Minnesota Legislature defers on specifying education cuts while sparing private schools

Lawmakers tasked to write Minnesota s E- learning budget had a really hard job An agreement between Gov Tim Walz and legislative leaders called for million less in instruction spending in fiscal years and compared to the state s budget forecast But it was up to an E- Coaching Finance working group to make the wrenching decisions about what exactly would be cut On Thursday night the working group publicized a two-page spreadsheet showing they had a deal that prescribed the necessary spending reductions Sort of Of that million million or about of the cuts will come from recommendations by a Blue Ribbon Commission on Special Coaching Sen Mary Kunesh DFL-New Brighton and co-chair of the working group stated in an interview that it is better in the long run to let a commission appointed by the governor and lawmakers take testimony and gather information before making hard spending choices For this session we had a very hard budget target We didn t want to affect the the greater part vulnerable of our students Kunesh revealed Requested if the working group first tried to make special ed spending decisions on its own Kunesh reported they had not We did not talk in any depth or consider those kinds of cuts We could sit here and say Let s do this But we perhaps don t understand the consequences Lucky enough for state lawmakers while they are required to do budget planning for the next four years they need only to pass a balanced budget for the next two Walz and legislative leaders have called for no overall cut in teaching spending in and so specific choices on cuts did not have to be made in this budget Related The Minnesota budget four-year budget forecast sandbox designer truth teller As for what requirements to be targeted two years from now Rep Cheryl Youakim DFL-Hopkins and a working group co-chair explained I have specific guesses But that s why I really longed to have a blue ribbon commission Here is what else to know about the roughly billion instruction budget at first glance including Republicans triumphant fight to keep spending for private school students What do we know about this teaching commission The commission will cost the state to set up in the upcoming fiscal year according to the spreadsheet But after that the commission s blue ribbon-quality spending recommendations are set to save the state million in fiscal year and another million in fiscal year Nowhere in the governor s -page mentoring budget recommendation is the idea of a commission to review the special ed cuts mentioned It was also not part of either the House or Senate mentoring spending bills nor did the idea come up in committee or legislative floor discussions But since the Legislature technically adjourned on May discussions on mentoring spending moved to working groups that convened privately save for a -minute constituents meeting last week Reporters including myself have complained about the working groups secrecy Another way working groups differ from legislative committee meetings is that they are between legislators and the Walz administration According to Kunesh the governor s office hatched the idea of the blue ribbon commission And the completed spreadsheet is signed by Willie Jett commissioner of the state Department of Schooling Youakim reported that Learning Department members met with lawmakers each step of the way A message left with the Department of Training was not returned by Friday afternoon With Walz s endorsement in the bag the working group spreadsheet should swiftly be translated into actual spending act whenever the governor calls a special session of the Legislature The state has to write a budget before the fiscal year starts July Will the blue ribbon commission make a difference While DFL lawmakers talked up the idea Sen Jason Rarick R-Pine City and a member but not co-chair of the working group in a written declaration called the blue ribbon commission an unlikely and somewhat desperate cure to the fiscal catastrophe the Democrats have brought down on the state and our local schools I would like to give evidence supporting or refuting Rarick but the commission idea has only a sparse precedents in budget deals According to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library the last such body created to deal with a budget obstacle was the Blue Ribbon Commission on Strength and Human Services which published findings in But that commission did not have a specific mandate to find a certain amount of spending cuts Where are the other million in mentoring spending cuts for and There definitely is one specific special learning cut School districts in total will be reimbursed million less for transporting special ed students to and from school It s a wonky issue but the state and school districts have long been vexed about the majority of cost-effective way to transit special mentoring students who require disability accommodations Walz argued in his budget proposal that districts give too much money to private transportation contractors In addition to transportation The Grow Your Own undertaking which provides mentorship and training for prospective teachers is set to lose million in fiscal years and And a proposal by Senate DFLers to trim million in facility maintenance to charter schools made it into the budget spreadsheet There s also fewer grants for nonprofits The Legislature wants to move away from earmarking grants to specific organizations But this budget document also does not include an overall spending kitty where the Coaching Department might instead select grant recipients What is not cut Throughout the legislative session DFLers fought to preserve unemployment insurance for hourly school workers while Republicans fought Walz s plan to erase over million in aid to private school students In the end both sides won at least in the short term The governor has already signed into a law a separate measure to put million toward unemployment insurance for hourly school staff like bus drivers and food operation workers This unemployment insurance operation was much to the chagrin of Rarick who called it another mandate from Walz and DFLers stating that Because of their heavy-handed policies a multitude of schools are now facing deficits However Rarick and other Republican working group members may have been partly mollified by no cuts to private schools an idea DFLers eventually came around to okaying A lot of kids are helped by that spending Youakim disclosed And they might end up in the general school system The post Minnesota Legislature defers on specifying schooling cuts while sparing private schools appeared first on MinnPost