Finance takes center stage

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WIth the first deadline behind them, this week will see lawmakers turn more and more away from policy matters and toward financial items, specifically how to tackle the $1 billion deficit that remains for the current state budget cycle.In the House of Representatives this week, a vote could come as early as Monday on HF 2624, a bill from Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis, that spends the environment and natural resources trust fund dollars from Minnesota Lottery proceeds.House Taxes Committee Chairwoman Rep. Ann Lenczewski, DFL-Bloomington, on Monday will introduce her jobs bill, based around providing tax credits to small businesses who hire new employees.Rep. Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, on Tuesday will review in his Health Care and Human Services Finance Division HF 2614, the compromise that preserves the General Assistance Medical Care program this year and establishes an intensive care management program for enrollees going forward. Look for that bill to come to the floor for a vote this week if the compromise holds.The Senate on Monday is reviewing in the Taxes Committee SF 3223, a big omnibus budget bill from Sen. Richard Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, that makes cuts to higher education, environment and natural resources, energy, agriculture, veterans affairs, transportation, economic development, public safety, judiciary and state government financing to reduce the deficit.Expect that bill to come up for a vote before the Easter/Passover break set for the end of the month. And notice what items are missing from the bill — K-12 education and health and human services — more than 50 percent of the state’s budget.The GAMC fix from Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, will also come to the Senate Finance Committee in the form of SF 460 on Monday, and could end up on the Senate floor before the end of the week.And of course, keep an eye out for Gov. Tim Pawlenty to sign or veto HF 2700, the bonding bill by midnight Monday.  A letter signed by 44 of 47 House Republicans urged Pawlenty to line-time veto all but $250 million of the $1 billion bill, and two others urged him to veto the entire thing. Minnesota Public Radio has links to the letters here and here. Continue Reading

Wait begins for Pawlenty bonding bill vetoes

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The Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate sent a $986 million state construction borrowing bill to Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Thursday.The final votes were 89-44 in the House and 49-17 in the Senate, but those numbers might not be important, as Pawlenty said he’ll sign the overall bill, vetoing individual projects that he doesn’t like.With that, and Pawlenty’s general disdain for all things Minneapolis and St. Paul in mind, here’s as comprehensive a list of Twin Cities projects in the final bonding bill as I could put together. I’ll keep an eye on them to see how they fared under Pawlenty’s veto pen:* $43.5 million for the Metropolitan Council to improve transit in the Twin Cities, including Central Corridor improvements, preliminary design of the Southwest Corridor light rail line, Cedar Avenue bus rapid transit engineering, St. Paul’s Union Depot renovation, desiging a transit connection in Minneapolis for commuter and light rail lines and more.* $23 million to renovate Folwell Hall at the University of Minnesota for the Liberal Arts College.* $21 million for improvements to the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley.* $16 million to expand the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.* $16 million to renovate and expand Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall and Peavey Plaza.* $14.8 million to build a Center for Business and Technology at North Hennepin Community College.* $13 million for Minneapolis Community and Technical College to renovate their Workforce program.* $11 million for renovations at St. Continue Reading

The budget dance begins in earnest (not)

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From our friends at the Minnesota Budget Project’s Budget Bites blog comes word that the Minnesota Senate under Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller has started to roll out its budget plan to counter Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposal to deal with a nearly $1 billion budget deficit.Senate Finance Committee members on Monday laid out details of budget proposals covering state funding for Higher Education, Judiciary, Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.The highlights of the Senate DFL proposals include:* A $48 million reduction in higher education funding, compared with $53 million in Pawlenty’s proposal. The main difference seems to be on state financial aid programs.* $19 million in cuts to the environment, energy and natural resources budget, compared with $15 million in cuts from Pawlenty. The Governor wants accounting shifts, the Senate insists on real cuts.* $18 million in cuts to the judiciary budget, compared with $19 million in cuts from Pawlenty.* $5.7 million in cuts to agriculture and veterans affairs, compared with $8 million from Pawlenty. The Senate would delay ethanol subsidy payments.While these proposals would seem to cover a lot of ground, if you add up the cuts, it’s less than $100 million out of a $1 billion deficit.So what’s left? State government, K-12 education and Health and Human Services are the main areas. Continue Reading

