Dear Friends,
If you want a shining example of the dramatic growth in Government during the Democrats' two years of single-party control, look no further than the number of FTEs or "full time equivalents" in government agencies since 2012. A full time equivalent is approximately one full time employee or two part-time employees.
From 2012 to 2015, Minnesota's government has grown by 5,725 FTEs. That's more new government workers in the past couple of years than most of the towns in our district have for population.
When you add up all of the salaries, benefits, and other costs associated, it's clear this has been an incredibly expensive expansion of government.
What's worse, Governor Dayton has proposed increasing that number even more in his budget proposal for the next two years.
We simply can't keep growing the number of government employees and asking taxpayers to pick up the tab. It's not sustainable. We need policies that promote strong, thriving private-sector job growth if we want our government budget to remain sustainable without asking Minnesotans to pay even more than they already do.
Over the coming weeks, we will continue to scrutinize the Governor's budget proposal and look for ways to keep FTE growth in check, only adding positions where they are absolutely needed to provide the basic services Minnesotans expect.
Update on Commissioner Salary Increases
One week after we learned of more than $800,000 in pay increases approved by Governor Dayton, the Senate overwhelmingly voted on a bipartisan basis to suspend the pay increases for six months to give the legislature time to determine what to do about the situation. Minnesotans are upset about these dramatic pay increases at a time when most family take-home pay is flat, and want to see the raises removed or changed.
The House is expected to take action on the pay raises this week. I will keep you updated on that situation as well.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn