Thursday, June 30, 2011

Minnesota Braces for Government Shutdown

Minnesota Braces for Government Shutdown

CHICAGO — With only hours remaining before most Minnesota services will shut down if the state does not approve a new budget, political leaders met behind closed doors on Thursday but emerged again with no deal on a spending plan and no signs of a resolution in sight.
And so, on the eve of a holiday weekend, Minnesotans were bracing for the possibility that the state’s parks and the Minnesota Zoo will be closed, hunting and fishing licenses will not be issued, and the state’s lottery system and racetracks will shut down. By Thursday afternoon, workers were already closing the state’s 84 major rest areas along highways. Thousands of state workers were preparing to be sent home without pay, and contractors were getting ready to walk away from a hundred road construction projects that are underway.
While the budget year begins on Friday in many states, Minnesota was one of several that had yet to seal a deal by Thursday afternoon, but was one of the few in the nation making immediate preparations for a shutdown. The last such standoff in Minnesota came under an entirely different set of leaders in 2005, but involved the shutdown of far fewer services and lasted a matter of days.
Since early this year, the politicians in St. Paul have been locked in a battle over how to solve budget woes under a divided government. Republicans, who took control of both chambers of the Legislature last fall, urged sharp cuts and a cap on spending to the $34 billion that the state expected to take in over the next two years. Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat elected in the fall, called for collecting more in income taxes from the highest earners to solve an anticipated $5 billion deficit and to spare cuts in services to the most vulnerable.
For days, even as leaders on both sides have met under what the governor’s spokeswoman described as a “cone of silence,” no progress has been reported.
“It’s a very sad day for Minnesota,” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, which is not expected to close. “It’s a state that had a well-earned reputation for being well governed where, at the end of the day, politics were done in a fair and efficient manner. And it’s now on the cusp of ungovernability. There’s a new ethic here that compromise is weakness.”
The list of state services expected to close is lengthy: all sorts of state offices, including dispatchers in the twin cities who monitor traffic jams and accidents and try to keep rush hours moving along. Certain crucial services will stay open, like state patrol work, prison operations, courts and schools.
Some Minnesotans said some sort of deal still seemed possible. Some observers have suggested that Republican leaders might agree to some sort of increased revenue — though not the $1.8 billion that Mr. Dayton has sought and not from a permanent income tax increase. But even a different source of revenue and a smaller amount might have trouble clearing the full Legislature; some among the new crop of Republican lawmakers promised while campaigning last year to cut spending in the state and to hold the line on any new revenues.
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What operations will be open, closed

  • Updated: June 30, 2011 - 9:48 AM
Based on Wednesday's ruling by Judge Kathleen Gearin, here is what would be open and closed during a state shutdown.

COURTS

Would remain open at all levels.

LICENSE PLATES

State Driver and Vehicle Services Division would be closed, but deputy registrars could renew license plates. Driver's license exams would not be available.

DRIVER'S LICENSES

People will be able to renew licenses at driver's license agent offices. Driver tests would not be available.

EDUCATION

State funding for K-12 schools would continue, but the state Education Department would largely be closed.

HEALTH/HUMAN SERVICES

Medical Assistance, MinnesotaCare, food stamps, welfare benefits, child support payments, county child protection services, refugee assistance, supplemental aid and some services for disabled people would continue. Child-care assistance, services for the deaf, Senior and Disability linkage lines, criminal background checks and food shelf distributions would stop.

HIGHWAY REST STOPS

Would close.

HUNTING, FISHING LICENSES

Would not be issued. DNR officers would continue enforcement.

MILITARY/VETERANS

Veterans homes would stay open, along with critical assistance programs. Tuition reimbursement claims would stop and veterans' outreach claims offices would close.

MINNESOTA STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Would remain open.

MINNESOTA STATE LOTTERY

Would close.

PUBLIC SAFETY

State Patrol would stay on. The state's prison system would keep 3,600 of its 4,200 employees, including most of those who deal directly with offenders. Local police will likely be unaffected, since the state will still send local government aid.

