Peacetime Emergency to End July 1

Posted on June 30, 2021 by Jonathan Lips

After nearly 16 months, the State’s Peacetime Emergency will end on July 1. A deal was struck between legislative leaders to end emergency powers in exchange for several stipulations related to food benefits, state COVID-19 staffing, and vaccination efforts. Just last week, Gov. Walz announced at a press conference that he intended to end the emergency peacetime declaration on Aug. 1, but this end-of-session bargaining moved up the timeline.

Termination of the peacetime emergency is important for LeadingAge Minnesota members because the validity of the Governor's Executive Orders and certain state regulatory waivers is tied to the end of the emergency. Here are a few examples to illustrate how this works and of legislative action that was triggered in anticipation of a wind-down.

Evictions: The Governor has used emergency executive powers to ban evictions in most circumstances since the beginning of the pandemic. The Executive Order that created and defined the eviction ban would remain in effect only until the end of the Peacetime Emergency. Knowing this, the Governor and lawmakers negotiated a bi-partisan phase-out of the moratorium (see our earlier story on this topic).

Background Studies: Early in the pandemic, Gov. Walz issued an executive order authorizing the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to waive certain requirements within its scope of authority. One of the things DHS waived was the requirement for fingerprint-based background studies. Upon termination of the peacetime emergency, the DHS authority to extend that waiver would continue only for another sixty days. Knowing this would have created a serious barrier to clearing the backlog of people who have only had "emergency" background studies, lawmakers included language in the omnibus health and human services bill to extend the validity of emergency studies for 365 days.

Alternative Adult Day Services: We have confirmed that Alternative Adult Day Services, recently extended by the legislature in the Health and Human Services bill, is not impacted by the end of the state peacetime emergency. The Minnesota Department of Human Services will communicate more information to adult day providers soon.

Of course, a wind-down of the Governor's emergency powers does not mean that the fight against COVID is over. But it signals that the crisis level has dropped to a point where the State can tackle the ongoing challenges through normal operations.

This is an evolving story, and our team will continue to follow it closely. We are working now to evaluate how the termination of the COVID-19 emergency affects other waivers that have benefitted our members, and we will provide more information in the days ahead.