It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the different proposals for balancing the state budget. The Senate just started laying out their own proposal, which is similar to the Governor's but includes some key differences, according to Minnesota Budget Bites.
I immediately noticed the difference in funding reductions for the Minnesota State grant program. As a Macalester student and a MN State Grant recipient, it caught my eye that Gov. Pawlenty has proposed a $2.3 million permanent cut to the program. The Senate does not cut base funding for the State Grant program.
I probably wouldn't have noticed this at all except that Macalester's Day at the Capital to advocate for the program was last week. The MN State Grant program helps over 84,000 Minnesota students like myself pay for college.
That's more than one-third of college students who are residents of Minnesota.
The program benefits students attending all institutions, as you can see by the picture above.
Almost every college student I know cringes when they think of the loans they need to take out in order to pay for their education. This program is so important because it helps students like me minimize their borrowing and future debt, while keeping higher education accessible.
We must avoid Gov. Pawlenty's proposal to make permanent cuts to this program. We need to make sure the state budget isn't balanced on the backs of low- and middle-income college students who are trying to pay for their education without becoming financially paralyzed.
Marty Seifert was one of the 38 House Republicans to vote for the GAMC bill last week, but he has since vowed to uphold the Governor’s veto. Rep. Seifert is clearly showing that partisanship is more important than proving the 8,000 veterans who rely on GAMC with the care they need.
The Star Tribune reported that David Skulborstad, a military veteran who lost his job in 2004, relies on GAMC for more than his prescription drugs or doctors appointments.
"Having GAMC means I'm alive," he said. "I protected this country. In my moment of need, Gov. Pawlenty chose not to protect me."
Voting to upholding Gov. Pawlenty’s veto means that Rep. Seifert also chose not to protect veterans like Skulborstad. That’s why Alliance for a Better Minnesota will be running online ads to pressure him to stand by his original vote. We’re running 30,000 impressions on the Marshall Independent website alone, as well as on all the top websites visited in Rep. Seifert’s district throughout the weekend.
Clicking on these ads will allow Minnesotans to demand that Rep. Seifert honor his commitment to caring for the most vulnerable and veterans instead of putting partisanship ahead of Minnesota’s priorities.
We only need three Republicans to stand by their vote for the GAMC bill in order to override Gov. Pawlenty’s veto, so make sure you send Rep. Seifert a letter demanding he put veterans and the state’s most vulnerable ahead of partisan politics. Below are some of the ads you’ll be seeing if you live in Rep. Seifert’s district.
When we set off on the Make Minnesota Thrive Drive over the summer, we learned about the things that makes our state above average. But we also learned how cities across Minnesota were coping with budget cuts and unallotments and reductions in lifeguard staff, firefighters, and police officers were among the solutions.
As winter sets in and the holidays begin, cities across Minnesota are relieved that they won't see their local government aid reduced in December; however, the city of Minneapolis will still make staff reductions. MPR reported today that the city is dealing with a multi-million dollar reduction to its police budget, which means it will lay off 25 police officers.
The majority of the soon-to-be unemployed officers are a group of 19 recruits who are graduating from the academy this week...The new officers will work for five days before the layoffs take effect.
Budget cuts and unallotment have meant that the department has to lessen the staff in order to cope with the multi-million dollar reduction in its budget. The department is hoping to receive a federal grant so that it can rehire at least some of the officers that were let go.
As the world’s leaders meet to discuss ways to reduce emissions and combat global warming, schools in Minnesota are looking to do the same. Over 100 schools in Minnesota have formed Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon earlier this year to cut their energy use. One of the participating schools is the University of Minnesota-Duluth, according to the Duluth News Tribune.
Last month, University of Minnesota Duluth students replaced strings of decorative lights in the school’s Ordean Court, an effort that required them to screw in 50,000 new LED light bulbs that use about 90 percent less energy than traditional bulbs.
I can only imagine the time and effort UMD students put into that project, which shows how dedicated they are to being leaders in changing behaviors to reduce global warming. Each of the schools participating in Schools Cutting Carbon, including UMD, received a small grant in order to help them calculate and reduce their carbon footprints.
