As of 9pm Sunday night, there was no ‘global budget’ agreement between the Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders. Legislators started plowing ahead Sunday afternoon with a few of the omnibus bills including the Agriculture, Higher Education and Legacy bills.
There’s no word on the E-12 bill other than to say that how much and where to spend pre-K funds are the hold up. The Governor wants more money into the Voluntary Pre-K (VPK) program and the GOP wants to repeal that program and instead put the money into scholarships. Improving the status of TRA is also proving to be elusive and it’s unclear what, if any, solution to TRA will emerge.
The teacher licensure bill is expected to become part of the final E-12 bill and the legislature made concessions to the Governor in relation to his veto letter. The private school tuition tax credits likely will not be a part of the final tax bill, but they’re still arguing over the size and scope of the tax bill as this is written.
An elections reform bill (SF 514) cleared the House 127-5. It still needs to go back to the Senate for them to concur with what the House did to the Senate file. Learn more.
What’s Next?
MREA will send an update as soon as we have details on an E-12 bill, TRA and the tax issues that our team has been tracking. Ag2School will be a part of any tax bill that emerges.
The question is can they get it all done by midnight Monday. It’s possible that they’ll need a Tuesday/Wednesday special session to process everything that’s been negotiated. It’s also possible that negotiations will blow up and we stumble into June with both sides blaming each other.