RACE TRACKS

Canterbury Park and Running Aces would close.

STATE PARKS

Would close.

STILLWATER LIFT BRIDGE

Would remain open.

TAXES

Taxes would be collected, but no refund checks would go out. Tax Court would be closed.

TRANSPORTATION

Most state-funded road construction projects would stop, except for emergency repairs. Twin Cities buses and rail lines would continue operating. South-metro bus lines would keep operating.

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

Would be paid.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Would remain open

MINNESOTA ZOO

Would close to the public.
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Acting as the shutdown "special master" former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz will start hearings Friday morning to sort through funding requests.
While the hearings will be in the Minnesota Judicial Center, they will not be court proceedings. Blatz will be seated at an table, not a formal judge's bench, with a representative from the governor's office and one from the attorney general's on either side of her. Seated at a table in front of her: the petitioner who wants to plead that their program should be funded.
Although she was just appointed by Ramsey County District Court Chief Justice Kathleen Gearin just Wednesday to sort through the requests, Blatz already has a full case load.
Already dozens of parties -- from social service agencies to horsemen -- have  filed court documents asking for funding.
Each group will get 20 minutes before Blatz to make a case.
She will start the hearings 8 am Friday and continue at 8 am July 5, after the holiday weekend. That schedule means that even petitioners who may eventually get funding will have to do without Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Unlike 2005, when a special master was appointed to sort through that shutdown, Blatz has a very limited charge, according to the task set for her by Gearin, but a lot larger scope.
Six years ago, the Legislature passed and the governor signed a handful of budget bills, meaning much of what state government does already had properly appropriated funds. This time around only the tiny agriculture budget bill is law, leaving eight other areas of government -- from transportation to administration -- unfunded.
Already that's given rise to several separate lawsuits as race tracks and zoos, which would close to the public based on Gearin's order, plead for permission to stay in operation during a shutdown. The Supreme Court Thursday ruled that all those cases should be consolidated in Ramsey County.
Gearin has already told them "no" once even though she said she recognized that closure could cause them harm. Ultimately, Gearin wrote, "those concerns need to be recognized and resolved by actions of the executive and legislative branches, not the judicial branch."
Gearin separately appointed Blatz to play the role of special master to deal with the myriad of requests coming in.
"A special master creates an orderly process to resolve requests for, or objections to, funding, thereby preventing the necessity for multiple individual lawsuits," Gearin wrote in her decision appointing Blatz.
That Blatz was appointed at all was a compromise of sorts. Attorney General Lori Swanson asked Gearin to appoint a special master but appoint someone else. Gov. Mark Dayton asked Gearin to appoint Blatz as a mediator. Gearin took a little from both of their suggestions in her decision.
Blatz, a Republican, has seen compromise from all angles herself. She's a former Minnesota House member, who, when she first took office in 1979 was the youngest female lawmaker ever sworn in. She was 24 years old.
While in the Legislature, she went to law school, graduating cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School.

She went on to become an assistant Hennepin County attorney and Hennepin County Judge before she was plunked from the district bench for the Minnesota Supreme Court by Republican Gov. Arne Carlson in 1996. In 1998, she became the first female Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
She stepped down from the bench in 2006.
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Minn. braces for shutdown at midnight; Democratic gov and GOP lawmakers at odds over taxes

COMMENTS
Gov. Mark Dayton and Tom Bakk, Senate Minority Leader, and Paul Thissen, House Minority Leader, walk down the stairs after Tuesday's final budget meeting.