College students aren’t the only ones participating—Aitkin High School students are looking for ways to effectively carpool while elementary students in Proctor who call themselves the Green Bandits hope to run several computers off of one drive and cut energy use by 80 percent.
This initiative encourages students to become actively engaged in combating global warming. They are already committed to changing their lifestyles in ways that cut energy use and carbon emissions, something that needs to happen globally as well as among students in Minnesota.
There are only about 75 elementary school counselors in the entire state of Minnesota. Although the recommended student-to-counselor ratio is 250 to 1 (and the national average is 450 to 1), the ratio of Minnesota elementary students to counselors is appallingly high. According to MN 2020, that ratio is 5,647 to 1.
School counselors help elementary school kids deal with very serious problems such as depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, but MN 2020 reports that a lot of the work is preventative as well.
The help elementary school student receive isn't limited to the students with the most dramatic needs. [Elementary school counselor Lisa] Karch said she has seen a drastic increase in the number of students entering kindergarten and first grade without the social skills and manners to handle group settings.
According to Karch, many of the students at her school don’t know how to be respectful—to say please and thank you, for instance.
"Learning these things is not automatic and if they don't learn them at home, then it comes down to the teacher and the school counselor to teach these things to students. Then you see students with more severe cases like sadness that leads to depression that leads to self-injury and talk of suicide and that no one cares about them. We teach them that it's OK to be sad and how to deal with those feelings."
Until recently, there was a perception that counseling isn’t needed until high school, but these kinds of issues obviously build upon each other, sometimes leading to more severe behavior. Kids who have trouble socializing slip through the cracks when a state only has 75 elementary counselors. This means that by the time they have access to counseling (most likely in high school), their problems will most likely have multiplied.
School counselors are essential to the mental health and well being of students in Minnesota. This problem must be corrected to ensure that kids in Minnesota receive the best access to counseling, and thus the best mental health care, possible.
A new study by the Commonwealth Fund and the Center for American Progress Action Fund estimates that health care reform legislation will lead to greater savings than the Congressional Budget Office had predicted. While the CBO does not score savings from prevention, modernization, and payment reform, this study uses a more inclusive analysis, according to the Wonk Room.
Economists David Cutler, Karen Davis and Kristof Stremikis go beyond the CBO/CMS methodology by relying on business literature about the inefficiency in the health care sector, experiences of health practitioners, and the real world experiences of Geisinger Health System, Health Partners, Denver Health and others.
So how different is this new study from the CBO estimates?
The report finds that the Senate bill would reduce the deficit by up to $459 billion over ten years (approximately $300 billion more than CBO estimates) and produce Medicare savings of $576 billion (nearly $200 billion more than CBO estimates for the Senate bill).
That would be a huge reduction to the deficit, much greater than the CBO calculated. This study highlights how the status quo is absolutely not an option. The Star Tribune reports that the national per-person spending on health insurance premiums will jump 94 percent by 2020 without reform. Premium costs in Minnesota are already among the highest in the nation, and we simply cannot afford for them to increase.
It is past time that we had quality, affordable health care for all Americans. You can find out if your Senators and Representative voted to support universal health care or sided with insurance companies.
What does Minnesota’s anticipated $1.2 billion deficit and no hope for a special session mean for Minnesotans as the first real snow begins to fall? In the summer it meant fewer lifeguards on duty and cuts to parks and public works budgets. This winter you might notice that the streets are snowier on your way to and from work. Mayors across the state are holding their breath, waiting to see if Tim Pawlenty will cut even more local government aid this month. Politics in Minnesota reports that Mayors Chris Coleman and Wayne Wolden asked the Governor to call a special session to avoid such cuts:
“Minnesota cities are so close to the financial edge that any reduction in the December [local government aid] funding will spell disaster in the form of closed libraries, deeper cuts to police and fire protection and a sharp reduction in critical services, like winter snowplowing,” today’s joint statement from Coleman and Wadena Mayor Wayne Wolden, a spokesman for the coalition, said.
The Governor's office said no, and Minnesota's cities are getting worried. If Pawlenty plans to unallot more LGA this month, Rochester will have no choice but to take the money out of its reserve funds, according to the Post-Bulletin. The St. Cloud Times reports that Sartell would have to postpone road repairs and maintenance to cope with the loss of funds.
