collaborating organizations that breaking this best special town hall meeting to you this is a huge collaboration in service to our community by deller legacy institutions first of all the mighty k m o j f m eighty nine point nine pete rose as be in major network cable television and insight news and we're joined today by a partnership with st paul neighborhood network and in t n and so the idea is that we are  marshaling print electronic in terms of radio and television and internet to create a set of connections that allow you and us to have a robust conversation about an important issue for our community and the issue is minnesota's one point nine one point eight billion dollar budget surplus the question is what's in it for our community where our interests are defined we're pleased to have a stellar panel and people in community joining this conversation over the course of the next two hours will talk about the policy issues the preferences the needs of people of color and how we make sure that our voices and our interests are at the table we want results that reflect our contribution and our participation in the great state of minnesota and i want to welcome first of all the four out of budget one a one a primer on the budget the commissioner of the department of management and budget for state of minnesota commissioner myron france commissioner good morning and welcome morning making off pull the microphone close to you there  and i want to begin by giving our viewers and listeners an idea of what's on the table right now we've been hearing one point eight billion dollars one point eight nine billion dollars in past years i believe we always talked about budget shortfalls and tightening the budget and budget cuts programs being cut but it seems like right now we have a unique window of opportunity got a lot of money projected in the budget and the question is should we give that money back to the taxpayers directly or find ways to invest that money so that we can grow the economy grow jobs try to address some of the permissions and persistent problems of disparities that plague our great state and so before we get into the details of that i'd like for you to give our viewers and listeners sort of a primer what does it mean to have a one point eight one point nine billion dollars surplus where does the money come from first of all and where will it go how does the state spend money the commissioner myron france well that's a great introduction because the history is important wasn't that long ago for like eleven years nine out of eleven years we had budget deficits and only recently have we had this new surplus and the reason we're having this or plus is because minnesota is doing very well minnesota's doing above average we are a success story there as you mentioned there are some still issues we need to deal with as a state and as as a region but we are we are on the move minnesota has a fifth lowest unemployment of all the states in the country the twin cities has a lowest unemployment rate of it of any major metropolitan area in this country so what this means is the economy is growing there are more jobs are being created where we are seeing finally we're seeing wage growth occur we're seeing in go income growth occur and we're also seeing the economy economic activity growing so we're seeing income increased income taxes we're saying increase sales taxes and those are the things the kinds of revenue that are adding to the surplus but we've also managed our expenditures very carefully the last few years many of the palace here will know and remember that we had borrowed money from schools to plug some of the holes in the budget deficits before we've paid that two point eight billion dollars back and now we're we're looking at what happens to a state like minnesota when the economy's growing so what happens every november and every february we have a november forecast and that is where the surplus comes from so the economists take a look at the revenues that are coming in they look at the expenditures expenditures and then they try to do the real magic that is project what's going to happen the next two years that's the difficult part no one knows for sure obviously but we do know that wages are growing income is growing as i said and expenditure expenditures are under control so what's happened in our february forecast we saw an increase of over eight hundred million dollars go to our surplus and now we have almost one point nine billion dollars in a budget balance for the next by any m and we have over three point one billion dollar budget surplus for the by any after that it has been a long time since we have looked at two by any in a row with this kind of a surplus so that's how the the surplus comes about because we measure the the activity we compare it to our expenditures every project what's going to happen in the future so that's how we got to one point nine almost one point nine billion dollars balance what is the money come from how does the state acquire that money  but what's the state budget first of all and how does the state government get the states annual budget is a little over twenty billion dollars per year or a little over forty billion dollars every two years and so the money comes in through the people purchasing the sales taxes and generates a lot of revenue property taxes mainly goes to the local but there's also some state revenues so there's property taxes sales taxes there's the cigarette tax that we increase to reduce smoking and of course there's the income tax and the income tax has been the one that has shown the most increase because we were able to you may remember several years ago we added a fourth income tax here and asked so as a top to pay the two percent to pay two percent more well that is also contributing to our revenue stream but the state gets money because people pay taxes and fees and that money comes into the state and then we hold that money and pay our expenditures and now we see one point nine billion on the plus side in excess of our expend our projected expenditures let's talk about broadly speaking what the state spends money on where does the budget go well primarily the budget goes to education it goes to transportation to health and human services those and higher education if you look at those four categories that's over seventy percent of our budget goes to those those categories and so every year we look at the money that goes to education to k k through twelve and higher education in fact that's one of the you may recall two years ago we had it all day kindergarten to our budget and that added some more money this year the governor is proposing universal pre k for four year olds which is over two hundred and thirty million dollars to add to the budget so it's education it's pre k through twelve and higher education it's department of human services and it's transportation those are the big areas that we spend money year after year ok and so we're looking at biennium and the likelihood of almost two billion dollars in surplus what kind of considerations must the administration make and where does the legislature come into this picture because some things if you don't the money and as i said to begin with there are some philosophies here at play in general the perception is that conservative philosophy is that budget surpluses ought to be returned to the taxpayer and that might mean  teens for tax cuts or tax returns others however progressive i would say what want the government to invest in problem solving and one of the issues for the african american communities of color i believe is how do we count on our state to invest and enabling resourcing properly an institution within the community to solve problems that are persistent you mentioned the budget goes to education goes to human services and transportation so the question i want to raise is how big a part of those budgets impact the organizations and residents of our state in a way that we see positive change and in our communities what are your thoughts on that well it's a gets a great question one of the things that happens with the february forecast that really sets the stage for the legislature and the governor to negotiate what is the correct budget for minnesota so what happens a governor who submits a budget he submitted a budget in january based on the november forecast and next week he's going to submit the new budget based on this new one point nine billion dollar surplus he will submit that to the legislature and that then begins a process where the legislature and the governor said down and try to come up with a budget by the end of the session which is may eighteenth so in that in that negotiating process the governor is going to make a some you're not that old but we gave back we had some surpluses we gave back big refund and we reduced tax rates well then in the decade of two thousand we had certain deficit after deficit after deficit we didn't take that money and invest  in opportunity we just gave it back to one hundred fifty or two hundred dollars i'm not dismissing that as an important amount for individuals to get but the governor's point of view is we need to take a look at how did we get to where we have one point nine billion dollars we got to this point because minnesota is there are more jobs or more people getting opportunities or more educational opportunities and he believes that we're in this for the long haul and he believes in investing this money going forward so he's going to make recommendations next week where he will propose investing in funding universal pre k for example and a tuition freeze for the universities and various things like that he wants to sort of give it back if you will in a way  that is isn't as an investment for the future and not just an individual check for and for individuals so that that dynamic is going to get set up with the senate and the house as we all try to come together and figure out where how does this money get into the department of human services and services what are the best programs for the the minnesota families programs for example the governor is going to is looking at ways to increase the amount of cash grants he's looking at housing for working working families he's making a pitch for the child credit for young families middle income families because childcare is so expensive these days and for working families it's really tough so to kind of set the stage a little bit i think the governor is really to make the pitch to invest this money in programs and opportunities so that we can continue the growth in minnesota his vision is one of minnesota where everyone has an opportunity we reduce barriers and we provide opportunities for education and jobs in a holistic way and not sort of individual to tax refunds so is there opposition to that idea yes and you mention actually al the conservative idea would be more to sort of give it back in the way of tax different kind of tax cuts well actually i would disagree that i think the conservative approach ought to be supporting families because if you really want to support families on long term budget growth you look at how can we position ourselves so that more and more kids graduate more and more kids are successful in high school they go into training or they go on to college and they provide they get better opportunities to make more money to have more satisfying families we reduce the barriers i mean mental health is a big issue in the department of human services where commissioner jesson has done