ST. PAUL, Minn. - In an echo of the debate unfolding in Washington, Minnesota hurtled toward a midnight government shutdown Thursday in a dispute over taxes and spending that could force thousands of layoffs, bring road projects to a standstill and close state parks just ahead of the Fourth of July weekend.
As the deadline drew ever closer without a resolution, people rushed to get driver's and fishing licenses, and park officials began warning campers to pack their gear and leave.
Though nearly all states are having severe budget problems this year, Minnesota stood alone on the brink of a shutdown, thanks to Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton's determination to raise taxes on high-earners to close a $5 billion deficit and the Republican Legislature's refusal to go along.
Negotiations between Dayton and legislative leaders were fitful, starting and stopping with no outward signs of progress, and details were scant, since the two sides agreed to what they jokingly called "the cone of silence."
Late Thursday afternoon, GOP leaders again demanded the governor avert a shutdown by calling a special session to enact a "lights on" budget bill that would keep the state running while talks continued. Top Democrats said Dayton would not take such a step.
Republican Sen. Michelle Benson said she wasn't budging, either.
"If we don't start taking a different approach to how we manage our government, we're going to swing from one bad economic circumstance to another," Benson said. "We can't just keep throwing more money at government and hoping that makes things better."
The showdown was something of a small-stage version of the drama taking shape in Washington between President Barack Obama and the Republicans over taxes and the nation's debt ceiling.
Though many states are having budget difficulties this year, those where political power is concentrated in a single party easily passed budgets. Some of those with divided government had healthy reserves, including Alaska, Iowa and Montana; Minnesota's rainy-day accounts are drained. Others such as Louisiana and Nevada used one-time money or federal dollars to patch things together. Nevada and Missouri renewed taxes.
In New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie used the line-item veto Thursday to pare a budget from the Democratic-controlled Legislature before signing it into law, preventing a shutdown.
Only four other states — Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — have had shutdowns in the past decade, some lasting mere hours.
A stoppage in Minnesota would halt non-emergency road construction, shut the state zoo and Capitol, and stop child-care assistance for the poor. More than 40 state boards and agencies would go dark. Critical services, including the State Patrol, prisons, disaster response and federally funded health, welfare and food stamp programs, would not be affected.
State park officials told campers to strike their tents well before the deadline, even though there was still a chance of a deal. They said it would be too difficult to herd campers out in the middle of the night if talks failed.
In Afton State Park, near St. Paul, Rick Miller of Elko-New Market pushed up a camping trip with his 7-year-old son, Jack, to beat the shutdown. Miller originally hoped they could spend Thursday and Friday nights in the park on the picturesque St. Croix River, but he booked a campsite for Wednesday night.
"With the shutdown we decided we better come and get it in," he said. "We don't know how long it will be before we can get back into a state park." He added: "It's too bad they can't just get the job done."
A small group of protesters paraded before reporters clustered outside Dayton's office on Thursday afternoon, chanting and waving signs to support the governor's position. "You say cut back, we say fight back!" they yelled. One woman carried a handmade sign that read: "GOV DAYTON DON'T BACK DOWN!"
Dayton is Minnesota's first Democratic governor in 20 years, and Republicans are running the entire Legislature for the first time in 38 years.
The governor has proposed raising taxes on couples earning more than $300,000 and individuals making more than $180,000. Republicans have opposed any new taxes or new revenue sources, arguing instead that the state should rely on spending cuts, including deeper reductions in health and welfare spending than Dayton is willing to accept.
Some GOP moderates have talked of breaking the impasse with other means of raising revenue, such as eliminating tax breaks or authorizing a casino. Dayton has said he is open to such ideas.
Rank-and-file Republicans gathered at the Capitol on Thursday, more than a month after their regular session ended. Members of the large Republican freshman class, whose election victories in November helped the party take control of the Legislature for the first time in decades, held tight to their message that a total two-year state budget of $34 billion is big enough.

"I personally think the Republicans will probably be more damaged than the governor" by a shutdown, said freshman Rep. Mike LeMieur, R-Little Falls, who toppled an incumbent Democrat in November. "The fact is that we're all up for re-election again next year, and he's not up for three years."
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Associated Press reporters Amy Forliti and Patrick Condon contributed to this report. Forliti reported from Afton, Minn.

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