How will LGA reductions will impact snow removal this winter? According to Kare 11, Mankato is dealing with a ten percent cut in the snow removal budget because of state aid cuts. Anyone who has driven through Minnesota in the winter knows how dangerous the roads can get when it’s snowing heavily. This winter, we might have to be extra cautious and hope that there isn’t a drastic increase in accidents with more snow on the roads.
With the Senate currently debating the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, over a hundred CEOs made a powerful statement by urging Congress to pass comprehensive climate change legislation. I think co-founder of Seventh Generation, Jeffrey Hollender, said best why this is a common-sense issue. From Center for American Progress:
The fact that we should be responsible for the effect we have on other people, anyone who tells you that’s anti-capitalist is crazy.
In a remarkable break from the U.S. Chamber of Congress, American CEOs called for investment in American jobs instead of global warming pollution and supported the creation of an economy-wide cap and trade program, according to the Wonk Room. The Chamber’s oppositional stance against clean energy and global warming has led companies such as Exelon, the nation’s largest utility, from rebelling against it. The fact that many American companies are breaking with the Chamber, which has been one of the biggest opponents of fighting global warming, is huge. It just underscores how pressing it is to pass strong legislation this year.
Among the companies that have broken with the Chamber are Pacific Gas & Energy, Exelon, Apple, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, and GE. These companies, and more like them, have shown over the past two weeks how committed they are to clean energy and a greener economy by breaking with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which, according to a recent MoveOn e-mail, just launched a $100 million campaign described as a “declaration of war on the White House.”
As MoveOn points out in its e-mail, the Chamber could not run this campaign without considerable funds from its members. While many companies such as Apple and Exelon have come out as outspoken advocates for strong climate legislation, some companies, like UPS and CVS, stand with the Chamber in opposition. These companies are still dues-paying members because they have not, as Apple and others did, quit the Chamber. Can you call UPS and CVS and urge them to quit the Chamber of Congress? From MoveOn e-mail:
If you're a customer of UPS/CVS, be sure to mention it when you call. Here's the info:
Today is Blog Action Day, and the issue this year is climate change. As I was thinking about what to write, I stumbled upon a really cool, innovative competition happening right now in Washington D.C. called the Solar Decathlon.
What is it, you ask? It’s a competition hosted by the Department of Energy for college and university students to create their own solar-powered house. In addition to raising awareness about the benefits of energy-efficiency and green technologies, the competition also aims to promote a new approach to green housing. This approach includes aesthetics and comfort as well as energy-efficiency into the house designs. The Solar Decathlon caught my attention because students from the University of Minnesota have built a house for the competition—they are currently in 5th place with the winner being announced tomorrow.
What’s so cool about the Solar Decathlon is that it makes student innovators focus not just on green components of the house, but on the house as a green system. Being a college student myself, some of the neat, crazy things these fellow students have come up with boggles my mind! MinnPost reports that the lighting and temperature of many houses can be change remotely with an iPhone app, or that houses can adjust interior conditions using weather data to tint electrochemical windows.
The idea behind the house-as-a-system approach is simple—they save energy, but by focusing on aesthetics as well as energy efficiency the houses seem more livable.
"A lot of people have been saying that they could see themselves eating breakfast in this corner, that the house feels livable," said Melissa Sander of Iowa State University as she guided visitors through the house. Their house placed 3rd in market viability.
What these students are doing has led to some pretty incredible innovations in the solar energy industry, such as creating a heat-absorbing lining made of insulating pizza boxes material. Their contributions are going to improve our green economy and increase green jobs across the country.
With all the new and exciting innovations happening within the green industry, we must also be aware of the real world negative impacts of global warming. The Center for American Progress has compiled a list of the top 100 effects of global warming which range from having to say goodbye to many wines to more stray kittens. It also confirms something Stephen Colbert has been saying for a long time: that bears are the #1 threat to America. Global warming has apparently made the winters in Russia too hot for bears to hibernate. As a result, they have become unusually aggressive, so the emergency ministry has warned the citizens to beware of brown bear attacks. Colbert, your mistrust of bears has finally been justified!
