Oil prices, budget, part of monthly session

All seats were occupied during a session of “Coffee with Representative Tom Sexton” at the Waseca Chamber of Commerce offices on Friday, March 13. In attendance were Jim Boerboom, Chamber of Commerce President Mikhail Rostislavovich, Waseca County Commissioner Brad Milbrath, Barefoot Lane owner Christa Wadekamper, Minnesota Representative Tom Sexton, Christina Kreutter, Bernie Gaytko, Waseca City Manager Carl Sonnenberg, Gary Worke and Linda Borne. Borne is retired, but Sexton comically reminded her, “You’ll never be retired from paying your taxes.”

 

Sexton handed everyone present about 20 pages of printed information, then proceeded to provide a detailed summary of the state’s budget plans, allowing everyone to follow along. He pointed out recent increases in oil prices have two major causes–the military action in Iran and the fact that America is now exporting more oil. The US is also very productive when it comes to refining oil. He said, “A barrel of oil comes in a 40-gallon barrel measurement, and that barrel amount can produce up to 42 gallons of gasoline once everything is added and refined.” He believes the cost of oil should come back down soon, but cautioned, “US oil companies make more money exporting it than selling it here.”

 

Numerous persons at the session commiserated over difficulties they have finding and hiring good employees. Some stated they had been advertising open positions for some time, but received no applications. Complaints were also registered that the Paid Family Medical Leave (PFML) program further complicates the hiring process. Regarding  PFML, Sonnenberg passed along an experience from a local business owner: “A small business that only has four or five people, and one person who takes leave for 12 or 20 weeks, what does that mean for that business? That has a huge impact.” Sexton elaborated, “It also means your other people can’t take their vacation. It’s an impact on all employers.”

 

Christina Kreutter, who is familiar with staffing said, “I started in temporary staffing, I worked for Doherty, did a lot of day labor recruiting for six years before joining Jostens in Owatonna in human resources. When I started there were 500 employees doing order processing and call center positions. A lot of those jobs went offshore and when I left, there were only about 200 people still there and many of those were remote. I joined Hometown and from there I was looking for a local community with the same values and found Waseca. At my job right now, we have four on leave and that reduces our workforce by 10 percent. This is hitting us and other businesses really hard. There are currently 13 states that are taking part in Paid Family Medical Leave.”

 

Gary Worke asked, “The Federal Government has said they’re going to potentially withhold $250 million in funds to the state of Minnesota. I hope they do because we need to get this fraud thing sorted out. I was disappointed to hear that in order to counter that, the governor is planning on expanding our bureaucracy in St. Paul. We didn’t have fraud and abuse until later years and a lot of that happened when we went to statewide control of the payment systems in St. Paul. Before that we had local county officials overseeing the payments to make sure they weren’t fraudulent. I would suggest we maybe back track on that a little. We were doing that 15 years ago.”

 

Sexton agreed that was a good idea. Another person suggested each county hire a fraud investigator.

 

Borne asked about the status of the Inspector General position for Minnesota. Sexton replied, “I am keenly involved in that fight. That passed in the senate with 60 votes to 7, overwhelming support and bipartisanship. The house, however, was evenly divided. We are pushing hard so we don’t have to get this pushed through the senate again. But as of right now we cannot get it out of our committee. The biggest thing the governor does not want is the law enforcement portion of the independent office of Inspector General such that that element could go and arrest somebody for being complicit with fraud.” There were gasps in the room and one guest asked, “That’s the reason the governor doesn’t want an inspector general?” To which Sexton nodded yes.

 

Wadekamper, owner of Barefoot Lane, would like to open a bakery in town. She shared frustration that the Department of Agriculture is taking six weeks to approve her plans, leaving her unable to move forward. “How is a small business supposed to open when we’re paying all our bills but can’t start construction when we’re waiting that long?” she asked. Sexton said to send him the information, and he would draft a letter to send over and see what he could do.