While the Minnesota House and Senate appear to have reached an agreement in terms for a new Minnesota two-year budget, the method by which those new numbers are reached could still differ before the budget is finalized along with Governor Tim Walz.
State Representative Joe McDonald, Republican from Delano, says one area of concern is school funding. On a recent episode of “Coffeetime at Flippin’ Bill’s” on KRWC Radio, McDonald said that the House GOP, and perhaps some DFL lawmakers will take issue with some of the cuts proposed by the governor…
“…we are going to put the stop sign out on the bus to Governor Walz, because his cuts go to schools and to nursing homes and the disabled community through Health and Human Services. Over 500 million dollar cuts to those two pools of money. School kids, and the elderly and disabled in the community…nursing homes, that’s a non-starter for us. I think event some of my friends with the Democrats believe that we cannot have those kind of cuts to our schools.”
McDonald says ironically, some of the proposed cuts come after funding increases in the last biennium. He says the problem with the last funding increase was that it came with some new requirements that were not funded…
“…if you talk to the school districts in Wright County, I spoke with the superintendents at Howard Lake-Waverly, Delano, Rockford, Watertown, they’re all concerned with the funding that the legislature did in the last biennium. They said, yes, thanks for the increase per pupil funding, but the mandates that you gave us supersede that. And some school districts, not the ones that I mentioned, are going to go into deficit, but some in the state are. And some of that funding didn’t even get to the classroom.”
There is just over one month left for lawmakers to craft a budget that the governor will agree to sign. The Minnesota Constitution requires that lawmakers conclude their session this year by May 19th. If no agreement is reached, a special session may be necessary.
