiring

employee-employees with disabilities into the senate

and we really appreciate that.

Senator Hoffman, would you like to go next and you

can answer what David was referring to.

>> Absolutely.

Thanks for letting me be here and thanks for the work

that you and David and your group has been doing.

There are duties and powers of the MCD established

in statutory authority but it's mostly advising

and assisting.

You are the ones who are the go-to because not all

agencies have people collectively in their own agencies

that understand what reasonable accommodations are,

what does it mean to have somebody that's in a human

rights capacity.

We know one in five, so what brings me here is one

in five people in Minnesota live with a

disability, right?

Who's the ones that are advising and assisting the

departments and agencies about what they should be

doing in response.

And as such, when that task force when you guys

headed up became a viable and a real authentic
report, we absolutely, we jacketed those into two

bills and thank you, representative Reyer, for

bringing that up earlier, and also the Lieutenant

Governor brought it up.

This is the year that we can help level the playing

field to assure people with disabilities are absolutely

working in employment in the State of Minnesota, right?

It was established under Pawlenty, it was enhanced

under Governor Dayton, it was reauthorized under

Governor Walz and now, let's make this a statutory

piece.

As long as we're doing it as a statute to your place,

let's look at the broad categories that you have under

subdivision 5 and expand those.

Not everybody has working knowledge of what it

means to have a reason bible accommodation.

What does it mean to have a lived experience that as a

person with a disability within the State of Minnesota.

You all have that and so if there comes a time to

expand on those priorities, absolutely, count me

in.

So thank you for having me here and thank you for the

work you're doing.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Senator Hoffman, really

appreciate that.
Let's go to senator Draheim.

>> Senator Draheim:  Thank you, and I'm Rich

Draheim, I represent district 20, which is most of

the Le Sueur county, part of Scott and part of

rice counties.

I'm a white male, 52, blue eyes, wearing a blue shirt

and first off, I would like to thank you for the

invite.

A lot of the topics that you laid out are topics

that I have worked on and think are vitally

important.

You know, the broadband, housing, affordable care

employment, mental health, and some of the comments

that Senator Abeler and Senator Hoffman, who have

pioneered a lot of this for decades, if you will,

they -- the PCA problem is huge.

And group homes are, in my area, too, are very --

very much ready to go under and are barely, barely

hanging on.

But as far as the specifics only employment, I think we

really took a bad turn the last year with the

employment with COVID.

I think we really need to examine what we're doing

for the employment portion of your ask.

I would be really interested to work on that piece
specifically and of course the housing piece but once

again, I'm here to learn and listen and up appreciate

the invite.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you.

Let's go to Senator Bigham.

>> Senator Bigham:  Thank you, Senator Abeler and

Senator Hoffman didn't describe themselves, am I

allowed to describe them on their -- no?

[Laughter]

I am Karla Bigham, state senator.

I am a 42-year-old woman, short brown hair, I am in my

office and I have my Rosie the riveter behind me along

with my figurine of RBG, and wearing a black sweater

over a white blouse.

Thank you, thank you for having me on.

This is important important when it comes to having a

discussion with these -- the panelists that have been

on, I applaud each and every one of you.

House and senate because this issue really has

become front and center, as it should be, and I'm

going to be honest.

Like I don't know how much more I can add to it other

than partnering with our counties on different things

for us to make more efficient and more cost-effective
on some of the services, but I think Senator Abeler has

the power to make those efficiencies.

He's the chair, let's do a bill, let's get it

done, to make things more efficient amongst the

department and I also want to point out, because

it hasn't been, broadband is so vitally important,

so vitally important, and we need to continue to

make sure that the Federal funds are going to

expansion of broadband for accessibility so that

we can employ people with disabilities, and I just

feel that we are really able to build on some of

the accomplishment from last year and the

important work that we did from last year with --

I know it's been mentioned built the PCA

increases, the waiver rate increase and all the

wonderful work that for years people on these two

panels have been working on, but let's listen here

and how we can do belts.

That's really what we're here for, and I'm committed to

that.

So I look forward to signing on to Senator

Abeler's bill to make things more efficient.

Let's get it done.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here.
Thank you for telling stories and reminding us of

the important work we have yet to do.

Thank you so much.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, senator Bigham, really

appreciate that.

Now now let's go to Senator Nelson.

>> Senator Nelson:  Thank you so much, Trevor,

thank you so much for having me.

I am senator Carla Nelson, I am here in my home office

with a print of the capitol behind me, of the capitol

Dome.

I am a middle-aged White female with dark curly

hair and glasses and I have on a maroon jacket

today.

It is a joy to be with you.

>> I was able to join for the full meeting here

and I just -- and just a little background.

My training is as a special education teacher, as a

reading specialist.

The disability community has been important in my

life since I was a young teenager, actually,

volunteering with the Warren County ARC, while I

was in college, I worked for the Poke county ARC,

and went to college on a small scholarship from

the Warren County ARC, so this community is
incredibly important to me and I think it is our

moral duty, really, to make sure that we do all we

can to help every Minnesotan live their best

lives.

And I think we live in a wonderful time.

COVID has stressed us greatly and it will continue

to, I'm sure, for some time.

But we also live in a time where we have miracles,

modern miracles of medicine, like vaccines, therapies,

things that didn't even -- before COVID even existed,

we did not have any therapies or vaccines.

We do now and that's because of the innovative

medical technology that we have.

We also have all the innovations that I think provide

every Minnesotan with great workforce accommodations

and it's critical for our workforce that we make sure

those accommodations are available for every

Minnesotan.

So I will continue to advocate for this community.

It's near and dear to my heart.

I've been very involved in mental health, making

sure we have necessary mental health access for

all Minnesotans to work closely in the affordable

housing community.

