Archive for the ‘Gov. Tim Pawlenty’ tag
Gov. Pawlenty suggests he may use unallotment again
He did it before. Will he do it again?
A year ago this week, state finance officials broke the news to lawmakers about a projected $426 million budget deficit facing the state. The report set the table for a round of controversial budget cuts by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who used a once-obscure administrative power called unallotment to take back millions of dollars previously promised to state programs and local governments.
Today, the state’s budget office released this year’s edition of its fall budget forecast, and it showed another looming deficit, $1.2 billion for the current budget cycle. Early this afternoon, Pawlenty confirmed the worst fears of cities and counties, saying that he would prefer to work with the Legislature but that he may need to address the deficit problem this month by unalloting local government aid again.
“The worry is that it will be very large again,” said Steve Peterson, senior policy analyst for the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities. Read the rest of this entry »