State officials around the U.S. had an ambitious deadline to meet on Saturday—the first comprehensive report on how stimulus money is affecting the nation. Early estimates are showing that federal stimulus money has created or preserved 11,800 jobs in Minnesota. When you add in jobs that were indirectly created by stimulus funds, over 20,000 total jobs were created or saved.
For Minnesota, the stimulus money could not have come at a better time. Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson said that the biggest impact for Minnesota has come from money that offset state budget cuts from the summer, according to MPR. The cuts and unallotment have meant that cities in Minnesota must examine their budgets with a fine-tooth comb, often at the expense of teachers and public safety officials. Of the 11,800 created or saved, the report estimates that 5,900 were education jobs and 1,200 public safety jobs. These are nurses, counselors, teachers, firefighters, and policemen who, without the stimulus funds, would have found themselves needing to apply for unemployment benefits thanks to reckless budget cuts.
Minnesota has seen other impacts of stimulus spending that were not included on the report, such as awards made to cities and counties, tax incentives to individuals, federal medical assistance, and unemployment benefits. Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Department of Transportation has completed 24 construction projects and has over 100 more underway. When you take these kinds of things into account, the impact of federal stimulus on the state of Minnesota is much higher than the report suggests. Star Tribune has also reported that indirect job growth has increased due to the federal stimulus dollars:
Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson said statistics showed that the stimulus money "puts people to work," and was having a "snowball effect" by indirectly sparking more job growth. As an example, he said, a highway construction job in Minnesota made possible with federal stimulus money might cause a company to buy a bulldozer from Tennessee that also meant jobs for workers at an out-of-state factory.
The stimulus bill is intended specifically for the purpose having a “snowball effect.” Although this data is preliminary, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Economic Development at the MN Chamber of Commerce Bill Blazar told MPR that most of the business people he represents feel that Minnesota’s economy would be in much worse shape without the stimulus funds. This preliminary report on the impact of federal stimulus funds in Minnesota highlights how crucial that money was in retaining some of the most important jobs in our state: educators and public safety officials. The federal funds also supplemented unemployment benefits for those unfortunate enough to lose their jobs, whether it was due to the economic downturn or irresponsible budget cuts in Minnesota, or both.
The House and Senate climate bills have many similarities, but there are also some key differences. The Senate bill aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly than the House bill, which passed in June. While the House bill requires a 17% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, the Senate goes further and is pushing for a more ambitious 20% decrease. It also plans for an 80 percent reduction by 2050. Environmentalists are praising the Senate bill because it sets a stricter emissions cap than the House bill, according to the New York Times.
“We are pleased that the Senate bill sets a strong short-term target for carbon pollution reductions and retains E.P.A.’s authority to regulate global warming emissions,” Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement.
It is important that the climate change legislation pass quickly, something MIT researchers, including study co-author Ronald Prinn, are well aware of. They have found that outcomes involving no global warming policies are looking much worse than before. They came up with a really cool and interactive way to illustrate the various outcomes of the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, which is a computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes—through roulette wheels.
To illustrate the range of probabilities revealed by the 400 simulations, Prinn and the team produced a "roulette wheel" that reflects the latest relative odds of various levels of temperature rise. The wheel provides a very graphic representation of just how serious the potential climate impacts are.
"There's no way the world can or should take these risks," Prinn says. And the odds indicated by this modeling may actually understate the problem, because the model does not fully incorporate other positive feedbacks that can occur, for example, if increased temperatures caused a large-scale melting of permafrost in arctic regions and subsequent release of large quantities of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. Including that feedback "is just going to make it worse," Prinn says.
They came up with two routlette wheels--one that shows the range of probabilities of potential global climate change if no legislation is enacted. The other wheel assumes that aggressive climate change legislation is carried out. If you go to the MIT News website the differences between the two roulette wheels highlight how much of a difference we can make if we effectively and quickly begin to enact climate change legislation.
Sadly, today is the last day of my time at Alliance for a Better Minnesota. And by that I mean that I'm going to take a couple of weeks off to move into my first off-campus house and get started on fall classes.