These things are so important to all Minnesotans,
they're especially important to Minnesotans who are in

the disability community.

I was the author of the amendment that added home

and community-based services to funding for the --

from the Federal grants and I'm so thankful

Senator Abeler was able to carry that through

to -- through conference committee and signed into

law, and I know the challenges remain.

I do encourage people to reach out to me, is

SeN.carla.nelson@senate.MN.

I do want to hear from you about how we can make

Minnesota more inclusive for all Minnesotans and

make sure all Minnesotans have the ability, the

tools to live their best lives.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, senator Nelson.

I wish we had more time to go more into detail into

some of these things you all brought up, which I think

just shows that there are so many different issues that

we have to work with and address and I think this also

means that we need to do this more often and so I hope

to do more round tables and panelists so that we can

talk about specific issues, like transportation and PCA

shortage and all of that.

So I think to the public here, I want to make a

commitment that we will engage more and do more of
this instead of once a year but, you know, maybe

more often so that we can hear all the voices and

talk about all the different issues that we are

trying to address and talk through here.

So thank you to the panelists.

I really appreciate it.

We're going to move on to our public comment section

now so in our public comment section, we have a few

people who we've already -- had already asked to speak

so we will have them speak first but afterwords, if

there's still enough time, we will open it up for

anyone here who would like to peek.

So I know you all can't unmute your microphones so

what we'll have you do is raise your virtual hands

if you want to speak, raise your virtual hand,

only Zoom down at the bottom, you have your

reactions.

You can click on that reaction button with a little

smiley face on it and then there is a little race hand

feature.

So you can raise your hand and then we'll go in

order of all the people who raise their hands.

So for the first person we're going to pull up, we have

Joyce lacey.

Joyce, are you here or do we need to identify her?
I'm going to have our staff identify Joyce here and we

will bring it up.

>> Hello.

>> Hello, hi.

The floor is yours.

>> My name is Joyce Lacey, I have a black sweater

with a necklace and earrings and brown hair and a

white background and brown eyes.

And I'm here today to plead with you to call your

legislators, and if legislators are on, I'm begging

them to listen.

I'm here to plead with you to pass senate file

number 1462, and house file number 2093.

Basically what they do is they enforce the bill of

rights for wards, that is people that have been put in

guardianship and conservatorship throughout the state.

It also lets people know that they cannot overdrug

or unnecessarily drug their wards.

I'm going to tell you a story of what happened to my

mother and I wasn't even aware there was a bill of

rights because of what happened to her.

First of all, my mother had just returned from the

national pageant, she was in a senior pageant and

was crowned miss congeniality, she had a lot of

spunk.
If you remember the Golden Girls, she was so much like

Sophia on the Golden Girls, tiny and petite but lots of

energy.

So we were helping with the Alzheimer's walk, it

was September and her breathing got bad, she had

congestive heart failure and she was disabled but

still going strong like most of us are still

doing.

So I ended untaking her tooth E.R. and they wanted to

keep her for observation.

So I agreed to keep her in the hospital.

Now, this is before COVID * COVID and so shall stayed

in the hospital.

The next day, a hospitalist doctor, a hospice

nurse, social worker and a chaplain of all people

came and they tried to convince me to put her DNR,

dump her in a nursing home and put her on hospice.

I said absolutely not.

I was the power of attorney and she wanted to live

and she was fiesty and had so much to give to the

community.

So, anyway, the doctor, hospitalist doctor, never seen

her before in his life, he said, well, you're a very,

very poor power of attorney.

And by the way, are you the legal guardian and I
said, no, she doesn't need a legal guardian, she's

not incompetent.

So he left and he said he had wasted 27 minutes on me.

Anyway, the next day they came back, they went

over my head, they got an emergency guardianship

conservatorship to do with her what they wanted to

do.

So I said, first of all, they were giving her a shot.

She said, no, no, I don't want to go into a

nursing home.

They gave her a shot and I said what are you doing, the

nurse said we've been ordered by the guardian to make

her comply with any and all means necessary, which is

they were giving her a shot of morphine to knock her

out.

I couldn't believe they could get by with that

because she did not want to go in a nursing home

and the ones they were putting her in -- we were

in the Twin Cities because the Alzheimer's walk

was at Target Field.

The nursing home they were putting her in was 250 miles

away and I called and there was one closer but they

insisted she go to this nursing home.

So first off we had an emergency -- we had an

ambulance bill of 215 miles which you can imagine
how much that cost.

She gets to the nursing home and right away, after

she's been drugged I don't know how many times because

she was fiesty like Sophia and they have a court

reporter there waiting to interrogate her.

And I cannot believe that they could do that.

That's entrapment.

Anyway, when she was at the nursing home, they

refused to allow her to go out the door, they

wouldn't allow her to use a commode or a toilet,

she had to use a bedpan her entire stay.

She was given day-old purchase rated food and drugged

continuously.

And she didn't need the drugs, she didn't need

objection a could done, morphine, all these

things.

They're called chemical restraints as you know because

people cannot use physical restraints anymore, they've

started to use chemical restraints.

And this guardianship probate thing is done in a

probate court which is meant for property so the

person is made into a piece of property, thus,

it's kind of like slavery.

All my mother's money was taken from her, everything

she owned including her person and she didn't have any
choice with anything, whatever the guardian said, went.

So that was it.

Within three weeks, she had pneumonia, staph

infections, UTI, bed sores.

Never had any of that in sheer life so what

happened, then, was they had to take her to the

hospital because she wasn't DNR and she wasn't in

hospice.

So they took her to the hospital, they took her to

Fargo, and she ended up fighting all that with --

antibiotics.

On Monday they took her in, by Wednesday, she was

sitting up, so happy she could sit on a commode to

go to the bathroom and eat good food.

