Special session looms as Minnesota lawmakers narrow remaining budget obstacles

Already behind schedule Minnesota lawmakers aim to complete a new state budget this week and head off the possibility of a regime shutdown a month from now The final pieces of budget statute are coming into focus Once the last details are locked in Gov Tim Walz intends to call a special session He described MPR News last week that he was aiming for Wednesday but that could easily slip until later in the week The Legislature failed to complete much of the billion two-year budget by a May session adjournment deadline Since then small sets of negotiators have met mostly behind closed doors That s meant stakeholders and the populace in general have had to scrape for details And for a few lawmakers on the inside they add that the process has been challenging for them as well It was very laborious explained Rep Erin Koegel a DFLer who helped fashion a final transportation plan There s lots of egos and it was a very hard process It was uncomfortable and it was tense And I m hoping that maybe specific lessons were learned this year and we can go forward in a little bit more of a civil manner The Republican co-chair of the House Taxes Committee notified MPR News on Monday that he doesn t think the proposal structured by Walz advisers and legislative leaders can pass We put five months of thought into something they put five minutes of thought into and I know which one s going to be better noted Rep Greg Davids of Preston I m just not sure why any Republican would even consider voting for this I don t think it would pass the House or the Senate What s remarkable about the Capitol now is that the House is tied between Democrats and Republicans The working groups are chaired by three lawmakers a Democrat from the Senate and House and a Republican from the House The ordinance they re writing will be voted on in citizens during that yet-scheduled special session Legislative leaders are hoping for an in-and-out session that takes one day or close to that But this year has been full of surprises and it wouldn t be a shock if lawmakers unhappy with the agreements drag it out to make a point or try to send things back to the bargaining table Plans available online Largest part budget spreadsheets and strategy agreements are online although a inadequate bill drafts are still to come An coaching finance bill popped up Monday A tax bill was posted over the weekend The tax bill is pages in total meaning majority items in dispute were tossed overboard It s a sharp contrast to last year s tax package which ran more than pages and has attracted lawsuits for the inclusion of so a multitude of items that only loosely connect to the tax code The transportation plan Koegel worked on reflects a million cut in the next two years and a bit more than that two years beyond that The Spring Lake Park DFLer announced her goal was to minimize cuts to mass transit But there were other pinch points that kept the transportation bill open for weeks from discussions about emissions to the structure of mass transit As part of the agreement electric motorcycle owners will foot more of the transportation bill EV owners will pay a surcharge to basically kick in money they re not paying in gas taxes Initially that had been a flat amount The final plan determines the surcharge based on a formula that factors in wagon value and age The minimum fee at first will be for full-electric cars and for plug-in hybrids But that could shift later as lawmakers scrutiny a charging system fee Various higher taxes The skinny tax bill tapers exemptions for facts centers They won t be able to avoid taxes on electricity use as they have before The cannabis products tax goes up from to Davids commented the fact that it raises taxes overall is a nonstarter for him It s massive tax increases and that s not what our caucus is supposed to be about he mentioned In the schooling bill at more than billion it s one of the biggest expenses in the state budget there are changes to calculations for various per-student allowances The bill includes more money to implement literacy curriculum changes There s also a new task force set up to examine special guidance costs and look for solutions to lower the rapid progress in those Districts will be expected to develop and implement cardiac urgency response plans for sudden cardiac events on their properties those would have to be in place by the - school year and there is grant money in the bill to aid with the anticipated costs Individual bill fates unknown Aside from when this special session will happen it s hard to assess if there will be enough votes to pass all these bills The - House creates an exceptional dynamic and a - Senate led by DFLers doesn t leave much room for defections either Related Articles Letters St Paul should take care of what it has before spending on new things Derrick Thompson s trial begins in deaths of women Letters Stop with the antisemitism With no final MN budget deal in sight special session now likely in June What Minnesota laws and policies changed after George Floyd Here are topics The peril of a partial ruling body shutdown and state employee layoffs next month remains for areas without enacted budgets Layoff notices have started to go out to meet legal requirements for workers who could be furloughed As particular remote-work employees start shifting back to office assignments under a Walz directive state employee union leaders say the one-two punch is a lot to handle Leaders of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees wrote in a memo to rank-and-file members late last week under a bolded heading of Facing next week might feel scary We know these coming days will be hard it reads The people running the state didn t give you the respect of a plan but we ll make sure you re not left in the dark You keep Minnesota running