Governor Mark Dayton and Minnesota legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader, Senator Amy Koch and Speaker of the House, Representative Kurt Zellers announced Thursday July 14th they’d reached a budget deal to end the 14-day government shutdown. After more than three hours of meeting behind closed doors the Governor and Republican leaders emerged at about 5:30 p.m. and addressed the press stating they’d agreed upon a framework to close the $1.4 billion gap. Video of the press conference is available here.
Earlier on Thursday Governor Dayton submitted a letter to the Republican leaders outlining a compromise solution based on a June 30 set of counter-proposals the GOP had submitted to Dayton, which he had rejected at the time. Read the letter here.
The Deal
The deal is based on tobacco bonds and delayed school payments. $700 million to be borrowed against future payments from the tobacco industry by issuing tobacco bonds and the other $700 million is to come from delaying payments to school districts.
Senator Koch said, “this is an agreement that is… difficult for both sides.” The budget framework is more than the $34 billion budget the Republican legislature submitted in their budget bills, but the solution does not raise taxes, which was a sticking point for the Republican majorities.
Governor Dayton’s letter also outlined conditions for the acceptance of a deal including a bonding bill of at least $500 million for construction projects throughout the state, dropping plans to cut the state workforce by 15 percent and dropping policy changes included in the omnibus bills such as requiring photo identification at the polls, a ban on cloning and ending taxpayer funding of abortions. Questions and answers on the budget deal provided by MPR here.
Next Steps
The details will be worked out in the coming days and new bills submitted to the Revisor’s office for drafting. The Governor will call a special session and bills will be voted upon. “We’re going to turn all the lights on when we get all these bills passed,” Dayton said. “That’s going to be in just a very few days, and so that’s where our focus will be and our priority, and I’ve said all along that a comprehensive agreement is what I insist upon and we’re going to get that done very, very quickly.”
New York Times Politics published this article today, Friday, July 15th, about Minnesota’s shutdown and budget deal.
Star Tribune’s article published today on the budget deal.
