Senate Republicans Set Budget Targets

Senate Republicans released their budget targets for the 2020-21 biennium at a Capitol press conference Thursday, March 28. The GOP plan would spend $47.6 billion dollars over the next biennium without raising taxes.

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said there will be additional resources directed toward mental health, child care, E-12 education--including support to heighten school safety--health and human services, elder care, and continued expansion of broadband in greater Minnesota. Citing concerns over a softening economy, Senate Finance Chair Julie Rosen, R-Vernon Center, said that the budget targets reflect, “a serious, realistic and responsible attempt to balance the state priorities with the ability to live within our means.”

With the budget targets, Senate finance committees will begin finalizing details within the respective budget categories. As compared to the current two-year budget, the Senate Republican plan adds $918 million dollars to E-12 education and $1.65 billion dollars to health and human services. Among the budget areas, the plan also would reduce funding for the environment and natural resources by $90 million dollars and state government by $146 million dollars.

Following the GOP press conference, Senate DFLers took the podium. Assistant Minority Leader Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury, said, “This is another example, as we’ve seen in recent years, of some accounting gimmicks and some fuzzy math.” According to Kent, the GOP plan does not represent the priorities of Minnesotans, such as high quality education, affordable and accessible health care and increasing support for working families.

In contrast to the Senate plan, Governor Walz’s and the DFL-controlled House budgets would spend about $49 billion dollars and include raising the gas tax for transportation projects and maintain the Health Care Access Fund--the tax on health care providers which partially funds Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare.