State employees will be getting layoff notices this week, as there is still no budget agreement in the Minnesota legislature - and a possible government shutdown looms.
DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy (St. Paul) spoke to WCCO-TV on the status of the negotiations.
"Productive but slow and methodical, which I think will yield a good outcome for the people of Minnesota," Murphy said.
Murphy said they would like to resolve issues and be ready for a special session this week.
"We've essentially finished all of the budget bills, and yesterday, our chair Melissa Wiklund (DFL- Bloomington) in the Senate spent the entire day with the Republican working group members, going through the policy and making sure everything is in order. And they finished that up yesterday. It's the last big bill necessary to produce this budget, and I'm really proud of the work that she has done."
If for some reason they can't reach a balanced budget agreement by June 30, there would be a partial government shutdown.
Murphy says they are still hoping for a special session this week.
"I know everybody needs to give the revisors the time to draft the legislation and they have to also be very methodical and making sure that there aren't errors, etc. in the legislation," Murphy explains. "So that always takes a little more time than any of us want, but we're hoping, by the end of this week, that we're in special session."
Tax and bonding bills slow negotiations to a crawl
Since the session came to a close on May 19, when Governor Tim Walz and legislative leaders announced they were wrapping up a budget, negotiations have slowed to a crawl.
The tax bill is becoming a point of contention since House and Senate leaders announced a tax agreement. WCCO Political Analyst Blois Olson says the Republican co-chair Greg Davids (Preston) in the House, and Senator Ann Rest (New Hope) in the Senate said they weren't in favor of the tax deal.
"When people aren't getting their work done, you're like, it's just easier for us to do it yourself," Olson says. "The leadership, the triumvirate, the governor and the legislative leaders, kind of take these bills back and they go, fine, if you guys can't agree, we'll figure it out. Well, the difference is that they have to have the votes in the House and the Senate to agree to the leadership deal, and they don't. So that tax bill remains a major issue as of last night."
Olson notes that Senate Democrats caucused for about two hours without consensus.
The other big issue still being worked out is the bonding bill and Olson says there has been some back-and-forth between the two sides with some emotion.
"Senator Karin Housley (R- Stillwater), when Erin Murphy said Senate Republicans won't deal on a bonding bill, she said 'lies, straight lies.' And I heard some backs stories about how the governor brought it up last week to some senators and said, 'sorry you guys don't want a bonding bill,' and they're like, 'we do, but you have to start talking to us. You can't start, you can't just shove something down our throat.' And they need two-thirds of the vote for that," Olson explained.
Housley, speaking to Vineeta Sawkar on the WCCO Morning News, said the claim from Murphy is flat-out incorrect.
"I really took offense to that because we had been working really, really hard," Housley explained. "We had just met the day before and so it was kind of a shock to me that all of a sudden, Leader Murphy said, 'we're not engaging.' I was pretty upset and I thought, you know, who are you to just go out and say that you have not been in the room with us? Well, we have been working on this bonding bill. We have put in thousands of hours on this thing. We meet twice a week to try and get some movement on and then she just, out of the blue, said that we weren't engaging. So it was, it was pretty upsetting."
Those issues, says Olson, makes him think Friday at the earliest for a special session.