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Spending agreements unveiled but special session date still in question

The House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees held a joint informational hearing June 5, on bills that are expected to be taken up during the upcoming special session. Photo by Paul Battaglia
The House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees held a joint informational hearing June 5, on bills that are expected to be taken up during the upcoming special session. Photo by Paul Battaglia

The 2016-17 biennial spending bills, put together and agreed to by legislative leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton behind closed doors, went public Friday.

And during a joint meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, members had plenty of questions about the measures that would be the meat of a special session, which is needed to complete the state’s budget before the new fiscal year on July 1.

K-12 omnibus bill discussion during the joint meeting of the House Ways and Means, and Senate Finance committees - K12 bill

Rep. Jim Knoblach (R-St. Cloud), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said the meeting was for information only: The governor will need to call a special session before legislators can take any action on the bills that will bring closure to the task of setting the state’s budget for the next two fiscal years.

Need for a special session is the result of Dayton vetoing three omnibus spending bills: education, jobs and economic development and agriculture and natural resources. Additionally, time ran out on the 2015 session before action could be taken on a bill authorizing spending for the legacy projects.

Friday's meeting focused on the education, and the agriculture and natural resources bills. As part of the negotiated settlement, a $373.4 million capital investment bill is also in the mix.That bill was reviewed during Friday’s hearing, as well.

MORE: Read about the proposed bonding bill

The bills have not yet been assigned file numbers and the jobs bill has not yet been made public.

Rep. Jim Knoblach, left, House Ways and Means Committee chair, and Sen. Dick Cohen, Senate Finance Committee chair, confer during a joint informational hearing June 5, on bills that are expected to be taken up during the upcoming special session. Photo by Paul Battaglia

There is at least one issue outstanding before Dayton says he would call a special session: the governor has said he doesn’t like a provision of the state government finance law he signed May 23 that gives counties the option of hiring a private auditor instead of relying on the state auditor to perform required annual audits.

Dayton has said he wants a new deal on the auditor issue before he calls a special session. In a statement Friday he warned of the “catastrophic harm that failure to compromise would cause.”

House Speaker Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) said during a later press briefing that too much funding is at stake to risk reopening the bill, and that the auditor issue can wait until next session.

Education

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a $17 billion education spending plan almost solely over the level of spending proposed for K-12 and early learning programs.

Sponsored by Rep. Jenifer Loon (R-Eden Prairie) and Sen. Chuck Wiger (DFL-Maplewood), the negotiated bill would increase spending by $525 million over the next two years. The bulk of that spending would go to increase the basic per pupil amount to $5,948 in 2016 and $6,067 in 2017.

Another big ticket item change is a proposed increase to Early Learning Scholarships Program funding. It was set to increase by nearly $31 million per the conference committee report passed on May 18 by both House and Senate. The updated spreadsheet indicates early learning scholarship funding would be increased by $48.2 million ($17 million increase on top of the $31 million increased fundingincluded in conference committee report) from the forecasted base for a total of $104 million in spending on the program for 2016-17.

The bill reflects a $10 million increase to Head Start (which received zero increase in funding under the vetoed bill).

Policy provisions include:

  • allowing a school district with an approved four-day week plan in the current school year to continue under a that plan through the end of the 2019-20 school year;
  • directing the Board of Teaching to adopt rules by Jan. 1, 2016, to license out-of-state teacher candidates.
  • allocating new money and policy changes directed toward closing the achievement gap experienced by the American Indian population; and
  • allowing any school district to begin the 2015-16 school year on Sept. 1.

Environment and Agriculture

While the negotiated draft omnibus environment, natural resources and agriculture policy and finance bill made only minor changes to the $870 million in biennial appropriations, there are several key policy changes.

Gov. Mark Dayton cited nine specific objections in his veto letter of the original bill, HF846.

However, John Linc Stine, commissioner of the Pollution Control Agency, told the committee compromises on these provisions are acceptable to the governor in all but one case.

Sponsored by Rep. Denny McNamara (R-Hastings) and Sen. David J. Tomassoni (DFL-Chisholm), the negotiated proposal still contains language abolishing the PCA’s Citizens’ Board. But Stine said the governor agreed to that provision “in the spirit of compromise” when “a perfect solution” could not be found.

Some of the changes to the other provisions to address the governor’s concerns include:

  • Language that requires repayment of approximately $58 million to the Close Landfill Investment Fund using surplus money that is expected to be available in the General Fund after the next forecast. “We expect that will remedy (the governor’s) concern,” Stine said;
  • A change in the requirement that PCA conduct an external peer review whenever changes to water quality standards are proposed. The new language does not require such a review. It allows the agency to conduct an independent peer review or to “state the reason” such a panel will not be convened;
  • A clarification of the language regarding self-reporting of environmental violations, which requires the PCA to delay enforcement, now for 60 days rather than the 90 days in the original bill. The new language specifies the provision applies only to “minor violations” that do not cause serious harm to human health or the environment; and
  • An additional $500,000 for the Environmental Quality Board to streamline the environmental review process.

Dayton had also insisted language in HF846 regarding buffer zones and avian influenza be included in any new legislation and this bill satisfies those requirements.

McNamara said there was “not one word of change” to the buffer language, and funding to fight the avian flu was actually increased by $4.4 million because there is some concern the U.S. Department of Agriculture may not “reimburse as robustly” for the state’s future costs.

“I would not be telling the truth if I said everybody is completely happy (with this bill),” McNamara said. “But they’re not completely mad either.”

 


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