So I found a place, a nursing home close by the

hospital, Bethany, and they had a bed and so I thought

that's where she was going.

But no, the next day came and she was being

released, the guardian insisted she go 80 miles

back to this other nursing home which I late found

out the guardian's company operated.

Anyway, so she was force are the to go back there.

I was removed by security because I said they

nearly killed her in three weeks, I would rather

go to jail then have they are go back there but
they forced her to go back and she didn't want to

go back.

Anyway, all her bills of rights were taken.

Anyway, I called adult protection three times, got

letters back from the county saying they decided

not to investigate.

I called the ombudsman.

Ombudsman got a letter back going, no, no, they

weren't going to investigate, either.

So she gets back to the nursing home.

After she's fought all that and bite it, then the

nursing home doctor puts her on hospice and they

drug her even more heavily.

Well, needless to say, she passed and all this should

have been avoided, my mother did not want to be DNR,

she did not want to be on hospice, she didn't want

those drugs.

Then I later found out that hospice was given

$11.5 billion from the Affordable Care Act to go

basically from the -- they used to be good, it was

basically care, basically helping people that were

terminally ill.

Now, my mother wasn't terminal lie ill so she should

have never --

>> David:  Joyce, I appreciate your story, it's
important and we have a question that you're able

to add that at the ends or if it's just the story,

that's okay, but I want to make sure that your

final point or question is heard before we have to

move on, okay?

Thank you.

>> Thanks.

So I want to make people aware of this because

this could happen to any of us because, basically,

it's a lot of money involved in this.

They have a lot of lobbyists that are trying to go

against us but if we could get these bills, if you

could write these down, house file 1462, -- house file

2093 and senate file 1462, it's basically just to

enforce the bill of rights.

And like I said, adult protection when they are in

a guardianship, they wouldn't get involved, they

wouldn't help my mother, even though pneumonia,

you feel TI, bed sores, she was black and blue.

I got a police officer to come up and he said I wish I

could help you, he said I can't get involved either

because she's in a guardianship.

So there was nothing anybody could do but he said

if she was a criminal or had, you know, a rap

sheet or was in jail, she would have more rights
because she could say I don't want those drugs,

you can't give them to me and in a guardianship

they can truck you and drug you and drug you and

you have no say.

That's why this bill is so important to get passed.

It can save lives, it can help these people to

have their rights restored.

Their human rights are taken away.

It's not right.

Another person, she was a veteran, a disabled American

veteran, they did this to her mother.

She had dual citizenship in Greek so what they did

was basically kidnapping her mother, taking her to

Greece.

They had to flee America, land of the free to go to

Greece and they've been living there now for five

years.

If she comes back, the daughter will be arrested

and the mother thrown back into this and basically

probably...

>> Trevor:  Joyce, I apologize, I want to give

everyone else a chance to speak, as well, but

please, I know you emailed me, too, so let's set

up a meeting and we can talk more about this,

okay?
>> If people could call their legislators, that

would be wonderful.

Thank you so very much.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Our next person will be Kim Petman and

after that Kathie Leroy.

A couple announcements, one is we invite our

legislators to come and join and watch the whole

thing, if you can, and then we will also please

limit our conversation -- our stories to no more

than five minutes so that we can make sure we get

to everyone in time.

So we have Kim up now, so, Kim, the floor is yours.

>> Kim:  Okay, sound check, can you hear me okay?

>> Yep.

>> Okay, so I will try to do the legislative

version of five-minute slot.

I'll describe myself first and then give you my story.

I am a White woman, age 57 with grayish-brownish

shoulder-length hair, wearing a fuchsia sweater

and in the background I'm sitting propped up with

pillows in a hospital bed and kind of a

taupe/industrial background.

I use she-her pronouns and I am kind of what you would
call citizen advocate and I like public policy.

I happen to be a person who has multiple

disabilities, primarily physical which also can

cause chronic pain which can also cause a little

bit of other stuff.

Chronic pave can be a little depressing sometimes.

A lot of people try to tell me, stay on point.

The thing is, a lot of different things happened to me

in the last year and a half and many different factors

contributed to I'll call it an adventure.

So it feels a little scattered, I apologize.

Please, legislators and others, please contact me if

you would like more information.

I feel that I'm able to speak for myself and I

want you to think about the people in similar

situations who are not being heard.

So, basically, the biggest problem I encountered was I

did go to a hospital in Greater Minnesota during the

pandemic when there was availability for me to go to

ICU.

I had septic shock and was in extremely big

trouble for five days.

Part of that had to do with a dental abscess that was

not treated, partly -- well, mostly because of coverage

issues and bariatric accessibility, which means
although I had a good provider, three needed me to be

in a certain type of chair that could recline so they

refused to take out my teeth.

Different people were saying, you've got to get

this taken out, including my mom, a former nurse,

and others, but this dental abscess led to a great

deal of infection.

There were a lot of obstacles and I tried very hard --

I'll skip that part of the story.

It was a really big problem.

So one of the main problems I run into is once that ICU

period was over, and there were other infections going

on, too, and I don't know if you can see but here's my

arm, so I'll describe it, I have kind of a swollen arm.

Because of lymphedema.

When I was really sick, my arm poofed out to twice the

size and you see, lymphedema and infections don't go

together well.

It's just not a good thing.

So when I was in the hospital and became what is called

post acute status, my body had gone through the ringer

and not everybody knows that people coming out of ICU

or very serious conditions can be -- they take a while

to recover, sometimes months.

Unfortunately, kind of bouncing off a little bit
of what Joyce said, hospital lawyers.

>>  --

>> Trevor:  I apologize, it's bin about five

minutes now so could you --

>> Can you give me 20 seconds to wrap up?

