Political Party

Pawlenty to Dems: Thanks, but no thanks

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has declined an offer to be part of a "Minnesota Leadership Summit" being planned by DFL leaders.

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher had announced they were planning to invite current and former governors, senate majority leaders and speakers of the house to discuss the state's budget problems.

In a letter to Pogemiller and Kelliher, Pawlenty said the state already has a leadership summit writing "It's called the legislative session and it lasts approximately five months."

Pawlenty went on to criticize how lawmakers handled the last session.

"This past year, rather than taking timely and decisive action to deal with our budget deficit, the Legislature's DFL leadership wasted the first few months of the session."

Here is a link to Download Pawlenty letter.

Lawmakers set to grill finance commish

DFL lawmakers are expected to be asking some tough questions of Minnesota Management and Budget Office Commissioner Tom Hanson at a legislative hearing this morning.

The Legislative Advisory Commission is expected to convene at 10 a.m. at the state Capitol to discuss Gov. Tim Pawlenty's $2.7 billion in proposed cuts to balance the state budget using his executive authority of unallotment. To watch the hearing live, go to The Uptake.

Pawlenty recently tweaked his unallotment plan, limiting cuts for chemical dependence programs and increasing the level of cuts to mental health grants and community block grants. But overall the plan is pretty much the same. It involves cuts to health and human services, local government aid and higher education.

Pawlenty announces unallotments

Here is a summary of the areas of the budget Gov. Tim Pawlenty has proposed cutting to balance the state's budget. The governor is planning to use his executive power of "unallotment" to cut $2.67 billion from the upcoming two-year budget cycle that begins July 1. They include: 
 — $200 million  Reduction of local aids and credits to cities & townships
— $100 million Reduction of local aids and credits to counties
—  $67 million  Reduction of refunds and other payments
— $236 million  Reduction in human services spending
—  $100 million Reduction in higher education appropriations
— $33 million  Reduction in most state agency operating budgets
— $1.77 billion K-12 education payment deferrals and adjustments
— $169 million Additional revenues through administrative actions

TOTAL:    $2.675 billion

The Legislative Advisory Commission will meet Thursday at the Capitol to weigh in on the governor's proposal.

Local leaders anxiously await Pawlenty's cuts

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is scheduled to announce his plan for fixing a remaining $2.7 million budget gap at 2 p.m. on Tuesday. The Republican governor plans to use his executive power of "unallotment" to make the cuts during the next two-year budget cycle, which begins July 1.

Plenty of local leaders are planning to tune in for the big announcement to find out just how big of a budget hit their organization may take. Rochester Community and Technical College President Don Supalla said the school is already bracing for up to a $1.8 million cut

“We’ve been looking at the budget and looking at ways to reduce our expenditures,” he said.

That includes potentially delaying facility repairs, equipment replacement and furniture purchases.

Meanwhile, the city of Rochester could potential lose millions in state aid. Assistant City Administrator Gary Neumann said under the governor's original budget proposal, the city would lose $2.5 million in 2009 and $5.3 million in 2010.

Pawlenty has said in the past the unallotments will likely include cuts to Local Government Aid, health and human services and higher education. He has said he is also considering delaying funding for K-12 schools.

DFL leaders to Pawlenty: "You will be held responsible"

DFL leaders in the House and Senate sent Gov. Tim Pawlenty a letter in response to his request for unallotment suggestions from lawmakers. But the letter, signed by House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, make clear that Democrats are not eager to help the Republican governor out.

In the letter, lawmakers accused the governor of ceasing to engage with the legislature once he announced his plan to use his executive authority to balance the budget if a deal wasn't reached. The letter urges the governor to think twice about unalloting payments to schools, nursing homes, hospitals, long-term care facilities and local governments. But it does not offer suggestions as to where the governor should unallot.

Meanwhile, two Rochester lawmakers say the would like to see the governor call lawmakers back to the Capitol to solve the remaining $2.7 billion gap. Here's the story. But Pawlenty's spokesman Alex Carey said the governor made it clear there will be no special session.

Meanwhile, KROC has a story about former Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe criticizing Pawlenty for choosing to balance the budget through unallotment. Here's a link.

Here is the letter sent to Pawlenty today.