such a great job that agency and one of the things she these would have been advocating is for we need more community mental health issues more chemical dependency so what we need to do is attack those barriers where people are not succeeding and figure out ways that we can provide programs and opportunities to reduce the barriers to those folks can have a more successful job and more successful family m l macfarlane this is a special town hall meeting this subject today is the minnesota one point nine billion dollar projected tax or budget surplus and our theme today kind of is budgets matter but just matter to our people to black people and we are assemb today to engage in a conversation here on s p and t v in st paul and empty and t v in minneapolis and live on k in all j radio in twin cities raising the question of the interest of black people before we continue i want to sort of acknowledge some of the background and bring this particular program together we've had a group meeting on tuesdays for oh almost a half a year now a small leadership group considering issues of education of business of political empowerment for the black community and out of that group we've done some important things one is we've created a series of town hall meetings looking at education in minneapolis how do we create  equity how do we create resources for teachers not we address getting parents and families involved community involved in delivering a quality experience that turns around the failure of some of the public schools that serve o children out of that meeting we also have discussed things like the budget we discussed the role of two of our three of our leading lights in the legislature the role of senator jeff hayden the role of senator bobby champion and the work of award which just occurred as part of black history month out of our meetings we've decided that today we should talk about the budget we know that the budget decisions for the state will be made final in the next month or two and it's timely for us to question and put our voices our interests on the table in a public way i want to thank some of the following people who've been at the table every week they include a tireless organizer and champion of doing right by our community and our community peter hayden who is the creator of the turning point organization a visionary leader addressing the mental health needs of our community least of delgado an educator louis king dr michael t fagan for what he's done also at the table have been at least the clements and robbie norman from for construction many people bringing this moment this conversation to your attention but great thanks to the partners this media event is important it's new hasn't happened before a collaboration between k m o j we thank kelvin quarrels the manager of cable jay between b m a network cable television pete visionary leader in the communications industry my organization insight news and we thank our partnership in the person of steve runs berg who's managing this live broadcast on e s p n and  and channel nineteen and st pole and m t n channel sixteen in minneapolis so we're doing the right thing our mission is to create a pup conversation our goal is to create a public knowledge public debate our people need to own the question of the budget only the solutions we bring and demand and and deliver our voice our priorities and that's why we're here today so thank you for listening thank you for watching i want to turn now we'll come back to commissioner myron france as the program continues i want to bring in one of the leaders in the senate the senior member of our dynamic duo senator jeff hayden going to hayden good morning how you do good morning things that you're working on but i want to you to put in context why this conversation about the budget is important for our people for all minnesotans but you know too often our people think that somebody else's business and we're here today to say no this is our business and we got to be present and accounted for yeah well first of all i'll thank you and thank you all the sponsors of this great event i think this is the type of the new and the type of form that hopefully our viewers are watching and more people are kind of taking a look at it i think commissioner francis really kind of laid out kind of what is going on in the budget and then the dollar amounts to you know you think a forty billion dollars that's a lot of money of minnesota taxpayer money that goes into running the state and i think the idea and the opportunity for us to invest in our future is with the governor's leadership is really spot on but we have to start to pay attention we have to start to understand you know it's all been a lot of talk about equity and equal distribution and how does that work so i think that the budget and the conversation every two years that i have with my friends in the legislature that talks about the budget and what should our investments be and not just kind of broadly we do spend a lot of money on a lot of programs schools and health care i serve on all the health care committees there is a tremendous amount of money that gets spent on the health care and human services and the delivery of that but there also is an issue of is that money being used in a way that's affected  missiles and so the overall numbers sense that yes this is a great state it's doing really well it's a i like to call it's a really really good state but there is a way that they need to be great and for this to this state to be great we have to deal with this issue of inequity this issue of the gaps right we all kind of color different things this issue of disparity and so in minnesota if you are african american in particular moderate or low income you aren't doing that well we aren't leading the nation in education if you're that person we're not leading the nation and the unemployment if you're that person that you're at the bottom you're at the bottom of the nation you're at the bottom of the nation and so this is a state that is to as as  commission has talked about is doing the right thing but we need to do the right thing with all minnesotans and so part of this conversation and debate and what we deliberate each and every day at the legislature is to figure out how to continue to make the state go forward but at the same time not leave people behind so there are people who are left at the station if you will the train of the one down the road but there's peoples and somehow can't get on that train and that really is a conversation that we're having and i i know that the disparate conversation we're kind of for disparity and for heat you know we talk about it so much but it's really not time for us to do something and so really taking a look holding not only us that you see there african american legislators by the way this is the african american caucus which suggest that we have a disparity in the legislature in of itself right but not only just to hold us but to hold each and every legislator and also the governor accountable for these issues so no matter where you live we should be able to talk to those legislators and really articulate to them what are the things that they want bring a great ideas not just your complaints but your ideas and your solutions we are more than happy to take to take those calls to do forums like this but if we're going to really kind of move the agenda then it's going to have to be kind of all in it's going to be all hands on deck not just simply the legislators of color which are doing their fair share and more i would say i would suggest if i take a look at my friend portfolio bills that they're doing they're doing more than probably around the regular kind of rank and file legislator but that's because the community has to demand more they have to demand more of their legislators i think we can do it and as we continue to have this conversation and i we push we are starting to figure out that there are solutions there are resources that can be dedicated that can be targeted that can move the needle but we must must get involved it is those who show the legislature those who call those who email those that show up at forums like this that is who listens that is who we listen to we can't we don't know what you want if you don't show up so this idea of monday morning quarterbacking i call it right that people complain and they sit back in a legislative session is over and they get upset because they don't get what they want and oddly nine time nine times out of ten that person has never heart written or showed up to one of these one so i actually make this a push to the community as a whole to really get active and involved on these issues the process though is a little complicated but we can learn and if i can learn a descent of champion writers in the ranks i learned we can learn this process of everyone else in minnesota can make that call and could come over for their days on the hill then we really need to be able to do that let's make a pitch then to our listeners and viewers right now if you were watching or listening on cable jay take off your phone your p tweeting and do some facebook ing however you do social media let your digital world know that the minnesota budget surplus matters lets them know that black lives matter and that we are meeting here right now on television and on radio having a conversation about the interest of our people so i'll remind you again and again through this program take out your p t a and send a message twe somebody facebook messenger but let the world know that we're having this conversation right now before i go to senator champion i want to bring in our member from the house of representatives representative rena moran representative good morning and thank you for being here with your microphone to you know maybe i think you're going to there we go great let's talk about the house side of this equation you're looking at the opportunity for the state to decide how to dispose of or to reconcile this budget surplus almost two billion dollars what do your constituents need how would you like to see our state use the resources to help the people that you represent people that you serve with thank you al i am really excited to be here this morning and to really love the one point nine billion dollars surplus surplus that we have here and you know listening to the commissioner here i am now a bit more informed too you know and that's what it's all about is about being connected to what's going on so that we become a more informed community of people who notified us and some what the process looked like and i would also say like to say that you know i am a strong support of the governor i think he has made some great investment you know from education to pre k to all dakin and gone from freezing college tuition for two years just some great investment that goes beyond the educational to jess you know create now called the stick approach to better al const and raising the income level for the top two percent you know if we pay our fair share it's really important that they were paying their fair share to and that is great you know a commissioner here who is who they would to this really explain the budget in a really thorough clio way was right on point and i had to agree with my senator over there around the insight as we talk about minnesota is doing so well is doing great and many can say we're doing really really great but as we know in the black community we are we have some of the worst disparities within every system and