>> Sure.

>> Okay.

The bottom line is in hospitals, the lawyers and

the leaders often don't care about people with

disabilities and if you speak up, there's a lot of

retaliation.

So can you figure out a way to protect the people with

disabilities and older people within these settings and

also I was stuck in hospitals for over a year because

there wasn't a place for me to go.

We need bariatric accessibility in long-term care.

So thank you very much.

Please contact me if you have questions.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Kim.

Up next is Kathie Leroy and after her is Mariam

EGAL.

KATHIE, the floor is yours.

>> Thank you.

Feel free to interrupt as needed if I get
long-winded.

Thank you to all attendees and speakers for your

participation today.

I'll admit I'm kind of Wading in to my very first

meeting here on the inspiration of my son, Mike

Leroy.

I will go back a bit and contextualize where I'm at.

My pronouns are she-they.

I am a 43-year-old White woman shoulder-length brown

hair and glasses wearing a blue dress with a gray and

black-striped jacket.

Joining from my table in Brooklyn Center and on

the wall behind me you might see a colorful Adam

TURman poster.

Mike Leroy, my 16-year-old is also attending today so

you may see him in his window with short blonde hair, a

green hoody, gray pants and sneakers.

He's using computer out a bit so you may see the

school room behind him, sitting in a blue power

chair and has a head array.

I am really thankful to hear so many of the aspects of

ongoing policy and priorities.

I will admit to not knowing if I'm exactly in the

right wheelhouse of speaking points for all of

those but very interested in future opportunities
to contribute and help increase advocacy amongst

care-givers as well as individuals with

disabilities.

My main goal today is to speak a little bit on Mike's

behalf to share a story of how he's been able to

personally learn more about legislative process and

begin to find his advocacy voice and so he has given me

permission and asked me to kind of cover a few things.

I'll back up a bit and say, you know, one of the

things as a parent really looking to try and help

him find his way and dream big and get the support

he needs in order to get his education and pursue

jobs and he asked me the other day if we were

rich.

So that was an interesting question.

And he followed that up with how are you paying

for my equipment, my medicine, my helpers.

So what that kind of cued for me or made me sit up and

look at is, you know, we're on about an 18-month window

here before he turns 18.

That's a heck of a lot of stuff for me to download

from my brain to his brain and thankfully, we've

been including him in the process.

He's met with his doctors, he's made active medical

decisions, chosen to get a brain stimulator put in.
He is showing all the signs of being a really

great advocate and so we'll be continuing to

explore that.

But it reminded me of a conversation that we had a year

or two ago when he asked, you know, he was talking

about how he would like to grow up and be a

[indiscernible] and he also would love to maybe have

kids some day and would he get married and how would

all that work.

Well, I explained to him that, actually, the way

some of that works is really complicated and he

might need to think about if he's getting married

or not based on the way that some of the programs

are set up in the United States to make sure that

people have social services support.

All of that kind of set-up is to share that Mike has

been able to participate in the Minnesota youth and

government process for the last couple years and just

this past weekend I got the unique experience of being

a bit of a fly on the wall with 900 high school

students, grade 8 through 10.

Can I do a time check?

How much time do I have?

>> You have 36 seconds.

>> Oh, shoot.
Well, I'm just going to play for you, then, the purpose

of his bill.

He had asked me to share it and I'm happy to

testimony as Kim did follow up with anybody that's

interested but I'm going to just play a minute.

This is how he presented his bill but I'll just do the

front part here.

Thank you all for your time.

S-people who are disabled deserve the right to get

married if they would like to do so.

>> Can you bring it closer?

>> So social security, medical comp or other civil

benefits.

Situations vary by state but across the United

States access to financial and insurance support

for people with disabilities is often determined

based on whether or not they or their spouse has a

job and according to that an income and assets.

If the spouse works, then a person with disabilities

receives less support.

This is unfairly keeping --

>> We lost it, you have to keep it close.

>> Because it limits the health and financial support

they will get.

>> So, again, that's just an abridged version but I
think speaks to the importance of really broadening

awareness among people of all ages.

I was really encouraged by the receptiveness of

his classmates and everyone's reaction which quite

frankly, I mean, it's not super formal feedback

but he got so many comments afterwards from

attendees, I can't believe this is a thing, that's

so unfair.

We really they would to change this.

So in closing, I know it's not an item on the

agenda right now but I think as a national and

local to Minnesota concern that I just wanted to

make sure we have a little bit of awareness around

it, as well.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Kathie.

We're recording this so we're going to take all

the comments that were said today and review them

and make it part of our agenda process.

So -- and that includes I would like to meet with you

one on one so if you could email me and we can set umm

a meeting and talk more about this, okay?

>> Fabulous.

Thanks.

>> Trevor:  Next, we have Miram and then after
that we'll have Jillian Nelson and then just for

anyone speaking, I have a timer and I will come on

about a minute -- with a minute left of your time

so that you'll know that will be your warning,

when I pop up, you have 60 seconds, okay?

We just want to get as many people the chance to speak

as possible, so thank you, and MARIAM, you are up.

>> Thank you so much, Trevor, and good afternoon,

everybody.

I don't want to name names but all the

distinguished legislators, I say good afternoon.

I'm here as MARIAM Asman EGAL, as a mother and I want

to share with you my story that pertains to my son.

If I can share the screen for a minute -- I can

send that another time.

He's 24 years old adult autistic who has never been

identified or diagnosed with autism or any other

condition.

And who happens to be my son, you know.

There is nothing I could do, we missed early

intervention because of my denial.

We have a history of autism in our family,

actually two of my younger sisters have two

autistic children, one of them is a young adult,

which [indiscernible] years old, mine is only 4
years old and the last sister, her son is maybe 12

years old or 11 years old.