May 29, 2009

 

The Honorable Tim Pawlenty
Governor
Room 130 State Capitol
St. Paul, MN  55155

Governor Pawlenty,

We are taking this opportunity to respond to your letter from last week requesting assistance with your unallotment decision.  As you may recall during the recently concluded legislative Session, once you had brought the idea of unallotment to the table, we were hoping that you would engage the legislature in a further discussion to avoid unallotment altogether.  However, you had made it very clear to us both in writing and with the brief perfunctory meetings in your office that your "decision" to move ahead with unallotment was final.

Now after five months of work on our budget that involved 201 elected officials from across the state, and after vetoing our balanced budget proposal, you are requesting help with an unallotment "decision" that is ultimately made by just you and your unelected political advisers.

 However, let us offer the following advice:

             * Strongly consider the repercussions of your actions before unallotting payments to schools. We contend that without permanent revenue and statutory authority to pay back payment shifts, any shift unilaterally executed by your unallotment authority will result in a direct cut to schools.  Increasing school class sizes and forcing more schools into debt will only put more pressure on students and teachers who are trying their best to do more with less.

             * Strongly consider the repercussions of your actions before unallotting nursing homes, hospitals and long-term care facilities.  Many of the facilities are operating on razor thin margins with little cash flow to keep the doors open.  

             * Strongly consider the repercussions of your actions before unallotting cities and counties.  Cuts to fire and police protection as well as other local services will result from a steep unallotment of local aid, not to mention large spikes in local property taxes.

             *Strongly consider the repercussions of your actions before unallotting jobs in Minnesota.  Essentially your actions will result in fewer jobs throughout Minnesota.  Laying off teachers, police officers, county aid workers, nurses, hospital employees, etc... will only further damage our struggling economy.  We cannot allow Minnesota to continue to exceed the national average in unemployment.

Governor, we did our part by crafting nine budget bills that overall made more reductions in general fund state spending than was proposed in your original budget.  However, you made the decision to veto the legislature's final balanced budget proposal and now you are left with few choices.  As you attempt to unallot essential services throughout our state, you will be held responsible for the repercussions of those actions which we believe will be detrimental to the long-term interests of Minnesota and will continue to keep our state budget in deficit.

As you move forward toward unallotment, we ask that along with your unallotment plan you also develop impact statements that will help us communicate to constituents the very real consequences of your unallotment decisions.  We need to know the job losses, class size increases, service reductions, property tax increases, facility closings, etc...that will result from your actions.

We stand ready to begin the discussion surrounding your unallotments.

Sincerely,

 
 

Margaret Anderson Kelliher                                                                                                     Lawrence
Pogemiller
Speaker of the House                                                                                                             Senate Majority Leader

 

cc: Lieutenant Governor Carol Molnau
     Commissioner Tom Hanson

Legislative leaders and governor to meet this morning

With less than 14 hours to go before the Legislature adjourns, legislative leaders are expected to meet with the governor at 10:45 a.m. to see if a deal can be reached to solve the remaining $2.7 billion budget gap. If a deal isn't reached, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he will solve the budget deficit himself using his executive authority.

In a phone news conference this morning, DFL leaders ripped the governor for being unwilling to consider any revenue increases. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, accused the governor of being more concerned about running for president than running the state of Minnesota.

"He has gone national in more than one way. It seems like he is trying to push on to us the Washington ways he has been decrying," Clark said.

Last night, House Democrats tried to win Republican support for an override of the governor's elimination of a health care program for the poor. That effort failed on a strictly partisan vote. Democrats then tried to get Republicans to vote to override the governor's veto of a $1 billion tax proposal. That failed with two Democrats joining Republicans in voting no — Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, and Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona.

This morning, House Health Care and Human Services Chair Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, decried Pawlenty's cuts to health care and voiced fears those cuts will be even deeper if a deal is not reached.

"I would say that our health care system in Minnesota is on life support and the governor wants to pull the plug," Huntley said.

But despite these grim predictions, it does not appear that Democrats are willing to back down on their demand to raise revenue. Pawlenty has suggested using a combination of shifts and additional cuts to solve the problem. He dropped a proposal to borrow money based on future tobacco revenues after the plan failed to win support from Democrats and Republicans.

So the question remains — will it be deal or no deal?

Pawlenty makes Democrats another offer

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has made another offer to Democratic leaders. The deal includes a $1.75 billion funding delay for K-12 education, a $450 cut in local government aid to cities, a $250 million cut to health and human services and $190 million cut to higher education. It would also include another $100 million in various reductions.