you know that is not ok and we have to do better we have to work to make sure that we are lift up everyone you know everyone needs to be on that trying and i know within my community it is really really important the one thing i talked about so often you know when i go back i'm now serving my to return in the house the only african american in the community and i'm also a group my synod to say that you know we are a people who are doing great work in our community and we're doing work that work on low budget i know by get working very hard to create better outcomes for the families our community we do that so i know we have solutions right but to move tho solutions from the community to the capital to those policies to been a part of this one point nine billion billion dollars surplus we need to have your presence and your voice at the capitol to be a part of this process not just not going on the doors of the black caucus here because i'm the only african american in the house of representatives so what i need is a partnership i need us to be in partnership with each other about what is best need it for the african american community and you bringing your solutions to me and helping me keep my other legislators accountable for what we need that is the process that is what's needed you know in my communing you know we talk about jobs i know that they are from young people from the teens to older individuals who want to be working who want to take care of themselves so we have to bring those jobs whether it's job training whether it is a pretty ship whether this are in time she up someone needs to be paid right what we need in our community we need to get our young people off the streets right we need to create opportunities for young people to get to experience that they need so that they can into the workforce ready and prepared so making those connections is absolutely important important and we need some investment we need some intentional investment we can assume because we way out of poverty i think we can agree to that right and so our kids are struggling we have to make we're going to invest in pre k you know a part and i know child care is on affordable but active in the day all the research t a predictor of your success they need to be reading my third grade so we need to look at o c caps families we need to invest in that base and the base and sliding fee scale for all those parents is on a waiting list we need to work to change to assure is that we can do some that for surplus to make sure that we are closing these gaps in early childhood feel that we're investing in nats and that we are investing strongly in job creation holistically and we also know that families are homeless it's really hard for them to you know get the kids to school on time but key is to achieve and do well in school stabilizing families is really really critical that we invest in housing  invest in some of these assistant rental property because most people in the black community they're renting but as we know rent is really an affordable so we have to take the time to help subsidize the whole cable town hall forum on the one point nine billion dollar surplus budgets are a plus for the state of minnesota our theme is what are the interests of the black community going to continue with this discussion in just a moment first we'll take a break for welcome back to this special town hall meeting on the one point nine billion dollar minnesota budget surplus we are grateful to have this great collaboration first of its kind the first time ever a cast on  in minneapolis in t n so thank you for viewing thank you for watching and thank you for listening on cable jay what's most important is that we need to use every means necessary to get our people involved to engage our ideas and to make sure we project and protect our interests i'm pleased to have the members of the black caucus of minnesota's legislature here today to lead that discussion and to analyze and talk about into rea with each other and with you about the question of how we handle and solve the needs of our community i want to go to my legislator the great senator bobby champion bobby champion thank you for being here thank you for your service to our community bobby champion heads my district in north minneapolis district fifty nine and he's the vice chair of the senate finance committee bobbie and if you would meet are we on the right track as a community and in this event talking about the budget and what it means to our community first of all let me just start by saying thank you to you al and to all your strategic partners and key stakeholders that came together in order to reach the conclusion that this sort of engagement or conversation is important so i want us to pause because sometimes people say that people in the black community can't work with each other and this proves that you can't and so i am excited about that what i will say is that i am proud to represent senate district fifty nine and usually most people just think i represent north minneapolis and i'm proud to represent north minneapolis but i also represent the north loop which is the warehouse district in downtown minneapolis also half of downtown which includes the viking stadium and that's when stadium in the guthrie and the target center and all those other great places of spaces in downtown minneapolis and then also a portion of bryn mawr and so i'm proud to be the senator who represents those areas and in the legislature i am vice chair of finance but i'm also on transportation i'm also on the commerce committee judiciary because i'm a lawyer as  well and capital investments with my good friend senator hagan with that being said i want to encourage our community to take a slightly different view of this budget issue we've been posing in framing the question around the one point nine billion dollars surplus which i think is great because that's a reflection of the great work that the legislature and the governor has done in order to put us in a strategic place right now for us to enjoy a  a a surplus as opposed to a deficit because we have been in the legislature when we've been cutting and not looking at how we're moving forward here is what i believe to be important we are talking about the one point nine billion dollars surplus but do you not know that we as a state we spend roughly sixty five billion dollars over buying any i'm right and the legislature in our last budget notion we control thirty nine point four billion dollars now the reason why i'm putting that in context is because we're talking about one point nine billion and there's much more money to be talking about and so what that seems to suggest to me is that we've been making great investments but we need to make some strategic targeted investments in order to make sure that the money that we are spending been if it's us we shouldn't just be talking about one point nine billion dollars there this some other money that's being left on the table and so from my vantage point we need to talk about that yes we've made great investments but we should be making targeted investments in order to lift our people out of the disparities that we find ourselves in and what is the best analogy that i can give you think about it just from a health care perspective my good friend here you know represents on all the health care committees but if you have an issue a medical issue and you go to the doctor sometimes you go to a general practitioner and the general practitioner who is smart and intelligent and has all the credentials that it takes in order to listen to you but guess what if that general practitioner cannot meet your need and your need is specialized they send you to a specially doctor or surgeon sometimes someone who specializes in that area why because it takes a little more than what we've put forward and i believe that we have to go to a surgeon and we are the surgeon and guess what not a doctor on this earth can tell you what's wrong with you without you giving the doctor information it's really when you come through the door the doctor wants to come in  says what do you feel and what are your symptoms what are the challenges and from that they used the expertise but was to diagnose and then come up with a prognosis as to what you need in order to move you forward so i think that we have to be very surgical i think we have to look at what are the challenges where are we spend the money and not just that we're spending the money but is it having any real impact on what we need to see as outcomes and when we think in terms of our budget our budgets to reflect our priorities and our values what do we value what do what are the priorities if we understand if there's a tale of two cities why right and so i think that the community can demand change but we can't come at it from a deficit base perspective but it has to be solution based right but not only should we raise our voice but that has to be coupled with community participation because what happens so often is that our community would say there's a problem there's a problem there's a problem and want us to solve the problem and then when we look around the room for the communities to be standing there with us then we're only one stand in it in the room and then they come back and say hey whatever happened to that problem right and so i think that from a different perspective and we're being generalize and we can talk about some specifics later in the program whenever you like forced to mr moderator but i think we have to come from the perspective that there is a lot of money on the table more than just one point nine billion dollars but what  do in order to use our investments in order to help us move from point a to point b and how we're going to partner with the state as a community in order to make that happen to senator champion let me be the the advocate of the adversary here and challenge you on that and the question is is there a reason explain the reticence for engagement and involvement by our community and it's not that our community doesn't want to be involved i believe the history is that our effort to be and got be involved has been consistently rebuked rejected pushed to the margin right and so after so long you get the message you're not welcome your voice is not important you have no power your ideas don't matter and i say that to describe kind of the nature and the reason for what appears to be apathy in our community respond to that i think that thank you for that question because i think that is an important down that we need to talk about in real time that you're absolutely right there are those who who are not willing to give up power right that is the nature of the environment that we find ourselves in and you're absolutely right that sometimes a message can be given and we take that message and then we'll begin to work from that frame that we're not welcome but guess what i see is a never popular right and when you are fighting for those who have less than and who are challenging that's never a popular position and so when we have the discussions with the legislature there are others i says oh my god you know here comes bobby champion again talking about that but i am energized when i see people who look like me  and they don't always have to just look like me but if we have as a meeting of the mines for them to say hey you on the right try because never a popular position because i believe that the world is run by those who show up right and just as apathy i will give you a good example last