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State Representative Tara Mack
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-5506
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EMAIL UPDATE
Budget resolved, shutdown ends
Greetings!
I am pleased our state is back up and running again following this week's special session where we passed a complete budget, ending the shutdown and setting spending for the next two years.
The budget we approved is for $34 billion in General Fund spending, a 6-percent increase from the last two years. But it is significantly less than the $39 billion we were on track to spend. We passed some incredibly good reform that will put us on track for a more sustainable future and it will be interesting to see the true cost savings we will realize.
Maybe the most notable reform pertains to health and human services. We were headed for a 22-percent spending increase in this portion of the budget, but the reforms we passed allow us to put forth a more responsible and sustainable 4.8-percent increase. The improvements we made will save Minnesota taxpayers an estimated $13 billion over the next decade. Beyond reducing spending growth in this area, we moved further in the direction of a patient-centered system so we can uphold our responsibility to provide assistance to those who need it most and repealed the "sick tax." The new budget maintains funding for nursing homes, boosts rural pharmacies and reforms delivery of services for the disabled. We also have measures in place to greatly reduce welfare fraud to maximize the effectiveness of our tax dollars.
Two components I personally authored passed with the final HHS bill. One continues the Autism Spectrum Disorder Task Force, a committee I have served on the last two years. The other bill establishes a single online eligibility and application portal for health and human services. This site will enable individuals and community providers to find out in one easy to use location what services they are eligible for and guide them through the application process.
While I am proud of the many reforms that we passed in the final budget, I am disappointed we enacted a K-12 funding shift to reach a compromise with the Governor. This shift delays the state's payment to local schools to fund operations. However, we were able to shrink the size of the shift from what the governor had proposed. While the shift puts schools in a difficult position in terms of managing budgets, school administrators prefer delayed funding to a straight cut. In addition, the final education bill provides for a per pupil funding increase for district 196.
Overall, we all can find areas of the new budget we dislike, but the final product represents the critical compromise necessary to end the stalemate. We had two distinctly different budget philosophies to bridge and both the Legislature and the Governor made concessions to get this done. It was important for us to reach an agreement so we could end the shutdown and get our state moving forward again.
We made positive steps in lowering the trajectory of our spending growth and also began the massive undertaking of overhauling our government operations. There still is a tremendous amount of work remaining in this area and I look forward to picking this up again in 2012.
I want to thank all the local citizens who have continued to offer their support during these challenging times. We faced some extraordinarily difficult decisions at the Capitol as we work through a crucial time in state history. I am honored to be serving as your voice in St. Paul and welcome your input as we prepare for the 2012 session.
Sincerely,
Tara
News Items
- 2013 survey results - (Posted: May 17 2013 5:08PM)
- Rep. Mack's 2013 survey - (Posted: Apr 22 2013 4:37PM)
- Budget news, health insurance exchange and more - (Posted: Mar 22 2013 12:00AM)
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