My experience with autism was when my son was three

years old, his doctor said, oh, wow, you know what?

You need -- I want to refer him to speech therapy.

He has delayed speech.

And I did not like that, so I said, okay, let's

make an appointment with a speech therapist.

And I did.

And on my way from, you know, his pediatrician, to

my home, my mom calls me and I tell her, I said,

mom, you know, I'm taking my son to see a special

therapist.

And she said for what?

I said for him to learn how to talk, he's behind

with -- when compared to his peers and sure

enough, my mom said, oh, get out of here.

You see how he has a big head?

Your dad had a big head and guess when he spoke,

when he was five years old.

And so forget about that SHIT and move on.

So I moved on.

Because I really trust my home and I don't want to

spill over time but anyways, I have this young autistic

adult male that I have raised on my own with no support
but it gave me an incentive to work with families of

children with autism, with families of children with

special needs and make sure that they growth every

intervention and that they dealt with the disability

right there and then and embraced autism instead of

being in denial because I was in denial.

My sister has -- who has the 30-year-old young

autistic with severe autism in sin waited years

back, oh, MARIAM, I think he should be tested for

autism and I was like, just because you got autism

in your family doesn't mean that my son, you know,

is a retard.

No, he's not.

My son is okay.

Forget about it.

So I was in denial so that cost us losing early

intervention but guess what?

I educated myself about the autism.

I started helping others so hide what I have to do

for my own.

I didn't want to say, oh, my, I have disability in my

family.

No, I was like, hey, who has, you know, any

challenge, the parents.

I came to Minnesota solely for that and I have been
here nine years just working with families of a

different culture with the language barriers, with

socioeconomic status barriers W educational bearers and

with individuals, you know, that -- if helped earlier

and with early intervention could [indiscernible] and

integrate and live to their full potential.

So I managed to do that and my work reflects I

have shared -- I think with Trevor two links.

I wanted you guys to see what my work has entailed and

what was -- to me, what was an outcome, a positive

outcome that came out of my work, the nine years that I

was in denial about my own problems because my son was

already a young adult and he was in denial and he was

in compliance and he was like, no, I am not going to

see anybody.

I'm not crazy.

You are crazy.

But I can see he's smart, he is super.

He has some challenge that I helped and I adopted in

helping him with his challenge.

And he is super smart.

He's like if he wants something to happen, if he wants

to buy a house now and he has saved money and he has

worked hard on his credit, it has to be on time.

But then fortunately --
>> Thank you, MARIAM, I really appreciate it.

>> So I have those recommendations.

I recommend that we partner with these community

and so that we can get their feedback in a

culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.

Thank you so much and I'm sorry if I went over time.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Marium.

Now we have Jillian and then after Jillian Willie have

dame men LIEVSTAD.

So be prepared.

Jillian, you have the floor.

>> Thank you, Trevor and thank you for the Council and

all of our legislators and senators here with us today.

I'm very well-trained to staying under five

minutes thanks to Senator Hoffman and Senator

Abeler and their committee.

I wanted to bring forward three pieces of legislation.

I'll introduce myself first, Jillian Nilson, the

community resource and policy advocate for the

autism society of Minnesota.

I'm a White woman with brown and tale hair sitting in

front of a collection of book shelves.

We are currently working on large package of bill,

I will to highlight the overall packaged and then

speak specifically about three pieces.
Worry working on expanding as sessionibility in the

state of Minnesota.

Minnesota has long been a lighter in

accessibility, but it is time that we recognize

that individuals within' visible disabilities have

unique accessibility limits that are not attention

clearly outlined as in the Americans with

Disability Act as that those with physical ago

accessibility needs.

So we're bringing forward a package that includes

grants for public spaces, public courtroom bills, plain

language bills, that will all focus on expanding

accessibility for all Minnesotans with all different

types of disabilities.

One of those bills I'm going to speak to is our

special education parent accessibility bill.

Parents with disabilities face unsurmountable barriers

in requesting accessibility accommodations through the

IEP process.

When this is brought to MDE or the Minnesota human

rights commission, parents are often greeted with,

well, with he need documentation that you followed

the policy and procedure to request

accommodations.

Unfortunately at this time there is actually no policy
or procedure in how to request accommodations, as a

participate in the IEP process, so with the help of

representative Freiberg, we put together some policies

and procedures on how parents can request

accommodations in the IEP process and we're hoping to

move that bill forward with hearings in the house and

the senate and hopeful passage this coming session.

Under the encourage.

Of senator John Hoffman, I have been working with

Minnesota Disability Law Center, the autism senate

council as well as a number of other organizations to

look at reforming rates for medical assistance for

employed people with disabilities.

These rates have not been adjusted in many, many

years and right now, they do provide a barrier for

employed people with disabilities to access

medical assistance, and in many cases, may

actually be keeping people with disabilities out

of the workforce for fear of losing their benefits

or not being able to maintain employment with the

high level of fees to access your services through

this program.

We're hoping that if we can reduce these fees, we can

increase employment in the disability community which

can hopefully help with some of our greater workforce
crisis by getting people with disabilities back into

the workforce while still being able to maintain their

benefits.

And then the last bill I want to speak with is one

very, very close to my heart.

I've been working directly with the Disability Law

Center to draft language regarding a task force.

I have many people here, every story we've heard

links back to the inaccessibility of our

disability county and state services, and a person

living in Minnesota with a disability knows that

accessing Medicaid, accessing a waiver, accessing

anything that relates to your disability through

the county and state services is Wong of the less

accessible systems that exist in this world.

I'm a firm believer that disability services should in

fact be the most accessible system we have in any

government system.

