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NEWS COLUMN

RECAPPING THE SESSION: AVERAGE AT BEST

By Bob Dettmer
State Representative
District 52A

On May 21 after six months of debates, committee meetings, floor sessions, and votes the 2007 legislative session came to a close at its constitutional deadline. In the aftermath, what the legislature produced is state budget that could be described as mediocre, at best. There are some positive aspects of this budget, but there are also some very troubling portions of the budget. As the air has cleared I would like to give you my take on the legislative session.

First the good. The overall spending increase was held to 9.7%, slightly below what the Governor had proposed. Given our budget surplus, this increase in spending was within the means of our state, and all proposals to raise your taxes were defeated. Early on this session, it seemed as if the appetites of the special interests (and the corresponding billions of dollars in proposed tax increases) would quickly send our state to number in the nation in tax rates. It seemed that a nearly 10% proposed spending increase and a $2.2 billion dollar budget surplus would simply not be enough to pay for all the promises given by the new majority in the House. Yet, I am proud to say that House Republicans and Governor Pawlenty stood tall against the calls for more taxing and spending, and through the veto pen we were able to keep our government within its means. In the end, despite what many had said, the $2.2 billion dollar surplus was enough.

We were also able to do some positive things with regards to our veterans. The creation of a Minnesota GI Bill, modeled after the federal program, is designed to provide veterans with as much as $1,000 in assistance per semester to assist with higher education tuition payments. With 3,000 military personnel currently serving in active duty and many due to return home to Minnesota in the coming months, the Legislature provided $1.5 million for the National Guard reintegration program to help soldiers returning from active duty. These young men and women deserve our sincere thanks and deserve our full support when they return home. I was very pleased that the legislature was able to improve our services to veterans, and I look forward to making Minnesota as veteran friendly as possible in the future.

In higher education, we were able to provide funding increases to the University of Minnesota and our State Colleges and Universities. Hopefully this will be used by these institutions to lower tuition rates and provide relief to students and parents. A full tuition freeze was passed by the full House, but later dropped when the DFL controlled Senate did not agree with the provision. I was also pleased that, through the Governor’s urging, the so called “dream act” that would allow the children of illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition rates at state funded colleges was dropped from the final Higher Education bill.

A few other highlights of the session include the passing of a renewable energy standard the will place Minnesota as a national leader on this issue, providing additional funding for the U of M/Mayo Clinic Bioscience initiative, and providing disaster funding relief to the communities of Warroad, Rogers, and Browns Valley. House Republicans were also successful in stopping a “double-lawsuit” provision that would have increased insurance rates and in stopping all tax increase proposals on business (both large and small) and individuals.

Now for the not so good. In the last 6 hours of session, over $26 billion in funding bills were voted on and passed by the DFL majority, and often the legislators did not even have time to read the bill and determine what they were voting on. The priorities of these last minute budget bills often missed the mark.

The bill that I am most disappointed in is the K-12 Funding bill. There are some positive aspects on this bill including the restoring of early childhood and family education funding, school technology funding increases, funding increases for Kindergarten programs, and teacher development programs. Also included in the bill was legislation that I authored, and a personal passion on mine, to increase and incorporate physical education standards into high school graduation requirements.

Unfortunately, these positive aspects are far outweighed by the bills meager funding amounts. All schools will receive a very mediocre 2% and 1% increase in funding per-pupil over the next two years. Funding is provided to help districts deal with special education mandates, and hopefully these additional resources in special education will ease the burden of the very modest per-pupil funding levels.

It is disappointing to me that K-12 education was not made a higher priority by majority party. Given the 9.7% growth in government spending, the 2% and 1% increases in education funding suggest other areas (like increased welfare spending) were in competition- and prevailed- against our kids. It is also disappointing that this bill continues, and even expands, the funding disparity between Minneapolis and St Paul schools and all others in the state. I authored a bill this session that would address this inequitable funding, and I plan on further pursuing this issue until all of our schools are funded more equitably.

I also disagreed with many of the priorities of a number of other bills. The Health and Human Services bill contained a 19% increase in funding, much of which is directed towards expanding welfare benefits and rolling back previous reforms. This bill also only provided a 2% cost of living adjustment increase for nursing home workers. The transportation bill was based upon over $900 million dollars in increased taxes and fees, and the Governor clearly indicated that he did not support the proposal. Perhaps most notably I would have liked to see some form of responsible property tax relief. The DFL plan to raise income taxes to pay for property tax relief was never a viable option given the clear statements from the Governor about tax increases. The insistence on tax increases to pay for these proposals and lack of compromise on this issue resulted in only a “lights-on” transportation bill and no property tax relief.

Given the total lack of progress on transportation and property tax relief, the explosive growth in health and welfare spending, and mediocre school funding the results of this past session can only be looked upon as average at best. We were able to contain spending and keep our state budget within our means. House Republicans and Governor Pawlenty successfully stopped billions in proposed tax increases, and kept government spending in check. But the majority parities priorities are way off the mark. Our kids and schools are pitted against health and welfare spending, and that is unfortunate with an end result being meager increases for our schools and continued exploding grown the health and welfare. Our budget is balanced and complete, but I firmly believe that we can and should do better. I hope when legislature reconvenes in February of 2007 we can come together in a spirit of compromise and realign our priorities where they belong: on our kids, our elderly and vulnerable, and a on our taxpayers.