week in the senate we were talking about what child protection and child protection has been a very big issue and we can articulate and talk about what i think is wrong what is going on with the governor's force and the governor's doing a good job of at least putting the issue before the public but i think there's been some flaws in the process right and the and the majority of people who are in child protection look like me or you they usually say that's  who is dealing with child protection should not be dealing with child protection there are some people who should write because there are some joneses along the way but the bottom line is when we had the hearing there was a person who came to sit at the table who looked like me and before the person could even open her mouth to say one word the chairperson says make sure you just testifying to the bill she hasn't said anything and that but that isn't what he would normally do someone else at the table i had to say mr chair i'm sure we're going to give you an opportunity to speak so that we can hear what you want to say first right and but that's what happened right and so that gets to your point now yes they will push but yes well we come from a group of people and from a legacy of people that we have not been sidetracked by the fact that other people believe that our position is unpopular if we didn't like it we would do everything we've done from when we were taken a slave come to the middle passes been on a plantation in far and harriet tubman and others throughout history have always said i'm not going to live like  this and so i'm just encouraging us to reject that notion of apathy and to reject the notion that we should just go along just to get along because someone has to change the dialogue at the table in order for a change to be afoot  well you know i think absolutely articulated kind of where we need to go kind of with this issue and even in the child protection issue you know we have been dealing with this issue and everybody that i know has talked about out of home phenomenal job and it just judiciary committee we had a couple two african americans that were able to testify and that was really the only folks that were in the room and so i will go back to this notion that we know how to go to the movies and when the movie starts we know how to go out to eat we know when the next concert is coming and we're there on time early we're buying our tickets but somehow when it is time to have this conversation about our children about the budget and others we don't have the same amount of enthusiasm so i guess what i'm saying is that we are not apathetic on things that look like they're fun is what i tell my my son right he is he is out the door and on time when it's time to go out but i want to time for him to clean up his room or to do it homework and somehow he's got a little apathy right so we have to be able to really kind of change that with all due respect  moderator al we have to be able to get excited about these issues we have to be able to say we're going to support them we have to be able to have the same amount of enthusiasm that we have when it is about something that appears to be fun that is enjoyable about these issues that we faced each and every day we are certainly going to show up but it is so much easier to have a conversation amongst people who look like you and understand that even the nods that you give me today that gives us the kind of energy that we have to fight as opposed to continuing to run uphill without your group without your army there with you so that although we have to do this together so i'm not blaming the public but what i am saying is that we have to get engaged we have to really kind of understand that this  reason that we are in the position that we're in there are a lot of it but some of it is that we are not fighting hard enough we are not pushing hard enough we are not demanding that our legislators and that our local lawmakers are count in north minneapolis alone right sort of chap is district there's well over one hundred million dollars that goes in for social programs right but the outcomes aren't there so we're not demanding senator champion representative dean and others myself what is going on and where is that money going and what are the outcomes of that that's my money that's just spending and i don't know what it's been spent on we are prepared to answer those questions today but it has to be more and you have to demand more out of all of your legislators i often talk to people about the legislators the representatives in my district and often they don't know who they are we've got to figure out how to do better and these types of forums i think are really helpful for us to really kind of light a fire under our community and the same way that we have when it looks like it's something enjoyable that we want to do i mean all macfarlane you're watching and listening to a special insight k m o j b m a networks cable television town hall forum on the two point four one point nine billion dollar minnesota budget surplus that were gathered at the studios of s p in st paul the program is being broadcast live on k m l j the heart and soul of twin cities and broadcast live on s p in channel nineteen in st paul and channel sixteen at mt in minneapolis before we continue on to bring some voices of some expert people in the audience to this conversation but senators and representative and commissioner i want you all to think about the things and we'll bring community voices to this conversation i'm interested in what the legislative priorities you may have in the area of education you've mentioned this already in the area of child protection what should be thinking about what is on the table in terms of bills what could be on the table to reflect and project the interest of our community what about  jobs and training i want to talk about what kind of resources there are to support job creation and training in our community what about housing housing is critical our community was wiped out by the mortgage crisis several years ago black wealth decimated by the mortgage crisis and black confidence i think weakened destroyed in part by the challenges that people experience trying to become homeowners health consistent issue an important issue how should we be demanding support for resources agencies organizations in our community that deal with our health that we say are culturally compet capable able to represent and reflect our interest what about the arts we've got a great arts and culture to tradition but as often as not art becomes an afterthought should it be front and center what about young people what about the energy of the young how do we accommodate and nourish grow the vitality the engagement of young people in our community senator champion senator hayden you both worked on restoration of voting rights let's talk about that and then there's a discussion now in the legislature about new rules and regulations around weapons conceal and carry i think and maybe silencers let's talk about that i'm interested in talking about immigration we have a powerfully diverse african african american community so swelled by the positive presence of our brothers from somalia our brothers from liberia and from africa and the caribbean but there are issues facing the emigrant the new african american communities one issue is the issue of potential recruitment for young people for so called terrorist activities out of somali community in particular but you know i'd like to have that discussion alongside a discussion about the recruitment of young people for so called gang activity in our community right here and so we're looking at sort of problems in ferguson right now how does that differ from the problems that our people are experiencing anywhere else in the world so keep all those things in mind before we continue though i want to bring in a voice to raise a question about business silas houston is the president and c e o of mask a mas is the metro area small contractors alliance and silas thank you for being here thank you for your work you want to call attention to the need to create more pathways for small businesses to operate in the business arena talk about what you do what is a mask and why is this discussion important for small business and your partners in particular well i appreciate you having me here on the show and given a chance to talk about what we do mascot as you sa d stands for metro area small contractors alliance we've been around for five years we are a for profit entity we really provide two distinct services we provide outsource diversity services to developers in general contractors and then we provide support of envelop developmental day to day support for diversity contractors we do that together under what we call a shared resource model really what it is is a group of people who really a lot of the issues when we start talking about issues are minority businesses the same thing a small business is that's the reason why our name says small business as opposed to minority business because a lot of those issues  economy of scale they are related to having access to appropriate support teams and access to consistent capital so mascot got its start when the city of st paul got hit by a herd with  a voluntary compliance agreement where five years ago they were told that they had not met the requirements for hood in terms of section three which is low income requirements for when they're building stuff they have they have construction they are required to hire from within the community low income contractors and employees they had not complied with that and so we got a chance to see that me and a couple of friends of mine got a chance to see it in its draft form and it got us to thinking wow ok if they have to do this this is going to create some opportunities but what does that mean and we really went and said ok we're ready for it and so we spent a couple of years meeting with contractors we've met over the over that period of time with over one hundred diversity contractors we met with a couple of dozen general contractors we met with every minister palaver you could imagine to really find out what was going on why weren't we do one more having more and we learned a lot through that process and after we learned what the issues where we found out that that small contractors diversity contractors were not the only ones with issues pain points is what we call them we found that the developers had pain points we found that the minister pallet these had pain points down at the people that were out there with the money to help them the economic development agencies had pain points and so mascara really is a motto of self determination of us looking at what was out there and deciding where the opportunities for us and we started from which is not big enough i mean we need to have  economy of scale you say lawsuits and let me turn then to the senators and to representative moran the question of business how do we make sure that our businesses get a fair shot at doing business with the state and in the marketplace and senator champion you were absolutely powerfully correct in saying that yes it's ok to look at the one point nine billion dollar surplus but the real money is the sixty four billion dollar budget and our governor has said he intends that his administration really reflect and engage all communities how do we make that happen for in the business arena all together across all departments  on the inside number one the governor