Legislature moving fast on cuts

The Minnesota House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee moved quickly again Monday to forward a bill to impose some $1 billion in cuts to the state budget.

The pace of all this does seem unusually fast. Not much time for committee testimony. I guess that can be good because it gets us to the final negotiations with the governor earlier in the process. Time will tell.

The plans was apparently modified a bit to make some $400 million in cuts to local government aid temporary, and levels of funding would spring back to higher levels in 2013 unless lawmakers made the cuts permanent at that time.

Rep. Tony Cornish, R, Good Thunder, abstained from voting on the bill which passed the committee on what appeared to be a party line vote of 18-13. The bill is headed to the House floor for a vote.

Cornish told me he abstained because as a former union negotiator he was concerned the bill might have legal issues if it portends to cut raises for people in the future that were already negotiated.

The bill cuts $181 million in current biennium and calls for $819 million more in next two year budget cycle that starts July 1.

The bill would extend temporary cuts made last year including $566 million to property tax relief, 185 million to higher education and $72 million from health and human services. The bill also freezes wages to state workers and asks Gov. Mark Dayton to hold back about $200 million in unspent funds in the current biennium.

Rep.Kathy Brynaert spoke against the bill saying there has not been enough time for colleges in her district to determine how the cuts to colleges would impact them. She called the proposal serious and noted MSU already cut 100 staff, $6.4 million in spending as well as adjunct and grad assistants at a time teaching loads are heavier due to budget cuts.

She said several students who she speaks with regularly say they don't know how they will finish in four years because of budget cuts have changed availability of some classes.

Democrats on the committee say it raises tuition and property taxes without much public input.

Here's the story from the Legislative news service on the committee hearing with links to a video of the meeting.

Here's the video of the hearing. It's 1 hour 30 plus minutes