MinnPost recently reported that state funding for K-12 education in Minnesota has dropped an inflation-adjusted 13 percent since 2003. The effects of the lack of funding for education in Minnesota this year are widespread, forcing schools across the state to cut hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the budget, eliminate positions and programs, as well as consider operating levy referendums.

Litchfield Public Schools is in statutory operating debt (SOD), and between this year and next year will cut 700,000 dollars from its budget. This includes cutting four teachers, not buying textbooks, reducing supplies and substitute staff, cutting a bus route and increasing activity fees. This means Litchfield students will have more students in each classroom, fewer class choices, out-of-date textbooks and it will be harder to get to school and will cost more to take part in school activities.

 

Here's the kicker: Litchfield considers itself lucky. Voters approved a levy increase in May. With the levy, an additional 8,000 in cuts won't have to be made in the 2010-11 school year, said district Superintendent Bill Wold. That should be enough to get the district out of SOD and to a balanced budget.

While Governor Pawlenty has said that he plans to avoid making school budget cuts in his attempt to balance the state’s budget, he said that he will resort to funding “shifts.” The amount of these shifts has yet to be determined, but will delay some state payments to schools by a year. Such funding shifts are often seen as an accounting maneuver to make things look better than they actually are, but this smokescreen could potentially have harmful effects on the schools involved.

"Clearly, it does cause cash flow problems for school districts," said Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. "The reality is it results in cuts for school districts."

 

As Senator Nelson from Nebraska took to the floor last Friday to announce the triumph of Joe Leiberman's new gang, more stood out than how awkward the phrase “milking the sacred cows” is, which you can find around 2:00 minutes in to the speech. What really stood out was how this list of “wasteful” projects that were cut actually seemed like projects that this bill was intended to produce, because, you know… they created jobs and stuff. These cuts of around $80 billion Nelson that talks about are the ones that Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman described as, “Not based on any coherent economic argument, but simply to demonstrate their centrist mojo.”

We Minnesotans usually tune out the noise from out east when the partisan antics become too much for our gentle Midwestern sensibilities, but we cannot do that this time around. This compromise hurts our state, and we need these jobs. The Senate bill would provide between 6,055 and 7,942 less jobs for Minnesota than the bill that passed the House. To put that in a little better prospective, that’s the population of the city of Crookston having jobs taken away for the sake of “compromise”. Is this the “trimming of the fat, frying of the bacon” that this so-called “gang of moderates” is proud of?

Like many of these Senators themselves have said, this bill is about creating jobs. They should step back and say those words again, maybe a couple of times so they can feel more comfortable with them. This bill isn’t about a ticket back to prominence for the ailing Republican Party. It isn’t about who Anderson Cooper thinks is winning the spin wars, even if he is the best dressed man on the news. This bill is about putting people back to work. And to that end, even amongst former campaign combatants there seems to be little doubt:

“The House bill will create more jobs and a stronger economy than the Senate bill,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, who was a campaign adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain. (From Bloomberg)

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Paul Krugman's article "On the Edge" from yesterday's New York Times is right on the money:

"A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts."

 The article is a great read, go check it out. 

From our friends at Jobs and Economic Recovery NOW! we have this call to action. Since we only have one Senator right now, perhaps call two times?

Call Senator Klobuchar! 866-544-7573 toll-free

The message to Senator Klobuchar: Please vote for the economic recovery bill and oppose delaying tactics. Our state needs the jobs that will be saved; our people need its protections against hunger, sickness and unemployment. We need to rebuild our schools and roads. Vote for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009!

The Senate has begun debate on the bill. Call now! This legislation includes major improvements to food stamps and unemployment insurance, helps jobless people afford health insurance, provides billions in aid to states to prevent cuts in Medicaid, education, and other services, provides tax credits to low-income people, creates renewable energy and health care jobs, helps low-income students and poor people with disabilities, and invests in public housing and low-income communities. Overall, it has a good balance of quick aid that will boost the economy within months and investments that will help the economy over the next two years. For information on the impacts in your state, check out this Center on Budget and Policy publication. 