has been engaging his department heads commissioners around diversifying their workforce so there's an internal committee in commission where they're analyzing that data they're looking at it and they are finding ways but was to diversify the state agencies so that's one way another way is like i said and the commission is here and he can talk a little more about that but on the outside they're also looking at contracts that they're letting out if their requirements which is disadvantage business enterprises they're looking at how do they meet those goals how they increase participation diversify the folks who are getting this money and in order to do business with state agencies you have to be certified and the problem is with these different municipalities is that you have to go to each one in order to be certified so they're looking at how do you do a universal sort of occasion process so when you do one place it goes to all the others and you will meet those needs there another places that we're talking about for businesses there's also the angel investment tax credit how do we expand that so that more businesses of color and women and businesses and veterans are able to take advantage of it because right now the part of so small that the money goes away right away and then of course there's how do you also expand capital access because when we when we think in terms of our businesses they need access to capital right in order to make sure that they can go into business and when they are contracting opportunities they're talking about breaking participation which is targeted to businesses capital access to capital investment credit is an opportunity because hey you can have a business but if you're not getting the opportunity then then it's a challenge and where those opportunities not just in state agencies but even that again addressing the past the past as one we've attempted to do business with these institutions in relations we've been rebuffed it's been more difficult it's like we try to vote right you have to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar in order to vote that's the system of keeping you out of the revenue stream but say we get past that how do we keep our people focused on getting to the promised land the promised land is equal access to a fair playing field and a chance to do business commensurate with our presence in the state some are one that's our side the other side though is how do we change either policy or incentive or punishment for departments of government that continue to block access in a way that is inconsistent with the governor's goal before have you answer that i want to take a second to do in a couple of minutes a station id i would right now let's  minnesota budget surplus what it means for a community would take a break for a minute and to listen to our sponsors two minutes we'll come back  kind first ever multimedia joint simulcast and we're here to talk about the serious business of the one point nine billion dollars budget surplus for the state of minnesota the question is how do we protect preserve and attain our interest as african americans and i want to bring more conversation from our audience but we left talking about the question of the tension how do we get businesses in our community organize committed to going after business opportunity but also have a state government and a corporate environment that is receptive and responsive to the gifts and the capabilities of our community let me turn to commissioner myron france the director of the office of management and budget what are your thoughts when you feel and what have been the barriers and how we solve those problems well you know it's funny because  state of minnesota is the largest employer is one of the largest contractors in the state and as a center champion mentioned the governor wants our workforce he wants the contracting population to look more like the state that we currently have here and so he  issued an executive order on diversity and inclusion developing accounts on that council is designed to do to have actions not designed just to meet and talk is designed to increase contracting with minority owned businesses it's designed as i'm in charge of all the employment for the state of minnesota and we're we are operating to try to reduce those barriers we just in fact hired a new diversity and inclusion statewide recruiter and she starts on monday so we're trying to put in action ways we one of the things that happens is that especially at the higher levels of state government we don't reflect the community that we really populate and we want to try to make sure that we reach out and we expand that and we also want people to come join minority backgrounds we want them to stay we want them to have a career in state government so it's not just attracting it's retaining and engaging people and also so commissioner mosman to commit the administration is working on the contracting commissioner lindsay at the human rights commission is working on making sure that we outreach and have a gauge of it so we know there were including all the right people and i'm in charge of the employment practices but all those together are designed to actually increase the under represented contracting increase the under represented and employees in the state of minnesota so that we have a more reflective state government senator champion and to that end as the governor is working on that side he's also and we're also  working on the other side as i mentioned earlier to streamline the certification process that's important because in order to do business with the state of minnesota you have to be certified and also trying to provide technical support so whatever that process is this universal minority owned businesses of women owned businesses are in gays and a part of that and already other stuff that i've talked about as far as access to capital but also  is the timing the a person's working like i guess i'm trying to say if if on the other end other than like a commission or if they have their goals  and if those goals are not being met how does that how is it being reflected in their evaluation for example so time in there as well so it's all throughout the process let me ask another person from the audience to a leader in unity to bridges and relationships between the immigrant african community and the african american community but there are challenges in that particular challenge just for immigrant communities what would you like to see the legislature do to create greater inclusion and greater support for the organizations that serve immigrant communities in general somali in particular yes first of all i will i would like to thank you for having me and i would like to tell the audience  african community brought us together and there are a lot of great things we have gained we were isolated a community that has been discriminated against because we are immigrants black and muslim and that has created i want a youth to be pushed five people some of them are working at the viking stadium some of them are working across my office and see the riverside the same young people who used to stand on the on the street and run into trouble so those resources and engagements the better wisconsin and to marshall rochester of st cloud and we see the same underlying condition is that but between our community into chronic unemployment so we turn into creating businesses and our lumber one employer is somebody american small businesses really and they are also being challenged now because we are being denied to have a base of contracts health care or other jobs with the state to provide not only for other people but for i was always a community because we have a leg which you should now we are talking about target losing one thousand five hundred jobs nobody has spoken about two thousand jobs we have lost one year where the unemployment at the state to get involved so we could have the same opportunities like the russian community or bust your community to provide those culturally and i which appropriate explain this to you that it's so you're saying that other immigrant communities are getting favorite segment russians yes last means yes and others but somalis are not having the same advantage when we try to provide health care or just protection services to our community because they need our language someone who speaks their language i work business started to employ a lot of people and they have seen a great attack let me say this you know i've commented on this a lot of times but this is one more example of the substory i'll say or the saying that i have put out and too often in our community we get the misery they get the money there's a lot of money associated with solving problems solving problems is really a business and it's a good business to be in and the question i hear being raised by a brother of yours like b is should not our people be first in line to solve the problem be in the business of problem solving you know our community and enjoy engage those revenue streams associated with problem solving the history is that as often as not they codified our misery maintain us in misery and they use our misery as a feeding troll upon to enrich their suburban and let me be honest they're white privilege and so my question taking off where you are is that how do we make sure that number one if we got a problem senator his in his tireless activism and in african heritage community as a whole but especially in the east african a somali community and he's right we have been working on these issues and so we have some specific one we are working through this issue that mr b alluded to around that the medical transportation so people that are sick and don't have transportation for them to be able to safely get back and forth to their medical appointments and so there has been a few folks that for whatever reason i did not follow the rules in their contracts where terminated however they have been replaced by people outside of the community so it is also this issue of  when an african american person on our person after parents does something the whole community has to suffer in the other flip inside of a person and the wider caucasian it's just that individual so the issue that he's talking about to drill down we are working closely with the department of human their vendors to rectify that issue but i wouldn't have known that if we didn't have people like mr b he and others working with community to raise those issues to the top i will say a few things as we are working on this use issue that mr b he talked about in that the president is concerned about so there are pieces of legislation to fund organizations that specifically want to could jew but there are others that specifically are working on this issue of engaging our young people youth employment also there is a wonderful pilot program where young east african mostly somali kids are working with us minnesota around food they've created their urban for h program urban agriculture program there is an air is even a somali boy scout troop that we are looking to help fund and that those bills are working through the process we also have money that we've appropriated and the health care for i last year that we're working closely with somali women and reproductive issues that are prevalent and i know that  years here and others and so we are working with people like the people's clinic siren or you might have seen her lately a fabulous public health executive so we're working with now with