Lawmakers are meeting right now at a public hearing to discuss the offer. Off the table is a proposal the governor had been pushing for to borrow money based on the state's future tobacco settlement revenues. Pawlenty has said he is opposed to any tax increases. He vetoed a $1 billion proposal by Democrats that would have included raising income taxes on wealthier Minnesotans, boosting the alcohol tax and placing a surcharge on credit card companies' interest income.

Pawlenty has said if lawmakers fail to reach a deadline by the Constitutional deadline of Monday, he will balance the budget himself using his executive authority to cut the budget bills passed by lawmakers.

A $2.7 billion funding gap remains between the DFL's spending bills and the revenue available. On Thursday, the governor vetoed all funding for a health care program for poor Minnesotans called General Assistance Medical Care.

Pawlenty has until midnight tonight to sign and line-item veto the legislature's budget bills.

Does Pawlenty want a special session?

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, said in a phone news conference this morning the answer to that question is "yes."

She told reporters, "We are beginning to believe that he wants a special session. We don't think that's good for the state."

When asked why she believes that, Clark said the governor has not been as engaged as he should be in negotiating a solution to the $4.6 billion budget deficit.

"At this point, he has shown no flexibility whatsoever," she said.

She added he has not come up with suggestions on where to make additional spending cuts and how to solve the revenue problem.

When I called Gov. Tim Pawlenty's spokesman Alex Carey for a comment, his initial reaction was "That's ridiculous."

Carey added that, "Not only has he been offering solutions, but he offered a budget back in January and back in March. In every letter he has sent to legislators he has said he is willing to negotiate."

In fact, the Republican governor was sounding downright optimistic about the likelihood of ending the session on time during an interview this morning on the Patrick Reusse & Company radio show on KSTP AM 1500.

"I think you'll see in the next couple of days that there will be some developments that will show how the session will be done on time, or could be done on time," Pawlenty said.

Here is a link to a podcast of the interview.

On a completely unrelated tangent, the radio interview does include a humorous Rochester story. Apparently Pawlenty was in town on Sunday for a volleyball tournament a day after the Governor's Fishing Opener. He was standing in the elevator with a guy from out of state who overheard Minnesota's first family talking about fishing. Apparently Pawlenty said  the guy said, "'I can't believe the governor of this state held up that little fish that wasn't even bigger than his hand,' and he said 'I would have been embarrassed."

Ouch!

Is Pawlenty ready to make a deal?

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty sent a letter to lawmakers writing that "in a spirit of compromise" he is willing to consider the following budget fix:
1. Use half the amount of appropriation bonds originally proposed. This borrowing plan would net $500 million and is based on future tobacco appropriations.
2. Agree to the Senate's position and not include $250 million in new money for the state's reserves.
3. Agree to the House's position of a larger, $1.8 billion K-12 education funding shift.

The governor said these proposals would generate $1 billion — the same amount raised through the DFL lawmakers' tax proposal vetoed by Pawlenty this weekend.

In the letter, the governor reiterated his opposition to any tax increases to solve the $4.6 billion budget.

So what do Democrats think of this idea?

"We're certainly heartened that the governor is attempting to look like he is compromising but in reality, we're concerned that he has taken a step in the wrong direction," said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark. "He has basically given an inch, and we're gone a mile.

So it looks like the budget wrangling will continue.

Rallying for higher taxes

A group called Invest in Minnesota, which include labor unions, nonprofits and faith leaders, plans to rally at the state Capitol today over the lunch hour.

The rally's focus will be urging lawmakers to support "fair tax increases" to help plug the state's $4.6 billion budget deficit. This comes on the heels of Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of the DFL leaderships' $1 billion tax proposal. That plan would have boosted income taxes on wealthier Minnesotans, raised the alcohol tax and imposed a surcharge on the interest income of credit card companies.

Pawlenty in a letter to lawmakers about the proposal said the plan would create the fourth highest income tax increase in the nation and comes at a time when the state is facing serious economic challenges.

Democrats have left open the possibility of trying to override the governor's veto of the tax plan. But that will require getting everyone in their party to vote for the plan and luring three Republicans to cross over. So will this sort of a rally convince lawmakers to back such a plan?