I had a rather lengthy, very heartful -- yet still witty -- farewell written up, but scrapped that in favor of this:
There are only 5 developed nations that have worse life expectancy than the United States, and those nations all spend 8 percent or less of their GDP on health care. This comes from Jeff Rosenberg’s analysis of the OECD’s data on health care spending (see the graph on the left-the United States is the red dot). Nations that spend more on health care should see better results than those that spend less. We spend way more on health care then any other developed nation, but we see worse results.
How are we spending so much on health care without the expected results? Many Americans simply don’t have access to the care that they need, which is definitely the case for some people in Minnesota. This forces these people to try and tough it out until they are too sick and need to go to the emergency room.
Sometimes I think we get lost in the numbers, so here is a story about what our current health care system is failing to do in Minnesota. MinnPost reported on Monday that uninsured children will now have access to dental services thanks to a 40-foot mobile dental vehicle. They will now be able to access the kind of care that will hopefully prevent them from needing major, expensive dental work in the future.
The 40-foot vehicle has two dental stations for hygiene and restorative work, and a reception station. It will provide exams, cleanings, fluoride treatments, sealants, X-rays, fillings and extractions, along with dental education.
It will travel to schools, churches, public health and community centers in the 13-county metro area, to serve children who would otherwise receive limited or no dental care.
These kids can only see a dentist when the vehicle stops in their area. This is simply unacceptable, and is one more sign our health care system isn’t working. We spend tons of money on health care, and these Minnesotans kids can’t even go to the dentist.
Many more Minnesotans are applying for the state’s insurance plan, MinnesotaCare, in the hopes of having some coverage. The number of applicants for MinnesotaCare has increased by 25 percent so far this year, according to the Star Tribune. Because of the weak economy, employers have been forced to drop coverage or shift costs onto their employees. Because so many people have applied, the department has even hired more workers.
Our health care system is broken. We should not be spending nearly 16 percent of our GDP for a health system that doesn’t provide high quality results and care. Children should not have to wait for a mobile dentist’s office to come to their county to get their teeth cleaned. What we need is a health care system that guarantees quality, affordable health care system for all Americans. Sign this Health Care for America Now petition to voice your support for health care reform.
If there’s one thing we learned on the Make Minnesota Thrive Drive last week, it was that Minnesota’s communities are bearing the brunt of Governor Tim Pawlenty’s reckless budget cuts. Minnesota 2020 has concluded the same thing, documenting how local governments have cut their budgets more than the state government during the Pawlenty administration. Their most recent report analyzes the changes in state and local government revenues from 2002 to 2009 with some pretty interesting results.
Based on the analysis from last summer, real per capita state revenue was projected to fall by 6.8 percent from FY 2003 to FY 2009. However, this was before the collapse of the national economy and its deleterious impact on public revenue. Based on the most recent Price of Government report, real per capita state revenue is projected to fall by 10.6 percent from FY 2003 to FY 2010 excluding federal recovery dollars.
However, this statistic in isolation overstates the decline in revenue to fund state government services. State government dealt with its decline in revenue largely by cutting the dollars that it shares with local governments. If we subtract the revenue that state government shares with local governments, the remaining state government revenue actually increased 1.5 percent in real per capita dollars from FY 2003 to FY 2010 excluding federal recovery dollars.As the graph indicates, the loss of revenue has not been evenly distributed among the different levels of government. The implications of these losses of revenue directly impact communities all over Minnesota. Real per pupil school revenue is projected to fall almost three percent, while city and county revenue are expected to fall 12 and 7.1 percent, respectively.
What we’ve seen on the Thrive Drive is that while stimulus programs are very welcome and appreciated. The bad news is that the overwhelming budget cuts dramatically lessen the impact of those programs like Cash for Clunkers and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Check out how stimulus funds have benefited cities like White Bear and Bemidji on our Road Blog. You can also hear some real stories from Minnesotan citizens about how Governor Pawlenty’s irresponsible cuts have endangered the things they think make Minnesota so great.
