ST. PAUL – On Monday, May 17 the Minnesota House of Representative adjourned session for the year. However, State Representative Joe Schomacker (R-Luverne) said lawmakers will be returning soon, as a new two-year state budget was not approved before session ended.
“The governor, House speaker, and Senate majority leader agreed to budget targets before session ended, and now the House and Senate will need to work on legislation that fits these financial parameters,” Schomacker said.
Schomacker said none of the budget bills that fund areas of state government – such as K-12 Education, agriculture, or transportation – were crafted into compromise proposals that could be approved by both the House and Senate prior to the end of session. This means working groups will now be formed in hopes of creating consensus policies that can be passed by both bodies.
“In previous years when we’ve had special sessions, we have approved some finance proposals before the regular session adjourned for the year,” Schomacker said. “Given the budget surplus, coming up with a budget shouldn't be that hard. But the unexpected dynamic of billions in federal stimulus dollars pouring into the state have definitely complicated things. With that said, I’m hopeful we will make progress on bipartisan legislation in the coming weeks and put Minnesota’s next budget in place.”
Schomacker expects a special session to be called on June 14. Minnesota’s next budget must be in place by July 1 – which is the start of the next fiscal year.