So Disability Law Center and I are moving forward

with legislation that will propose a task force be

assembled to look at the accessibility of all

state and county disability services as well as

launch a number of different pilot programs to

test out different solutions for accessibility so

that we can move forward in making legislative
changes and departmental changes to make sure that

things like waivers, things like Medicaid, things

like the smart process, things like the MnChoice

process are the most accessible systems so that

the payment with disability that need services are

able to get services.

With that I feel like I acovered a whole lot of

information and Trevor hand called me out on time yet.

But that's what I wanted to share.

If anyone has any questions or information or if any

representatives or senators listening to want to join

us on this work, feel free to reach out to us at the

Autism Society of Minnesota.

We are happy to work together to make the most

accessible Minnesota possible.

Did I hit three minutes, Trevor?

Did John over there train me on three minutes?

>> Trevor:  You had 45 seconds left so you really

are a pro so I think maybe in the future we should

workshop elevator speech class for the public to

learn how to be very good effective communicators.

>> I give full credit to Senator Hoffman and

Senator Abeler and their committee.

>> Trevor:  Maybe we'll get them to do it.

All right, next is Damion LIEVESTAD.
I apologize for not saying your name correctly.

After Damion, we've have Lisa JULIAR.

>> Thank you for having me.

My name is Damion LIEVESTAD, I currently liver in

plumb out with my parents.

I was born with a neurological disorder scald spinal

muscular atrophy and I've been in a wheelchair since I

was ten years old.

Subsequently, I've been using home care services

since I moved to Minneapolis in 1992.

Will [indiscernible] not just in Minnesota but

nation-wide.

The shortage has a tremendous impact on those of

us who rely on home care services as it inhits our

ability to experience the sense of security or

stability in our lives that most people take for

granted.

Due to our inability to hire and retain quality home

care workers, we know our health safety and needs will

not be consistently met.

Without this basic expectation, it's difficult to

know what next week, next month or certainly what

the next year will look like.

It makes it impossible to plan for a paid job, planning

event with family and friends or get involved in our
communities.

After all, simply surviving becomes our primary

task.

While I've been blessed with [indiscernible] family...



[ Indiscernible ]

The time, energy and challenges are finding workers-for

me and thousands of other people with disability can be

really vulnerable, burdensome and a time with little

hope.

Yet, I am confident if we work together on services

together, as people rely on services, people providing

services, people coordinating service and with our

family and friends, the future can be amazing for all

of us.

To do so, however, we must be willing to talk

openly and listen intelligently to people who use

and rely on these services.

The workers in the profession in order to increase

our -- in order to increase workers coming into the

workforce.

I believe there are several things the state can

do.

One is to create a college tuition credit program.

This credit program for those who want to go to
college could get a tuition reimbursement by

working in home care.

This would not only bring people into the home care

field, it would also provide equity for other people

who cannot afford college or a means to do so.

Currently representative Claiborne of district 44A

has HF 338 which is a bill to set up a program for

that.

Another program would be a student loan payback

program.

After graduation, majority of students who were

home care workers during college move on and find

odds full-time jobs.

Without the life-sustaining support that I require.

Similar to the college version, this would create,

encourage students to continue to work in home

care industry and provide care to elderly and

disabled Minnesotanswhile -- making college more

affordable to those who otherwise could not

attend.

Another thing they could do is create a tiered-wage

system for PCAs.

Most PCAs start out making the same wage as

someone who's worked five, ten or 15 years as a

caregiver.
We need a tiered system that will pay PCAs more that

have worked longer and developed more skills.

Health care will allow home care workers the

ability to -- health care like MnCare for

someone working in home care, even part time, to

be able to get affordable insurance.

Currently due to low wages, many home care workers have

two to three care jobs which then puts them over the

income limit to qualify for [indiscernible] health

care.

Currently if you have over ten hours your PCA is

paid 7.5% more.

But we need to make a tiered system so that our clients

with greater needs testif a hire [indiscernible] system

so that high needs clients have the ability to attract

and retain quality home care workers.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Damion, really appreciate

it and please reach out to me and ed email me and

set up a meeting and we can go through and talk

more about that.

And then next we have Lisa JULIAR.

>> David:  Trevor, one second, we're going to read some

of the ones that were sent to us and then head over

back to Lisa.
These will be brief questions that were put in the

chat or sent to us earlier.

And then we'll get right over to Lisa.

So one we got was Cardinal, which is a provider in

the Rochester area is shutting down ten

residences, people with adult mental disabilities

with no clear plan as to where residents will

move.

Their families are panicking, that's one example of how

the crisis in recruiting and sustaining direct service

providers home and health care -- home health and

personal care impacts people across the state.

What can the legislature, Governor's office, state

leaders do to alleviate this problem?

And that's something for our legislators to consider.

And the second one is seeking to remove barriers

in access to home and community-based services

across the counties of Minnesota for all

Minnesotans.

The state system max ex and MnChoices do not

interface and require much manual workaround which harm

the workforce to get people with disabilities on the

services they need, whereas health care access is a

human right.

Further workforce challenges also present once
people who have disabilities have access to

programming, the supports from home care supports

and PCAs are very limited and contracted

agencies are suffering with staffing issues, as

well.

Along with county agencies.

How can you, the legislature, advocates, help

remove these system barriers to get better

outcomes and increase access?

So those are two and then I want to share one comment

that we got from an advocate saying for our legislative

leaders here to consider, because we cannot attend the

capitol in person, I'm concerned that people with

disabilities will get left out of issues and debates

facing our community with the different

accessibility -- rather, physical access limitations to

the legislative buildings because of COVID.

And then I'll pass it back to you, Trevor.

Thank you.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, David.

We're going to Lisa JULIAR.

Hi, Lisa.

The floor is yours.

>> Hi, thank you.

Thank you for having me and allowing me to share just a
small part of my story.