the department to ensure  champion talked about that we are targeting these resources in the community with professionals that know how to work with them so that it is a broader issue and i think you're alluding to that we respect a lot of our  nonprofit organizations in the work that they do but often they attacked us from a missionary standpoint not their kind of helping these poor people well we know that we don't look at ourselves as people that need to have that we need to be we be dealt with that way we need to be invested in right in the same that we do everybody else we need to have a step up in a hand up but not necessarily a handout so the organizations that we're talking about and that we're not targeting with pieces of legislation that are currently running through the legislation specifically is going to those organizations we are also working with an outreach plan our commissioners are talking about having a workforce even the investigators and the folks that are teaching that are talking about how this works they need to reflect the community that they're working in often what happens is people don't know the rules they don't know how this works we can't communicate to that we can communicate to them effectively and then when they kind of go a little far of the rules then we take it all down so we have to also invest in our state government in terms of the people who work in state government so the actual workers the the investigators and others to make sure that when we're sitting down to have this conversation that it is clear as to what the rules are so that they can do a good job let me introduce chanel walton she is the c e o and director of a group called dynamic youth connections chanel thank you for being here thank you for leadership and talk about what dynamic dynamic youth connections is and way in our young people's voices being heard and if not what can we do to engage that population so thank you for having me and dynamic use connections as a nonprofit organization we raise scholarship funds for high school students to continue their education at college and the issue is that last year i had an event where i had a five hundred dollars scholarship opportunity to give away and nobody showed up when i try to reach out to different schools my x if we can have like some type of investment opportunity and it was kind of shut down because they said that our students don't work it's kind of shock to me because i was like when and where did we become lazy and work where is the commitment and i'm also you know working with students now and a dance opportunity that i do and there's no commitment there so it's just a matter of as we're all talking about right now is just investing and trying to push them to stick to working out you know being committed to one thing and also what the scholarship is just trying to find the students you know their people are in the schools saying hey we need to go to this website for this scholarship opportunity but when it's when it's being present it's kind of hard to get students there so two challenges one is the number one making students aware of the opportunity and inviting them and encouraging them to step up yes and embrace the opportunity but there's also some resistance from the institutions right yes they don't provide the support you need to bring the value which is financial that you want to bring to our families representative moran this is not a new story i'm sure people in your district and in the community  have great ideas and want to be of service but sometimes don't have the feedback from the school district the school board the city council other bodies that are charged with having that activity how do we both grow that interest and nurture it and make it effective in having ownership of solving problems by our community well i started off  that we are back in our community doing great things we have solutions we are creating outcomes and i would say in many ways we are a part of reducing the disparities our impact in our state but not always recognized for that work in a way that you know and what we can do about that and a part of that solution is actually what they did they brought a bill to the house right they brought to be able to the house not just to the state and also where we're going to look at how do we invest in opportunities that get our paid internship in a four eight what we need to know situations we need to institution to value what we bring to the table and within that you know because we are so often left out the process sometimes we don't know exactly what that process is and so we need a commitment from state entities whether that is the city the county or the state we need them to have the investment in our strengths and what we bring to the table and to be innovative and innovative you know because you know we can say that you know minnesota is a great state but we can also say and i guess no one stated that an apartment a health who say it that disparity exists because of structural racism and that is the policies or practice that takes place within these entities i'm a strong believer and i know there's many people who believe that those who are impacted by system ah those who can bring solution to how this system can best work for them and so we need to create the opportunities in the space and be innovate invent in and to be innovative and allow creativity to come into play that comes from community color to bring the solution that they are doing that they know can best serve the communities in which they are part of so i to my good commission here are so glad you're here you know because this is really really that we are open enough to see the innovations that come from these communities and find a way to align practices implementation to those steps comes from our community and i mentioned earlier about young people i see and maybe i'm looking at this wrong but a connection between this challenge of the lure of engagement for somalia youth i see that as the same as the lure for african american youth to so called gang activity the bottom line the connector from my point of view is young people who want to be valued who want to be loved who believe they are important they believe their lives matter but they are faced with elders and a community that doesn't recognize their worth their value and their vision of who they are who they will become and so should we be looking at legislation that also talks about supporting the white house and creating options for somali or muslim youth to keep them away from the the nur and the the fantasy of jihad right of terror and also looking at ways to engage young african americans who think thought life  and this summer came in well into the summer and this quiet is quiet in the neighborhood and that night our former police chief john herrington about you know what's going on why you know why is it i don't you know there isn't any shooting or fighting and what do you say to me was this he saying we pretty much know who the guys are who's out there called in the disruption and we we round him up and we gave him some options at mcdonald's or other minimum wage job with the fact yes you know believe it or not i jump people want to be valued they want to have something to do in a place to go to take care of himself because a lot of times they're homeless they are now out there on the island and i mean just a simple job keep our community safe and keep our community quiet and it helped our state with a tax base right and so so we really have to work really hard to connecting the values of what we bring in some time that is no to more than just a simple job opportunity to be valued and to take care of yourself and sometimes your family sort of jump in when you think and  that in in the legislature you place you jam a place they have a piece of legislation that's coming forward that's going through the process stairsteps to believe both that's an educational initiative in order to encourage our young people to learn and to be educated to minneapolis has a step up program with the summer program because we have to continue to to engage our youth to create opportunities for them and so these are some of the things that i know of just off the top of my head that are going through the process so that we can really combat poverty and create opportunities so that they are prepared academically so that they know about the scholarship programs and opportunities for college so i just want to throw that in as as far as what's going on to be recognized to an element fairly new watching a special town hall meeting at st paul neighborhood network in st paul this is being broadcast live on s p n n t v channel nineteen in st paul channel sixteen on m t n in minneapolis and live on o j f m eighty nine point nine the heart and soul of twin cities the town hall is on minnesota's budget surplus the question is how do we protect identify and achieve our interest as the black community one of the things the governor talks about is transportation in a memo a couple days ago he noted that it's budget is asking to drive transportation forward and starting monday he's going to be making stops in morehead but presenting a proposal that will fund over six hundred  projects totaling more than two thousand two hundred miles of roadways and three hundred bridges across minnesota but the governor's office says unfortunately the plan proposed by the house republicans doesn't measure up they want to fix only forty miles of paved pavement over the next four years transportation is big transportation is big big money i've asked ron harris who's with the neighborhood organizing for change project and they're advocating engagement around transit equity to talk a minute about transportation what it means for our community and how big a deal it is why should we be at the table ron thank you for being here and thanks a lot from like me thanks for giving us the opportunity to say a couple words about this please i get to work at not neighborhoods organize for change and one of the pillars of the organization is the transit equity piece and transit i could be a so important because we're talking about raising working conditions for people and all these other things without transportation a lot of folks can't even get to work and we recognize that you know with all the gaps that we have transportation or one of those things that could close those gaps based on or just with the ability for people to get around the way they want to get around knock is generally support of the governor's plan in the budget in terms of transportation we recognize the need for greater minnesota to the roads and their bridges funded and all those things and i guess where we're coming from is we want to know what specific action steps are strategies can we take to be at the table so the governor hears that transit equity  important thing we have some a lot of low income folks that we serve that are part of our base and they're not getting the transportation options that they deserve in a twenty first century economy we can't compete without that senator champion just had a hearing on draft which new is a go i think that we absolutely  am on the transportation committee we came to we've been going around the state in order to talk about transportation needs and the importance of it and what sort of transportation pag age should be advanced in order to make sure that we can pay for the roads and bridges and transit needs of our entire community we know that if we don't have a desert