The Minnesota Legislature is in full swing since convening on Jan. 8. Committees are meeting as scheduled and bills are starting to move through the legislative process, which includes Veterans related policy.

The week began on Tuesday after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. The House Veterans and Military Affairs committee heard agency overviews from MDVA and the department of Military Affairs. No bills were heard. The committee is scheduled to meet again on Tuesday, Jan. 29. As of this writing, the agenda includes presentations on fighting Veterans homelessness from the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans (MAC-V) and MDVA.

The Senate Judiciary and Public Safety committee heard SF 58 on Wednesday after it was approved by the Veterans and Military Affairs committee on Jan. 17. The bill, authored by Sen. John Jasinski, would ease some difficulties in administering the disabled Veteran’s Homestead Market Exclusion between county Veterans service officers and county assessors. It was approved and re-referred to the Committee on Taxes.

On Thursday, the Senate Veterans and Military Affairs committee heard two bills relating to the Homestead Market Exclusion for disabled Veterans. The first bill, SF 114, is authored by Sen. Michael Goggin. This bill would change the application date for the exclusion from July 1 to Dec. 15 and it would allow a surviving spouse to continue receiving the valuation exclusion if they decide to move to a property of equal or lesser value. The second bill, SF 113, is authored by Sen. Andrew Lang. This bill eliminates the eight-year limit of the exclusion for surviving spouses. Both bills were approved by the committee and re-referred to the Senate tax committee. The committee also heard a presentation about the budget for MDVA and department of Military Affairs as well as a presentation from the Domestic Abuse Project about their Change Step program.