Once more on the bonding bill, with feeling

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DFL lawmakers could send a slightly different version of a state construction borrowing bill Gov. Tim Pawlenty previously threatened to veto to his desk this week. A working group of state lawmakers came up with the $986 million bonding bill proposal last week to replace a $1 billion bonding bill both houses have passed but which hasn’t been sent to Pawlenty, who promised to veto it if it reaches his desk. You can see the changes this revised bill would make to the DOA bonding bill here. Among them were:
* $44 million in cuts to educational facilities in Alexandria, Canby, Worthington, Marshall, Dakota County and Anoka Ramsey and North Hennepin Technical Colleges. * Elimination of $5 million for a garbage incinerator for Pope and Douglas counties. Continue Reading

State primary moving up to August

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Minnesota voters will head to the polls a month earlier to vote in the state’s primary elections, after Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Wednesday signed SF 2251, a bill moving the primary election date to the second Tuesday in August, into law. The bill, from Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, and Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, brings Minnesota into compliance with federal elections laws that require that overseas and military voters have adequate time to fill out and return absentee ballots for the general elections in November. Local elections officials often couldn’t guarantee that took place under previous state law, which set primary elections for the middle of September. They couldn’t print up the general election ballots until the results of the primary elections were known, and then often sent out those ballots to overseas and military voters knowing there was little if any chance they would be returned on time. Continue Reading

Health care veto override fails in House

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The Minnesota House of Representatives on Monday came up three votes short of overriding Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a bill that would provide a short-term fix to keep thousands of the poorest Minnesotans from being kicked off public health insurance beginning this month.The House vote was 86-47 to override Pawlenty’s veto of SF 2168, a bill that provides funding for the General Assistance Medical Care program for the next 18 months. To get the two-thirds majority, 90 votes were needed.When no Republicans joined 87 DFLers in voting to overturn Pawlenty’s veto, House Majority Leader Tony Sertich, DFL-Chisholm, changed his vote to “no” in a procedural move that allowed him to table the bill for possible reconsideration.What the result means is that, beginning today, automatic enrollment notices will start going out to tens of thousands of Minnesotans enrolled in the safety net public health insurance program to notify them that they will have to find other means of insuring their medical costs.Sertich’s vote and maneuver means that negotiations could continue with Pawlenty’s administration and House Republicans to find another solution.Pawlenty has said that many will be able to enroll in other public health programs such as MinnesotaCare, but DFLers say that many will slip through the cracks and that the additional burden on MinnesotaCare will bankrupt the Health Care Access Fund that pays for it.House Republicans initially supported the bill, which passed the body on a bipartisan 125-9 vote. But after Pawlenty’s veto, House Republican leaders said they were voting to send the bill to conference committee for improvements and continued negotiations with Pawlenty.When the Senate received the bill from the House, however, DFL leaders there voted to accept the House bill without changes, meaning no conference committee was needed. The bill went straight to Pawlenty, who vetoed it, saying it did not reform the GAMC program enough and did not control spiraling costs.   Continue Reading

On deck next week: Revenue forecast and veto showdown

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Next week will see fireworks in the House of Representatives and the final word on how bad Minnesota’s state budget situation is before lawmakers have to get to work fixing it.On Monday, House DFLers could attempt to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of SF 2168, a bill the Legislature passed overwhelmingly that would have preserved public health insurance under the state’s General Assistance Medical Care program, which is set to expire on March 1 due to Pawlenty’s budget unallotments last year.The Senate voted this week to override Pawlenty’s veto, but House DFLers must find three Republicans to joint them in order to complete the override, and House Republican leaders have promised their caucus will stand with their governor.Pawlenty and legislative leaders are expected to negotiate over the weekend to find a compromise that would keep an estimated 33,000 of the poorest Minnesotans on the health insurance plan, at least for another year.In a press conference on Friday, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, said she would prefer a negotiated agreement, but if one did not materialize, the veto override effort could take place Monday.On Tuesday, Pawlenty’s budget gurus will release the state’s February economic forecast, which is the last piece of financial information lawmakers will have as they settle in to balance the state’s budget before they go home this spring.Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson and State Economist Tom Stinson will release the forecast at a press conference at the Capitol at 11:15 a.m. that will also be streamed live on the Senate Media Web site here.The previous official forecast from November put the state’s budget deficit for the current budget cycle ending next June at $1.2 billion, even after Pawlenty’s unilateral budget slashing, and there hasn’t been much evidence that things have gotten much better or worse since then for the state.The forecast will also give another hint as to how big the next two-year budget cycle’s deficit is going to be for the state. The November forecast predicted a $5.4 billion deficit, not counting inflation. Continue Reading

