As legislative leaders and the Governor held press conferences Tuesday to weigh in on the state’s new revenue forecast, more details emerged on how the Senate planned to roll out its budget bills.
Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller said the Senate would package three budget bills. In the next two weeks, budget divisions would finish work in six areas and roll them into a single bill, which includes: higher education, environment, state departments, agriculture and veterans affairs, public safety, and judiciary. The Senate plans to match the Governor’s budget targets, meaning the same amount of cuts although the specific cuts proposed might differ.
Second, it would act on the health and human services bill. It might take longer to finish, as the Governor and legislative leaders continue negotiations on General Assistance Medical Care.
After the Easter/Passover break, Pogemiller said the Senate would take up the third and last piece: K-12 education and local government aids.
Asked at his press conference whether he would accept the Senate approach, Pawlenty said: “We will take budget cuts any way they want to deliver them up.”
However, the Governor also is pushing for early action, telling legislative leaders they should pass a budget by March 17. That would be a quicker pace than a typical Supplemental Budget year.
State needs a contingency plan
The House and Senate majority leaders continued to voice frustration that the Governor’s budget assumes $387 million in federal aid that has not been (and may not be) approved. By passing the budget bills in phases, the Senate has time to see if the federal money materializes. If it doesn’t, then the Governor will have to produce a “Plan B” (which would lay out how the budget would be balanced without using those federal dollars), Pogemiller said. House Majority Leader Tony Sertich echoed Pogemiller, saying the onus would be on the Governor to say where he would cut.
The Minnesota Budget Project advocates that the Governor develop a contingency plan in his revised budget proposal, in the event the federal money is not approved. To repeat our Tuesday commentary:
“We strongly support the passage of federal fiscal relief for the states and we hope to see the Governor articulating the importance of Congress acting quickly on this. However, we must recognize that action by Congress may not come in time to impact the budget decisions policymakers need to make this session. Given the importance of coming up with a solid plan for solving the state’s budget deficit, we’ll be looking for the Governor’s revised budget proposal to include a detailed contingency plan for how the state would balance the budget if the federal dollars do not materialize.”
-Scott Russell and Christina Wessel