For the last 20 years, I have been an advocate for

inclusion both in education and in health care.

For the less decade, I've worked as a patient and

family engagement specialist, working towards safety in

all settings of health care.

I would just like to share a bit of my story

because for the last two years, my son has

essentially been excluded from society.

And I would like to just share it and hopefully there

will be some changes coming in the future.

As we know, there was distance learning, my son

has a chromosome disorder and is nonverbal.

He was not educated for a full year because he is not

able to learn in a virtual setting.

He is not able to talk because he has some low

muscle town in his space and so he drools.

That means that he is not able to safely wear a mask

without feeling like he is drowning.

In the last year, he has been denied urgent care

when he slammed his finger in the car door and was

pleading and had been in pain because he couldn't

wear a mask.

He was not allowed to come to speech therapy because he

was not able to safely wear a mask.
He has shunned from restaurants, he has been

kicked out of movie theaters.

He has been disrespected.

He has been made fun of.

I have been accused of not caring for our community and

told to keep him home until the pandemic has passed.

I understand that this is not the mainstream

narrative that everybody clings to but this is

important as a person with a disability.

I have never in my wildest dreams imagined that he

would be so discriminated against, shunned and excluded

from society as he has in the past two years.

He has not seen his social worker for two years.

He has not been able to access vocational rehab.

He is 20 years old, he has very limited time.

He has decreased his reading exponentially.

He is depressed.

He has not seen his friends.

This is a tragedy and it is not meant -- it is not

okay to -- and now, and now we are going to put

more mandates out there and exclude him further.

I want to say to any legislators, any leaders that if

you are not paying attention to people that cannot

safely adhere to these mandates, you are part of the

problem.
Owes a gentle, kind soul who loves people.

He also relies on facial expressions to communicate so

at times, I have taken my mask off to communicate with

him.

He touches my face, he brings himself closer to

me.

I am his only connection sometimes to society.

And I've been yelled at because my mask is below

my nose.

I am shaking right now, I am sad but there is no reason

that we should come to this as a society.

He is not a leper who should be shunned and not

allowed to participate in all the things that you

all participate in, that everybody around him

participates in.

This is a tragedy that needs to be looked at.

Thank you very much for your time.

>> Trevor:  Thank you.

I think your comment is a really good example of how

the disability community has been kind of made a pawn

of a lot of political fights and also not being

considered when it comes to policy, so I'm sorry for

the experience that your son is having and I hope that

we can continue to work and get the disability

representation that we need.
We need more people with disabilities in our

government, making these policies, considering

these kind of issues.

So thank you again.

Next we have Karen Larson.

Karen, you are next and then after Karen, we'll have

Roger day, so Karen you have the floor.

>> Thank you very much.

I'm sitting her crying, I would my agenda,

everything all ready to go and Lisa you blew me

out of the war, Lisa, thank you very much.

You guys got to understand, when you heart a child, you

better watch out because mom is coming full force.

My son is 34 years old and we've had to fight

every fight between education, between medical

issues, between just getting the services we need.

It's really important.

I was so proud and happy to hear, that you all

want to hear stories, right?

Well, hearing them and making action on it are two

different things.

We need you to hear.

We need you to listen, we need you to understand.

You don't walk in our shoes.

You don't know what it's like to get doors slammed in
your face and if you do, thank you, but most folks

don't know that because they don't walk this road we

walk.

They don't know how hard it is.

We have -- I've been fighting for 34 years, and things

just are getting worse now, you know.

We thought we were -- Minnesota was doing really

good I thought I would never hear this in the

State of Minnesota again.

The main reason I raised my hand is up until the point

I raised may hand, we didn't talk about the direct

support professional crisis we have and thank you,

Damion, for covering that issue, thank you for

everybody else for covering that issue.

You know, people are sitting in their chairs all

night and not getting to bed because they don't

have staff to put them to bed and they don't have

staff to get them out of bed.

People are not going to work because there's nobody

there to support them at work.

You can't put people to work if you don't have the

supports there for them to work, period.

You have to watch where the funding is going.

You funded PCA.

Awesome, PCA, awesome, thank you very much.
But there are other support workers like DPSed out

there that did not get a raise, did not get the

funding they need.

And I want to talk about a provider aspect.

I'm not a provider.

I don't work for a provider but I'm telling you row it

now there's doors closing everywhere in Minnesota.

There's group homes shutting down houses and

moving people to a strange neighborhood.

Pack umm your house now, you have to move to

Minneapolis because there's no house here for you.

Changing the person's whole atmosphere,

environment, they know where the local grocery

store was and now they don't because they moved to

Minneapolis and they know nothing about that

community.

Now folks are stuck at home, no job, no communication,

no community involvement, no socialization.

Talking about shunning, because that's where we're

headed and it's happening every day, an employer

that's been around forever and ever said if I lose

one more DSP, I'll have to shut my doors and

they've been around forever and it's happening

every day.

This is not a crisis anymore, you guys, we're moving
into emergency care needed now.

We need to do something.

And if you need more information, the University of

Minnesota ICI has tons.

You want stats to support the stuff that I'm

talking about passionately, Amy's got the stats.

We just need to pass legislation so folks get what they

need and shunning folks is not not happening.

We've worked really hard in Minnesota to hold that

up and make a wonderful Minnesota for everybody.

Let's don't go backwards.

Let's make it better.

Let's be number one again.

Thank you.

>> David:  Trevor, I think you're still muted.

>> Trevor:  You would think after two years of

this.

Thank you, Karen, really appreciate you sharing your

story.

The workforce crisis is major and I look forward

to working with Senator Abeler and all the rest of

the legislators in addressing that and trying to

do the best we can to find a solution for the

shortage.

