To the editor:
Just last week the Minnesota Management and Budget Office announced a budget surplus of over $1 billion after the latest economic forecast. This kind of surplus is possible through strong economic growth and responsible budgeting. The increased revenue and growth means we are able to fully pay back the money owed to our schools.
It’s a critical milestone for the students and teachers in our communities because it means the end of a time when they had to deal with the uncertainly that came with such drastic funding shifts and gimmicks of the recent past.
The surplus also means we can continue to move forward with other key priorities this upcoming session. Already we’ve seen increased funding for our schools, both in new funding and the repayment of IOUs put in place under the previous Legislature. Starting next year, we’ll also see property taxes coming down rather than increases every year. Thanks to increased support for our cities, counties, and school districts we’ll see levies that no longer have to balloon up to cover the cost of the things we are about as a community. Thanks to increases in property tax relief for homeowners and renters under our plan, property taxes will come down even further.
We know there’s still plenty of work to do. We need our local businesses to keep driving our economy. That’s why we increased our investment in job creation and economic development by nearly $100 million. That’s why we’re lowering the cost of doing business by reducing the Unemployment Insurance Tax by $346 million.
As we move closer to the start of our next legislative session this February, this surplus will give us more flexibility to address the issues that working families are facing ever day. Even as our economy improves, there is always more to be done to build a strong economy for our state.
Working together we can continue to move Minnesota forward. It’s great to see Minnesota doing well.
Connie Bernardy