Senate rebuffs Pawlenty’s health care veto

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The Minnesota Senate will meet in session Thursday morning with one big item on its potential agenda: overturning Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto of a bill that would save public health insurance for the poorest Minnesotans.The bill, SF 2168 from Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, would have modified the state’s General Assistance Medical Care and MinnesotaCare public health insurance programs to preserve insurance for 33,000 Minnesotans enrolled in the GAMC program.That program is scheduled to phase out by March 1 if nothing is done, because Pawlenty cut it last year in his unalottment actions to eliminate the state’s budget deficit. He maintains most of the people kicked off GAMC could move to MinnesotaCare or other programs.Pawlenty vetoed the bill, saying that it did not address cost issues with the program and did not represent significant reform, despite the fact that the Minnesota Hospital Association and Minnesota Medical Association had agreed to cuts in reimbursement through the program to help keep it solvent.DFLers have a veto-proof majority in the Senate, so today’s vote is not expected to be dramatic. But it moves the action to the House, where DFLers would have to convince three Republicans to join with them to overturn the veto.The bill passed with veto-proof majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives before going to Pawlenty, but House Republicans have said they will stand with their Governor to enforce his veto.DFL lawmakers have met with Pawlenty and his officials to try to hammer out an agreement before that vote would take place, possibly sometime next week.UPDATE: On a 45-21 party line vote, the Senate voted to overturn Pawlenty’s veto. Now it’s up to the House of Representatives. Continue Reading

Bonding Bill vote today?

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A conference committee late Sunday night hammered out a (possible) final spreadsheet of projects the state would fund in its construction borrowing bill and could send that bill to a vote today.The $1 billion bonding bill as proposed does not include the $89.7 million Gov. Tim Pawlenty wanted to expand the sex offender treatment program at Moose Lake, and could face a Pawlenty veto if it is passed because it is $300 million larger than his list of requests.In the meantime, keep your eye out for live video of the House of Representatives floor session here and the Senate floor session here.UPDATE: The final conference committee report is here, and here is the spreadsheet.Final spending breakdowns include:* $100 million for the University of Minnesota, including $55 million for asset preservation and replacement, but only $5 million for a physics and nanotechnology building for which Pawlenty requested $53 million.* $306 million for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, including $52 million for asset preservation and replacement and money for science, engineering, bioscience and health studies classroom facilities in St. Cloud, Southwest Minnesota State, North Hennepin Community College, Lake Superior College and Anoka Ramsey Community College.* $130 million for the Department of Natural Resources, including $63.5 million for flood hazard mitigation grants, $21 million for state trails development and $11 million for state parks and trails rehabilitation.* $159 million for the Department of Transportation, including $67 million for local bridge rehabilitation and replacement, of which $10 million would go to Hennepin County’s Lowry Avenue Bridge project and $7 million for Minneapolis to build a bridge over the Northtown Rail Yard at St. Anthony Parkway.* $79 million for the Metropolitan Council, including $43.5 million for transit improvements and $11 million for the Como Zoo.* $134 million for the Department of Employment and Economic Development, including money for civic centers in Mankato, Rochester and St. Cloud, $16 million for Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall and Peavey Plaza renovation, $16 million for St. Paul’s Ordway Center expansion and $5 million to build a St. Continue Reading