dedicated funding source that we will continue to lag behind when we think in terms of paying for infrastructure and so when you think of infrastructure if we were just to maintain or try to maintain the current infrastructure that we have right now we hand over three hundred million dollars annually right and so but but on the wholesale portion of things that that we believe that there's a dedicated revenue that dedicated revenue will pay for roll bryza transit bike ways and also we talk about equity so move minnesota is a is a coalition that's been going around the state as well talking about equity right equity for us is not just building the transit way but also creating a gateway to where the jobs are  right we've been talking a lot about southwest for example but no getting to the those outer ring suburbs and getting to those jobs and and so we can put a dent in underemployed right no just unemployed underemployed getting to those outside developments right transit oriented development that is an important notion in lands that we should look at when we think in terms of transportation bike biking that's a number another form of transportation we don't talk a lot about we as as a as a community look at biking from a recreational perspective but we also believe that you should be looking at it from a transportation of perspective so that total  at it so that we have infrastructure development but also getting to and from jobs and also building out the line itself so that you have people calling now lastly we spend roughly a billion dollars a year  through the mendota we talk about the viking stadium being a big thing but we spend about a billion dollars a year there so there is an opportunity there so i'm not sure if that answers your question that doesn't make for a station idea again you're listening to you watching the special insight kamal j b m a network cable television town hall on minnesota's one point nine billion dollars budget surplus what does it mean for our community we back in two minutes welcome back to this special town hall meeting this subject is the one point nine billion dollar minnesota state budget what it means to our community we've got great voices here raising questions to our esteemed panel our panelists include  senator jeff hayden senator bobby champion state representative reno moran and commerce the commissioner of the management and budget department state of minnesota commissioner  senior moment myron myron franz thank you myron so i want to go to lisa clements lisa you've got an organization called mothers love initiative talking about african mother american mothers what's the priority for you my priority is already been mentioned here and a lot of what you've said when you talk about the chopper texan issue i used to be a sergeant of police department so i authorized the removal of many kids from homes but i never saw the end result was a foster care mother i get to be part of that in result we were missing from the table with the governor elect foster care parents were missing from the table a lot of those of a women in the child protection in the child care issue you fund through third you could fall on early childhood but those key is still have to come home to us so if the homes are not fixed the kids won't get fixed so we're missing from that the issues we face as black women black mothers black sisters and black black ants are more complex than others our children come from predominantly seventy percent african american single mother homes we are unemployed we have a higher rate of poverty we suffer homicide of our children at an alarming rate our daughters are fighting in the schools on city transportation and our daughters are being trafficked into sex trafficking but was missing from all of that is african american mothers and women we are not at the table this mother's love initiative was created to bring us back in the forefront of issues that are involved in our children our sons and our daughters we do have my brother's keeper and a whole lot of other things as geared toward our effort after american men but that's going to be an imbalance because when you're done fixing our afghan american man and fathers you have forgotten about us so in order for us to meet them fifty fifty we need to be fixed and made whole too so you save the children you save the parents the mothers you save our children great comments thank you so much  lives that really starts the brain development that's right you know and so into we get into those factors that sometime in our community we are living in a war torn zones like we're over in iraq right now and so there are things that we need to do right here to maintain and make sure that our children and i families are getting the resources and the support and the tools to be successful in their family and when we touch mousers we fix mothers and families you know and not just focus on the child as a child like connected to others and we know the impact that has when it's you know has to be removed from a house so in from the community and everything it knows in a trauma that places on a child even a child trying to go into a school setting and he cannot sit still he's called and chaos because of the dick's disconnection he is having and so and so you're absolutely i mean listen with absolutely it is about the mom is about the family is about the are so specifically i think that the work that we're doing on the child protection task force in having a thorough look at how do we deal with this issue with the families with the foster care system with that's a public assistance program there's not been an increase in the dollars that families get since one thousand nine hundred six so we do have a bill today that will add one hundred dollars per month or more that may not sound a lot but one hundred dollars to a low income family is a lot the last thing that i would say specifically around early childhood is most of our folks as they start to get off of public assistance use a program called c cap which is what allows low income and moderately income folks go to work and have their child any early childhood education program that the state subsidize we are which is a waiting list on that so i have a bill that will eliminate the waiting list and it will give the actual providers of the service more money to take care of our children i want to make sure that we there are some specific things that people know  look out for and help us advocate for as we go through this process astley just on that point because you guys have to talk about major issues that you can't just you know breeze by but specifically to a mother's love there is a proposal with some folks who have been walking through the child protection issue around navigators and culturally competent net navigators which could tie into what the mrs clemens was talking about so that is an issue and making sure that there's resources for that sort of connection with families that are going through child protection last but certainly not least she's right about the profile of the person who  through child protection which is a single mother multiple children and someone who can't could be employed or underemployed but we know that there is that gender disparity around pay so those women are always receiving less for the same work that a man does so so so we are looking to create gender parity and so there is a bill that's going through the legislature around this robinson has a question about criminal justice system going to rethink you  thank you for having me and thank you for having this forum today it's been very enlightening for me my question with regard to the star plus has to do with legal and criminal justice and it to me criminal justice and the legal system has a lot of tentacles that ends up being in a circle meaning that you are african americans are stopped convicted and imprisoned more than anyone else in the state and i think that with regard to that it would be helpful if some of that funding could be put forward to training and  lightening everyone in the justice system from judges to county and city attorney's to victim advocates to lawyers and everything that has to do with feeding african americans into the present more and conservation says them because once they're in there i think it solves a lot of problems if that could get repay are they go into the system it's difficult to get out and get a job because of criminal history and i was a senior aide charge general as for twenty three years and that's what prompts me to ask this question difficult to get a job it's difficult to get housing you've already paid your debt to society it's difficult to get back to your family and  solution side of the equation how do we deal with it how to sound the well you know one of the things i think the governor dayton is really concerned about is where do we put our priorities we've been talking about the math a little bit but you all mentioned all my colleagues up here have mentioned the values in the budget to some of the budget is part that matters got to work but it's also values and one of the things i think you'll see this next week when they govern comes out with this new budget you're going to see a very strong endorsement of the task force on the protective services for example the governor is going to very be very supportive of the recommendations coming out of there for child protection the other thing that he that he really wants to support to make sure we that we fund are these opportunities for people to be you know get a job get it and get employed and get trained for the next job to our demographics are such that our job pool is is shrinking but it's all also becoming more diverse so we have to we have it's not only good makes it's only fair what's right we actually have to reach into our communities and we need every skid to succeed we need every person to succeed because we need them in our workforce we need them to take that next job and it we do says all these problems we know that if we put money on the front end something that i did last year as you know i was the chief author of the major expungement bill and a part of that was housing and making it much more feasible if someone goes to court and they win their  that they can move immediately for their record to be expunged right right on the spot and so that's in law right now and there's some other tweaking that we will do on the housing side of the equation  the other person came up and talked about correctional reform to something that we are looking to do sentencing reform to something that's there taken certain offenses off the books so there's a lot of reforms that are happening right now and continues to happen and because of time i'll leave it there and if someone wants to contact me that they can let's bring another voice in steve cobbett works with youth development youth employment steve thank you for being here thank you and i'd like to say thank you to everyone for this forum including same neighborhood network and all of the media entities involved just get right down to cases i want to talk about you've development and just to talk about two what would line how do you grade our community how do you rate the legislature the cities and the counties when it comes to service to young people particularly youth employment and if you're happy and well i think that in our communities we are doing a good job of identifying and coming up with these you you develop the next steps in minneapolis for example sweetie pie that is that is an urban