Minnesota Budget Bites

We’ve all been expecting it – a lawsuit has been filed to seek a temporary injunction to prevent the implementation of cuts made by the Governor through the unallotment process. The lawsuit, filed by Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance on behalf of six disabled and low-income Minnesotans, specifically looks at two programs targeted for reductions under unallotment:

• Elimination of Minnesota Supplemental Aid-Special Diet (MSA-SD) grants, which provides cash supplements to help low-income individuals purchase medically necessary diets.
• Reduction in the renters’ credit, which provides a property tax refund to low-income renters. Under unallotment, nearly 281,000 Minnesota households will see a cut in their Renters’ Credit, the average Renters’ Credit will be reduced by $163, and 18,200 households will lose their Renters’ Credit completely in 2010. Twenty-eight percent of households receiving the Renters’ Credit include seniors or people with severe disabilities. More information on the renters’ credit is available on our Web site.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction while the court determines whether the Governor’s actions were constitutional.

We don’t know too much more than that now, but here are some sources for additional information:

• Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance has a brief summary on their Web site
• If you read legal jargon, a copy of the full complaint is also available
• A short story appeared in the Star Tribune
• Doug Grow has a column looking at the issue in more depth on MinnPost

-Christina Wessel

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 9:16 am and is filed under Budget Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.