Public safety finance bill to the governor

published 5/12/2009

The omnibus public safety finance bill awaits action by the governor.

Sponsored by Rep. Michael Paymar (DFL-St. Paul) and Sen. Linda Higgins (DFL-Mpls), HF1657/SF802* was passed 85-45 by the House, one day after the Senate did the same 36-30. (Watch the floor session.)

Coming in at $2.02 billion, including $1.81 billion from the General Fund, the bill cuts across a wide swath of areas including courts, human rights, victim services and public safety.

However, Paymar said the Corrections Department would get a base bump.

"We did not fund the department to the level that the governor had recommended. We actually increased base funding to the Department of Corrections by $3.6 million. I don’t know of any other department or agency in the state of Minnesota that got increases," Paymar said.

All courts face a biennial funding decrease, but some of that is to be offset by $41 million in fee increases.

Paymar said that court representatives said they "could live with" the fees, and that the Minnesota Bar Association did not express opposition. "While nobody likes to raise fees we felt like in these economic times that this was the right thing to do."

- Mike Cook