Update from the Road:The city of Rochester is really impressive, particularly in the downtown area. From the civic center, to the library, the public investments in this city really make the downtown area striking. But what made all of this possible was an innovative and thriving medical community around which other sectors have organized. The world-leading facilities down here attract people from all over (we'll save health care access and other issues for another post) the world seeking help. These unallotments really begin to chip away at that status. They take a successful and thriving model and begin to build in more uncompensated care and erode the base of not only the hospital system, but the community at large, through which these sorts of investments in these impressive facilities is possible.
According to the Minnesota Hospital Association, the medical facilities I mention will all lose significant funding from Governor Pawlenty’s elimination of General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC).
St. Mary’s Hospital will lose $15,012,274
Rochester Methodist Hospital will lose $4,400,642
Olmsted Medical Center will lose $917,403
Mayo Psychiatry and Psychology will lose $1,355,711
All together, those hospitals will lose over $21 million courtesy of Governor Pawlenty’s cuts. People do not stop needing care because we are in a recession, and denying poor childless adults GAMC simply means those people will end up sicker and in the emergency room. Help us make sure Minnesota doesn’t just survive these tough economic times, but thrives, by sharing how you or your community are affected by reckless budget cuts.
The result of Governor Pawlenty’s budget cuts at Minnesota State University in Mankato? New professors are only being offered one-year contracts, administrators have “interim” before their title, and class sizes are increasing, according to the Mankato Free Press. The university has already cut $8 million from its budget, and Governor Pawlenty has imposed an addition $100 million cut for state colleges and universities for 2010.
Funding cuts at MSU have forced reductions in the number of clinicals offered at the School of Nursing, meaning fewer students are being accepted. In this economic climate, more students are heading to school, increasing class sizes at universities even as faculty and staff are reduced to lower budgets. The astounding impact of this can be seen at MSU:
Faculty reductions have forced class sizes up to the point that there aren’t lecture halls large enough to handle some sociology courses, forcing MSU to hold classes in the movie theater across the street from campus, said Don Larsson, head of the MSU faculty union.
Can you even imagine taking a class in a movie theater? It seems that the days of advertising small class sizes and student-to-professor ratios are over and speaks to the fact that budget cuts have forced universities like MSU to cut faculty to a bare minimum.
Governor Pawlenty also vetoed for the second time the state’s share of a proposed $13 million women’s hockey center at MSU. According to the Mankato Free Press, this facility would be where the women’s hockey team played their games, and would also serve as a facility for the men’s hockey team to practice. The construction of a new center for Minnesota’s favorite winter pastime would also have created jobs in a downtrodden economy.
Hockey and high quality education are two things that make the state of Minnesota so great—and they are both in jeopardy in Mankato. For more on how education is affecting statewide by budget cuts and more from the Thrive Drive, head over to our website.
One of the Willmar Wind Turbines as the Thrive Drive Went By
Willmar finished construction on two wind turbines in early June of this year. Each turbine generates two megawatts of power, which means that the two of them will replace around three percent of the city’s annual energy needs. Wesley Hompe, an engineer with Willmar Municipal Utilities, told MPR,
"Over the life of one of the turbines ... 236,000 tons of carbon will not be released compared to using some sort of fossil fuel," Hompe said.
Hompe also told MPR that the city of Willmar hopes to have more wind turbines in the future, which might prove more challenging then he thought. With one quick slash, Governor Pawlenty and his allies drastically reduced local government aid to make up for the state’s deficit earlier this year. That means Willmar probably won’t have another $10 million to spend on wind turbines in the next two years.
The combination of Pawlenty’s careless budget cuts and unallotment and the tough economic times Minnesota is going through have not encouraged the development of the wind industry. Instead, budget cuts have resulted in cities cutting everything in their budgets not vitally necessary and the recession has made it difficult for the wind industry to access capital.
With a state mandate that 25 percent of Minnesota’s energy, including fuel, comes from renewable resources by 2025, Governor Pawlenty’s cuts certainly won’t encourage cities to take the expensive steps needed to help fill the mandate. As Minnesota 2020 Fellow Nathan Paine has pointed out, Minnesota has the renewable energy resources to thrive, but Governor Pawlenty’s cuts have cities struggling just to survive. This is what the Thrive Drive has been all about, discovering the things that make Minnesota great, like our potential to thrive in the wind industry, but are being jeopardized by irresponsible budget cuts. Follow along with the Thrive Drive on our website.
