Taking Care of Our Educators and HF 2904
We are rapidly moving through the 2026 Legislative Session where 134 Representative legislators introduced over 4289 bills between the beginning of session in 2025 and March 12th, 2026. One of the most important bills is House File 2904 (HF 2904) which creates a statewide Educators Group Insurance Program (EGIP). If passed, this legislation will create a very large health insurance pool across the entire State of Minnesota. If the theory is correct, the larger the pool of employees, the lower the out-of-pocket cost for each employee.
Let’s take a closer look at the legislation. First, I personally print the bill which, in this case, is eleven (11) pages long plus a three (3) page amendment on legal size paper. I like a printed copy as I tend to write notes for further reference or to formulate questions during a committee meeting. Then, I go to the last page to see how much it will cost the Minnesota taxpayer. In the case of HF 2904, I only see “…” in place of an actual dollar figure. “…” indicates that the cost information was not available when the bill received its first reading. Thus, we look for a supplemental document called the Fiscal Note on the House webpage. Unfortunately, a Fiscal Note has yet to be published, because the information is not available.
To fill this gap, the A1 amendment to HF2904 requires school districts and charter schools to submit a report by July 1st of each year detailing all sorts of statistical data needed to create an actuarially sound insurance pool of funds. Why don’t we already have this data? Because we delegate negotiations for educator pay and benefits to our local school administrators and school board members. Effectively, HF 2904 removes one more very important tool we know as local control from their negotiating toolbox. Given all the competing unfunded requirements incrementally implemented over the last several years, in addition to the proposed changes in HF 2904, our school boards and administrators have a nearly empty toolbox for future negotiations.
This fact is extremely important as our school districts depend upon budgetary certainty to right-size their staff each year, and sometimes each quarter, to avoid dipping into their reserves. In addition, our school districts depend upon the legislature to fund mandates. Unfortunately, the legislature tends to dictate more in the form of mandates and forgets to provide funding for the mandated changes.
Where will HF 2904 go this year? This is a great question. I deeply care about our teachers and our students, so I’m pushing to get something approved before we adjourn in May 2026. Thus, we will likely focus on passing the A1 amendment as a standalone bill. In addition, we will likely form a committee to review and update the current version of HF2904. While this prediction does not provide immediate relief to our educators, it does provide the information needed to make a very deliberate decision during our next legislative session.
Rep. Tom Sexton, District 19B