Pawlenty, leaders agree to spend more on LGA, services
Published 12:00 am Saturday, May 17, 2003
ST. PAUL -- Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislative leaders agreed Saturday to spend about $293 million more than the governor recommended in his $28 billion budget proposal earlier this year.
The money comes from a mix of accounting shifts and fee increases, mostly in the court system.
Local governments and health and human services programs will be the main beneficiaries of the extra money. Under the plan, local governments will get about $111 million more in aid than Pawlenty originally suggested, and health and human services programs will receive an extra $124 million.
The three sides also decided on how much to spend on each major area of the budget.
The biggest spending areas are K-12 education with $11.9 billion and health and human services with $7.3 billion, followed by tax issues, higher education, the judiciary, state government, environment/agriculture, and transportation.
And $175 million will be borrowed for state construction projects, a procedure usually reserved for even-numbered years.
Less than a day earlier, Senate DFLers grudgingly backed off a proposal to raise several state taxes to help erase a $4.23 billion deficit, a stance House Republicans and Pawlenty flatly opposed.
During a conference call with Greater Minnesota newspapers Friday, Pawlenty flatly said local government aid would still be cut.
To make sure communities like Austin aren't dealt too hard a blow, Pawlenty said he is working on limiting the amount that LGA is reduced to each community.
"You can't just pull the rug out from underneath them. You have to do it incrementally," Pawlenty said. "Our bill said you can't lose more than 5 percent of your total revenues as part of an LGA cut."
Pawlenty, who said "significant progress has been made" between lawmakers on a reaching a budget deal, also remained upbeat on the use of tax-free zones. The zones would be based primarily in communities bordering other states to help fend off competition from those offering more attractive financial packages to prospective businesses.
"I'm optimistic about it right now," Pawlenty said. "The DFL Senate didn't include it in their bill because they don't want to give me what I want. I think in the final hours, we'll get (the zones) in the bill and be able to take applications and get it going."
The DFL concession jump-started session-ending talks, but there's still a long way to go and not much time to get there. In addition to deciding how to divide the pots of money among specific programs, the two sides also need to determine how they'll handle a host of sticky policy issues like a wage freeze for state employees and changes in welfare programs.
Those are areas where Democrats might be able to score a few victories in exchange for abandoning their hopes of raising taxes to soften proposed cuts.
Leaders have set a deadline of 6 p.m. Sunday for all committees to finish their work except taxes and health/human services, which has until 3 p.m. Monday.
The regular session is scheduled to end at midnight Monday, but it's unlikely the House and Senate will be able to finish voting on all the bills by then.
Pawlenty has said if the work isn't done by then, he'll probably call lawmakers back for a one-day special session next week to finish.
Dan Fields can be reached at 434-2230 or by e-mail at :mailto:dan.fields@austindailyherald.com