Next we have Roger DEI, and after that Roger we'll have
pat Lang.

So Roger, the floor is yours.

First off, I want to congratulate and thank everybody

who's helped create this event and everybody who's

participating in it to make it what it is.

This is really a fantastic thing, if there's

anything that I really want to drive home is that

more of all of this good work will be great and so

my message is, I like the progress and the passion

that I see and I want to compliment everyone on

following their passions in my early 30s, I was

disabled by Minnesota's government in general and

it's judiciary in particular, and so I have PTSD

from governmental and judicial abuses and so I've

got a bit of a unique disability.

My disability only really shows up when I deal with

government to try to overcome the abuses, and I

developed a government phobia, frankly.

And so it makes it very hard to take political

action to try to address the cause of my

disability which is political activity.

Ready hateful political activity on the part of certain

individuals in positions of power I'll leave it at that

but I suffer from a number of legal challenges and I

have turned to the Minnesota disability law center over
the years for help with those challenges and the

Minnesota Disability Law Center just doesn't have the

resources to be of enough help to me.

I've gotten a little bit of help from the

Disability Law Center but it hasn't been nearly

enough, and I've had to go into state and Federal

court on my own and the State of Minnesota who

I've been trying to bring to justice has let its

lawyers put up deferences such as sovereign

immunity from the ADA.

And so I've tried to sue the State of Minnesota for ADA

violations and the State of Minnesota has tried to get

out of them and I think that's atrocious, that the

state of Minnesota allows the state Attorney General to

make arguments that the state should get out of ADA

violation litigation.

So it's a mess.

I think the legislature should look very hard at what

the Attorney General's office does, and I think the

Disability Law Center could be a big help with that so

the one thing the legislature could do is provide a lot

more funding and direction for the Disability Law

Center and can also look directly at what Minnesota

does within disability litigation, because Minnesota

does not play fair and state and Federal judges
actually go along with the dishonesty of the Attorney

General's office.

And so we've got a serious problem with judicial

corruption and with a state Attorney General's

office that is is not working for the people but

is actually working against the people.

So, again, keep up the good work.

This is a really great community and I think we've

got a lot of work ahead of us.

The pandemic has created new challenges and I see

people rising to those challenges and it's really

wonderful.

So let's keep meeting and keep working.

Thank you.

>> Thank you, Roger.

Really appreciate the encouraging words there.

Next we'll have pat Lang and Pat Lang will be the last

speaker.

>> I'll move this now so...

>> Trevor:  Okay.

I don't know who that was but okay.

So that will be the last -- pat will be the last person

to speak so, pat, go ahead, the floor is yours.

>> Can you hear me now?

My name is Pat Lang, I am the parent of a very,
very medically fragile child, I am also the

coordinator for the health information center at

the pacer center so I've been -- I've had the

privilege of working with Senator Hoffman and

Senator Abeler who so graciously help us fight the

fights.

My concern now is my daughter is -- and I thank you,

dame O', who gave great, great ideas about how to help

the workforce shortage.

My daughter requires 24/7 nursing care.

It's not a shift at night, she gets treatment, she's

completely dependent on machines.

She's on a vent, on a feeding tube.

She has a should not, ice diabetic, many, many things.

She can't move on her own and she requires home

care nursing.

All of that has been justified by the services that

she's supposed to receive.

Built there is a home care nursing shortage.

The home care nursing shortage is horrendous and there

are ways to think out of the box to pay these women and

men that work in this industry.

There are things like Damion mentioned, education

reimbursement, gas cards, there are ways that you

could have a cheered payment depending.
My child, you can't sleep as I mentioned.

She gets over 68 immediate passes a night.

She really could be in a hospital.

When I have  -- I've gone 72 hours without sleep

because I'm working as well as -- so I can pay

taxes and I am doing the medical care of a nurse

when I don't have a home care nurse.

It is something that needs to be addressed.

They need to have access to insurance, as well, so

that they not only can do the job they want to do

in the homes like mine but they get a fair pay,

they work harder because they're alone and they

should have the health care benefits and be able

to get those and have a good wage.

One of the things that also happens, and we did have a

bill in front of the legislature is -- legislation and

that is once we get a home care nurse, the school

sometimes -- now my daughter is past that but I fight

for that where the school says oh, no, we don't want

your home care nurse to come to school with your child.

Well, wait a minute.

When that home care nurse can't go to school with that

child, that the State says needs her, that the doctors

say needs her, that nurse is going to go find

employment somewhere else and there we go, that family
loses a nurse again.

We can't continue, too, in this state, to be like this.

Yes, I know there is a shortage everywhere but

let's get together with the great minds we have,

the dedication of all of you and figure outout --

figure out out-of-the-box ways to get the staff

that we they had so that we can be a better family

unit, be a better state and take care of our kids

that are the most vulnerable.

I thank you all for what you've done and what you're

doing.

Please, please hear me and let's do something.

>> Trevor:  Thank you, Pat.

Please reach out to me and send me an email.

Go to our website, my contact information is on

there and we can talk more about that and figure

out a path forward.

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks for everyone who stayed on and stayed over

15 minutes, we really appreciate you taking that

time to listen to everyone.

Everyone's voice should be heard, everyone's voice is

equal and as you can hear, there's so many different

disability issues that are happening all across the

State of Minnesota and we really, really, really need
more people to focus and listen to people with

disabilities and not just listen and not just bring

them to the table but also let them be the deciders

because they're the ones that are going to be able to

make the most informed policy about people with

disabilities.

So, again, thank you all.

Thank you, everyone.

I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful rest of

your week and good weekend and Martin Luther King

Day.

We will be off that day to celebrate, you know, another

civil rights movement which we look and draw a lot of

inspiration from.

So thank you so much and have a wonderful day.



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