Your calls are urgently needed. People opposed to President Obama's approach have organized calls against it. This plan recognizes what economists have told the nation: providing direct help such as food stamps and jobless benefits to low-income people jumpstarts the economy because they spend the money quickly; state aid prevents more harm to the economy and to people; investments such as school repair and energy efficiency projects create jobs. Senator Klobuchar needs to know you support this balanced approach.

Happy Groundhog Day! Six more weeks of winter seems a bit too long. And after six years of Governor Pawlenty's failed policies, I definitely feel like crawling back into my burrow.

Last week's budget announcement by Governor Pawlenty felt like the movie Groundhog Day -- he used the same tired rhetoric we've already heard from him. He cited the same ideology that plays well on national television, but doesn't do much to solve our problems here at home.

But unlike Bill Murray's character in the movie, Pawlenty refuses to change his ways to make things turn out better, so we're forced to see the same sad story play out again and again and agan.

We can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.   Sign the petition to tell Governor Pawlenty it's time for something new.

For six of the last eight years we've faced a budget deficit - even when our economy was in good shape -- leading some to call it the lost decade for the state of Minnesota.

Each time, Pawlenty addressed the problems with accounting shifts and gimmicks, spending health care fund reserves, and cutting services like school funding, health care for kids, and community funds.

We need the Governor to stop replaying the bad movie, and try something different this time. We need a new, fresh and balanced approach to our state budget. We need creative ideas - and to put everything on the table as an option for solving the problem.

Politics in Minnesota has an article on Pawlenty the budget magician in advance of his budget announcement this afternoon. Unfortunately the story notes the big difference between Harry Houdini and Tim Pawlenty:

"Unlike Houdini, Pawlenty is playing a role that can’t end painlessly. People will lose their health insurance, their childcare subsidies, their affordable nursing homes. Be it taxes, fees, or the withdrawing of  government support, the bang for your buck in state tax dollars is almost certain to diminish significantly."

The story is well done, and worth a full read. Check it out here.

Not to be outdone by it's crosstown paper rival, the Pioneer Press has a fantastic " questions and answers story from Rachel E. Stassen-Berger. Check it out here.

(H/T Grace Kelly at Minnesota Progressive Project) 

Anytime your state makes The Daily Show, it's worth a post.

Check it out here:

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=215300 

 Below is the full text of a letter sent by Associate Chief Judge and Canvassing Board Member Edward Cleary to the editors of the Wall Street Journal's opinion section. This letter comes after an editorial published Jan. 5th attacked the recount process, which has been incredible open, accurate, and fair. You can check out the WSJ story here. What follows is Judge Cleary's letter:

Dear Sirs:

As a subscriber of your newspaper for almost three decades, I don’t expect to always agree with your editorial viewpoint. Yet I am nevertheless very disappointed when I read an editorial long on partisan tone and short on accurate reporting.

As a member of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board, appointed pursuant to statute, I have attended all nine Board open meetings held the past seven weeks. I am knowledgeable about the proceedings as well as Minnesota’s election laws. Our members (two Supreme Court Justices, two District Court Judges, and Secretary of State Ritchie) came from all political backgrounds, openly expressed our opinions at the meetings, and can hardly be accurately described as “meek,” unless you mean “meek” by New York in-your-face standards. Your groundless attack on Secretary Ritchie reflects poorly on the author; Ritchie worked assiduously at avoiding partisanship in these proceedings.

As to the Board as a whole, all of our major votes were unanimous. We consistently followed the law in limiting our involvement to a non-adjudicative role, declining both candidate’s attempts to expand our mandate. Further, we painstakingly reviewed each challenged ballot, some more than once, to confirm that we were ruling in a consistent manner. One can only assume, based on the tone of the editorial, the numerous inaccuracies, and the over-the-top slam at Al Franken (”tainted and undeserving”?) that had Norm Coleman come out on top in this recount, the members of the Board would have been praised as “strong-willed, intelligent, and perceptive.” We won’t hold our breath waiting for that editorial to appear.

Edward J. Cleary

Assistant Chief Judge

Second Judicial District

Minnesota State Canvassing Board

Minnesota Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher wants your suggestions. Check out the website here and submit your ideas.

All ideas are welcome, so head on over and share your plans.