agricultural initiative with michael chaney and those guys and st paul you have you jam place but we need to do a better job on the state level of investing targeted dollars to these sort of organizations that are now getting money other places but not sit not necessarily getting money from the state and so there's also minneapolis step up program so they're  development initiatives but youth employment and messages but development's a different question because that gets to our community based organizations and i believe that in the latter part of the seventy's there was a change and therefore the philanthropic community was not and has not been investing into to those youth development initiatives and so therefore that's a different question so i think that we can do better senator champion sen you know i think sort of champion of the you know we're closer together so we kind of feel the same way you know one of the things that we talk about in the focus has been on education in the classroom education and all of the metrics and measurements there but there is a social determinants of education which is how are their families doing how are the young people doing when they leave school and when they go to bed and when they wake up and what's happening with them over the summer and so we have to be able to really kind of focus our efforts also in that i think that the philanthropic community has taken our needs to take another look at how they're working with youth development i frankly think the state has to take another look at how they work at youth development recognizing that education is the key it's the anchor but there are other things that affect children and their families that help us get move the education ladder so i think that we have to have i would have said we're going to see is freshly in our community a maybe a d plus so we do have to focus a lot more on this issue of children and their families holistically commissioner friends how do you grade  minnesota and our communities in response to you know you find youth development well i know we can do a lot better and i think one of the things that we find at the state level it's it's the development of these local programs that are the best i mean sometimes the best way to develop something is it's not to start at the top and work it down but to let the community come up with ideas and programs that work and then take those programs and reinforcement make sure that they that they work so i know that's one of the things we try to do is look for  of commissioner of the human rights looks a lot toward the community to find out where those programs are weak and steal if you will steal their ideas and get them to working for us because the state level we can do much better in terms of young young people represent become productive citizens along with netcat which is the network for its development for children african descent who would like some fonts used for family literacy services the i don't excellent job currently with the county to really engage black communities around literacy is a whole family dynamic they're doing all some jobs and just want to say that i have a working a bill that really is about we talk about the criminal justice system which is around a racial impact screen that needs to be done i'm so it's a screen that must be conducted by the sentencing guideline commission on all the just lasing which may have to connect to a fake the racial composition of the criminal justice system cause we know it is the black and brown faces in those systems in grea numbers so before any legislation continues to grow the disparities within a system they must go through a screening and last i just want to talk about housing and we know with dan the housing  c is the only place where a person is found guilty before they go to court and so we got to do better in there creating opportunities where people can afford housing get housing and be sustained because we know that is a for you for the n w c p and for the community that we think you think we should be tackling as we consider the budget surplus thank you for having us and simple and honest c p i believe this is important issues that we have in here today and i'm glad to see a lot of you stepping up and to speak about especially great senators here about joe and senator jeff haden and sister and commissioner but i believe one point nine billion surplus instead of minnesota that i mean nothing for the african american community we are not going to see it and there's a lot of issues that we care about that is not addressed when it comes to the employment sister here and lisa when she spoke the mother love i'm the executive obama he took the time to listen to a need and he did funded this amount of community but what about the state of minnesota what are you guys are doing about it there's a brothers and right now called cudjoe fighting for this extremist and many other organizations but the problem is minnesota transportation where they are employing so far before how some people but it's only less than three hundred african american a minority of people are being employed there's a lot of work struggle it's not over yet but i believe we are going to be fighting for this we want to work with you guys about the end of the day there's no jobs for when it comes to the black and african american community there's no yeah i could go on but today is not enough time for us to talk about this i believe you guys have us again back in this table and to talk about the issues that we care about i thank you thank you so much want to remind our listeners that this program would be heard it's our entirety again tomorrow between four and six m o j so tune into cable jay f m eighty nine point one tomorrow sunday four to six for the entire broadcast again and b m a cable t v network will be airing a special review of the show  been listening you've heard all of the legislators speak you've heard the community and you're active in the field as a leader of one of the legacy organizations what are you hearing today and how do you summarize the call to action this forum represents today sure thank you for having and and the conversation around kind of what we need to do to move forward is i think of similar conversation that is happening here at this table today and needs to be really excel aerated in this community if we don't want to continue to go if we want to go forward instead of going backward i look at a number of things that it relates to jobs and education and opportunity and when you when you hear a lot of folks talking about equity these days but the institutions like the urban league the end the black church  historic black universities have always taught at that line and it's been about trying to make sure that our people have a place and that our people are going to move to be in a place to be successful and so i think that we just have to make this very much intentional in our work and i think an organization that i work for the urban league is is working around jobs and education we're pushing a bill called the thirteen gray were in a coalition called the emerging workforce and so we'll keep continuing to push those things but we need the state this whole entire community to make sure that we're at the capacity level that we need if you put all of our community organizations of color together they are not larger than probably a couple of the two biggest maybe white organizations in this town and something is wrong with that picture if we've been able to do this and carry the torch for so long and we've walked through bloody sunday and we marched and we've done all these things somehow it is time for the institutions to get the kind of resources that we need to get to the scale of capacity to get our people to where they need to be in this town scott gray thank you so much we were down the last few minutes actually two minutes when i asked our panelists to give a parting word i called the marching orders and i want to start with the  senior member of the senate senator jeff hayden and then senator champion if you would the thirty second the elevator speech as senator hayden what we need to do to make sure that our interests are maintained protected projected achieved yeah i just would say we got to get involved get involved get involved if it is an issue that you have if it is if you're interested in how our process works if you're interested in finding out who your legislator is but at the end of the day the people who show up are the ones that are being heard that's why you want to be heard today so my message to everybody and all of the various me this i say it is now time to stop complaining it is now time to come up with solutions and it is now time for you to get involved and get active senator champion you know i would say that you've heard just a myriad of issues that we have to be concerned about is not one i remember a person saying what are your major priorities were i don't have the luxury of come with a major priority because so many are important to my community and so but solutions are necessary and that  we need your support as we keep pounding the pavement and keep navigating through the legislative to reign and what we have to say is sometimes not popular and  why it becomes equally important for for us to be connected to the grassroots sections of our communities those people who are in the higher echelons of society to be connected to us because it does take us to work as a team in order to make these things happen so we need a commitment we need you and we need you to walk with us we need you to be engaged in those various areas talking to us because i am not a person is in health care that's why i got my good friend hayden but there are other people from north point from the south medical here in st paul model cities education we have scott gray and the urban league and that in your respective area it's important for you to help us help you thank you representative moran but i just would like to i'm going call on the state because i notice that caucus worked real hard to create better outcomes for the black community and black families in fact two can we work hard but we cannot do this alone so i am calling on the state to allow the organizations and the businesses there are working so hard back in these communities to transform families lives so that they can be sustained and self sufficient to look at the innovations to look at the creativity to look at the work that we are doing to create better outcomes and value those outcomes and began to fall on them we can't do it a little here and a little there are all the research and data say it takes at least three years for organization to produce some great alcott's investment invest on  it and invest in creating a different outcome so that we can brag about it the disparities in this state has been close my my the time goes so fast and we're out of time this has been a wonderful and robust conversation i want to thank department of management and budget to senator jeff hayden senator bobby champion to state representative rena moran and to all of our audience here this is a robust conversation when we have to keep going keep doing  we stay focused on building our community and making sure we have a place at the table of decision thanks especially to carmen robe listen to elaine island organized getting people to this program today and thanks especially to al flowers flowers tireless persistent steadfast and bringing issues to our community thank you all for being here