No targets in sight as supplemental budget group plods through overviews

The supplemental budget conference committee Tuesday continued to hear about myriad differences between House and Senate versions of HF2749, but there was still no talk of a plan for finding compromise. One thing is clear: committee members have their work cut out for them, with the statutory end of session looming less than two weeks away.

“There’s a lot to this bill, and I think we want to give it the fullest consideration that we can,” said Rep. Jim Knoblach (R-St. Cloud), who co-chairs the committee with Sen. Richard Cohen (DFL-St. Paul)

The two proposals reflect the vastly different budget targets set by the leadership of each body. While the Senate is proposing about $456.7 million in total supplemental spending, the House has only about $3.2 million in its supplemental budget, reserving the lion’s share of the state’s $900 million surplus for transportation and tax relief. House and Senate leaders will need to agree on joint budget targets before the supplemental budget can move forward.

After looking at differences in supplemental spending proposals Monday, the conference committee met Tuesday in the Minnesota Senate Building to continue walking through detailed side-by-side comparisons of policy language, beginning with E-12 education and continuing on to higher education and health and human services.

Members of the supplemental budget conference committee follow along during a review of the side-by-side comparison of the two bills during the May 10 meeting. Photo by Paul Battaglia

The committee plans to continue to hear overviews from nonpartisan staff late into Tuesday evening and finish any remaining subject areas on Wednesday, Cohen said.

Sen. Michelle Fischbach (R-Paynesville) asked for a more concrete schedule for the evening, but Cohen demurred, saying it was hard to tell how long each walk-through would take.

After joking about needing to take a nap at some point, Fischbach said hearing presentations at 10 or 11 at night didn’t seem “terribly fair” to the public.

“In all seriousness, I think the public really should know what we are doing and what the timeline is,” Fischbach said.

Cohen questioned whether the general public was following along as the committee walked through the side-by-sides.

“I’m all for transparency, but I’m guessing that’s probably a pretty limited public,” he said.

Seeking a better way of doing things

Transparency was also discussed Tuesday morning at a joint meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee to hear a presentation from the National Conference of State Legislatures about how other states set joint budget targets.

Despite the focus on other states, some legislators were more interested in hearing how Minnesota would arrive at its own targets this year. Knoblach said during the meeting that leadership was still working on this year’s targets.

“After 12 years in the Legislature, it’s still a mystery to me how the numbers are chosen,” said Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester). “I would venture to guess if I don’t understand it, the public certainly doesn’t understand it. … We all get the word from on high and then we live with it.”