Legislature keeps state’s fiscal house on sound footing

Less than two weeks remain before the Minnesota Legislature’s May 19 constitutional adjournment deadline, which will cap a tremendous amount of progress and good work on behalf of the people of Minnesota.

The legacy this DFL-led Legislature leaves will be long-lasting. For example, every child in Minnesota can attend all-day Kindergarten for the first time starting this fall, undergraduate college students are taking on less debt because we froze tuition and overall statewide property taxes for homeowners decreased for the first time in over a decade.

Those are a just a few of the major steps state lawmakers took to create broad-based, shared prosperity for all Minnesotans, but none of them would be possible had we not passed an honestly balanced budget free of the kinds of gimmicks and shifts that caused our previous decade worth of deficits.

When we received an updated budget forecast earlier this year showing a $1.2 billion surplus in the current biennium and $2.4 billion surplus in the next biennium (Fiscal Years 2016-17), state lawmakers introduced bills to cut middle class taxes, boost our state’s rainy day fund, increase wages for home and community-based caregivers and pay for additional investments in our schools — priorities that Minnesotans broadly share.

As those bills worked their way through the legislative process during this year’s Session, with some already signed into law, their fiscal impact on our state received a lot of scrutiny.

Thanks to our due diligence, I’m proud to report the legislature continues to keep our state’s fiscal house on sound footing right now and into the future.

Some of the bills we passed earlier this year that Gov. Mark Dayton already signed into law are one-time expenditures that only impact our current biennium.

For example, the first bill signed into law this session was a $20 million one-time emergency appropriation to provide home heating assistance for low-income Minnesotans impacted by the propane crisis this past winter. The appropriation is not carried over into the next biennium. The same rule applies to the $150 million we added to the state’s rainy day fund/budget reserves.

‘Tails’ is the term used by lawmakers to describe legislation that includes ongoing expenditures.

For instance, a bill signed into law earlier this year that cuts taxes for more than one million middle class Minnesotans will have a fiscal impact of roughly $450 million in the current biennium and roughly $1 billion the next biennium. Similarly, our supplemental budget, which is currently being finalized in conference committee, will have a fiscal impact of $293 million in the current biennium and $883 million in the next biennium.

Those dollars will be put to good use by providing a 5 percent wage increase for Minnesotans who care for our seniors and people with disabilities living at home and in community-based settings, additional funding for every school, developing high-speed broadband Internet service in Greater Minnesota and much-needed resources for improvements to highways, roads and bridges — the kinds of investments that will build on Minnesota’s positive economic momentum.

Working within that framework, we will leave $20 million on our state’s bottom line in the current biennium and $600 million in the next biennium, keeping Minnesota’s finances in good order in much the same way families across our state balance their checkbooks every month.

That’s a stark contrast from the financial rollercoaster of deficits, borrowing and shifts our state was on for the previous decade.

By keeping Minnesota’s fiscal house on sound footing right now and into the future, Minnesota families and businesses will have the security and stability they need to grow, prosper and thrive.