Here are this week’s highlights from our Facebook page (the information is also posted to twitter):
- The House and Senate have announced tentative committee deadlines: 1st deadline is March 12 (committees must act favorably on bills in the house of origin), 2nd deadline is March 19 (committees must act favorably on bills that met the first deadline in the other house) and 3rd deadline is March 29 (finance divisions of the House and Senate must act favorably on omnibus appropriation bills).
- Governor announces in his State of the State that he will release his budget on Monday and it will include “very dramatic and painful spending reductions.”
- Minnesota’s tax collections in January were $47 million above expectations. That’s good news, but it’s not likely to have much impact on the state’s $1.2 billion deficit. State Economist Tom Stinson told MPR that the February Forecast may “vary by plus or minus a couple hundred million dollars” from the last forecast. The deficit is not going away, but it also isn’t going to be twice as bad. The February Forecast is expected on March 2.
- Moody’s has lowered its outlook for Minnesota from stable to negative, but is keeping our bond rating at Aa1. Minnesota’s bond rating with Moody’s has been at Aa1 since June 2003.
Also, the Minnesota Budget Project has posted a new fact sheet that describes impact of cuts to Renters’ Credit on renters and the economy. Renters’ Credit was cut in 2010 under last year’s unallotments, but we expect the Governor to propose permanent cuts in his supplemental budget.
-the Minnesota Budget Project team
