This morning Governor Mark Dayton signed into law 12 budget and spending bills 57 days after the close of regular session May 23, bringing an end to the 20-day government shutdown that was the longest in state, history.
After a budget agreement was made between Governor Dayton and Republican leadership last Thursday July 14th the bills were drafted and agencies began preparing to reopen.
Tuesday July 19th the Governor called a special session that began at 3:00 p.m. and after 13 hours both the House and the Senate passed all 12 bills including budget bills, a pension bill, a bonding bill and the Legacy bill and adjourned at 4:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.
The bills were signed into law by Dayton this morning, officially ending the shutdown.
Restart of Government
It will take a day before the appropriated money will officially flow to state agencies and operation will begin to get back online, said Dayton. State workers have been called back, and state parks, he said, could reopen as soon as tomorrow.
According to the state’s agreement with its employees, workers have up to three days to return to work, but Dayton said he expects most will be back Thursday. A full resumption of services could take weeks administration official explained in a conference call Tuesday. A website is set up for information on which agencies are open: www.bereadymn.com
“Restarting the state’s operations now will be no small task… calling for patience — more patience — from Minnesotans… Still, the prospect of reopening Minnesota was cheered by many.” – New York Times article on Minnesota’s government shutdown.
The budget deal was a compromise between the Governor and GOP legislative leaders Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch and Speaker of the House Kurt Zellers and was finally agreed upon after months of wrangling over the best way to balance the budget. Dayton wanted to increase income taxes on Minnesota’s top earners and Republicans said the deficit could be erased through spending cuts alone.
Even though Dayton negotiated the deal, his DFL colleagues in the Legislature criticized it. Not a single Democrat voted for the tax bill the K-12 bill or the Health and Human Service bill.
“While the budget agree[ment] was not the most ideal to anyone, it was time to compromise, end the shutdown and put Minnesota back to work,” Deputy Majority Leader Geoff Michel said in a statement.
Speaker of the House Kurt Zellers said, “This budget accomplishes what we set out to do: it does not raise taxes, cuts projected spending by $2.5 billion and bends the cost curve of unsustainable state spending. Our economy will be stronger as a result of not increasing taxes on business and job creators.”
All special session bills can be found here:
Glad the shutdown is over, however not so happy with the compromise Dayton conceded to the GOP to balance the state budget and get MN State Government back in operation. I commend Dayton for this, but at the expense of the poor and middle income families? What is so wrong about raising the tax on the wealthiest earners by 2%? This would only equal what the middle class earners are paying currently. Let us establish a system to verify that the wealthy are “creating jobs” and if they are not, impose the 2% tax increase.