UPDATE FROM THE ROAD: Stephanie wrote this peice just before we left, and we're now sitting in the Marshall Library. The trend for increased use is certainly true. Lots of folks in here for a Thursday afternoon. Also, we've seen a couple of signs around for the "Support the Library Campaign"... it seems smart investments are popular here.
Lyon County Commissioners don’t want to levy the amount the county will lose in local government aid, according to the Marshall Independent. A preliminary budget proposal included a 3.8 percent increase which would levy about $150,000; however, county commissioner Mark Goodenow doesn’t want it to come to that, however.
"We're not going to levy back the LGA cuts," Goodenow said this week. "We could, but that's a one-time thing. What would we do after that?"
That leaves the county, and the city of Marshall, in a tough position, having lost state aid thanks to Governor Pawlenty’s reckless budget cuts earlier this year. Marshall has a new $5 million library in the works, without a consensus of how to finance it in this economy.
In city and county straw polls, the majority of people still support building the new library. Indeed, this echoes a trend for increased library use in tough economic times. The problem for the city of Marshall is how to fund the project. On that, there appears to be no consensus. The Marshall Independent reports that some options the city and county have discussed include moving ahead with a smaller plan or bonding for the new library.
County board chairman Rodney Stensrud said he thought the library board might still be looking for the county to put extra funding into the construction project. A possible option commissioners discussed was giving the library additional funding or a loan. Some said they would be alright with a temporary boost in contributions to the library, for example, an additional $144,000 spread over 12 years.
While libraries might not seem like the most important facet of the community, historically library use goes up in times of recession. The Mankato Free Press thinks this might be because luxuries like renting movies are among the first things to be cut from the family budget. That seems to be the case in Marshall as well—the support and desire for the library is definitely there, but the city does not have the funds to make it possible. Thanks to Governor Pawlenty and his friends in the Legislature, levies are increasing, projects are being delayed or eliminated, and cities are struggling to survive. We want a Minnesota that thrives, not one that is struggling to survive. Get involved by sharing your story of how budget cuts are affecting your community and then follow along as we wrap up the Thrive Drive this week!
The Make Minnesota Thrive Drive made a stop in East Grand Forks today, where the City Council decided against hiring a new police officer and firefighter last week. Although the city plans to cut more than $400,000 from next year’s budget because of state aid reductions, City Council President Dick Grassel warns that more cuts could be on the way, according to the Grand Forks Herald.
“We are going to wait until we get into the budget process,” he said. “We don’t know if we have to cut some more. Some feel strongly we should hire a police officer and a fireman, but we have to really take a look at everything.”
Because of state aid cuts by Governor Pawlenty and his allies in the Legislature, many cities in Minnesota are facing similar reductions; however, putting off hiring police officers and firemen could mean fewer business hours and longer wait times for police or firemen to arrive because there are fewer employees. Careless budget cuts and unallotment have meant that some cities, like East Grand Forks, must consider cutting down public safety services to reduce their budgets.
After surviving the last unallotment and bracing for the next, cities truly are in survival mode—scrutinizing every aspect of their budget for the next two years to see what is not absolutely necessary. This isn’t the Minnesota we know and love, and stories like these should be motivation to make sure Minnesota is once again a state that thrives. That’s what the Thrive Drive is all about—learning what things make our state so great but are being jeopardized by reckless budget cuts by the Governor and his friends in the Legislature.
Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are so revered in Minnesota that the Minnesota Wild were almost named the Minnesota Blue Ox, according to Mental Floss. We made it a point to stop and see the gigantic statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe when we stopped in Bemidji. It is, after all, the birth place of Paul Bunyan himself.
Bet you didn’t know that the Mississippi River was created when the huge camp tank wagon Babe was hauling sprung a leak! And if you think winters in Minnesota are cold now, check out this tale from Visit Bemidji:
During the 'Year of Two Winters', it was so cold at the camp on Lake Bemidji, words froze in mid-air. When the words thawed out in the spring, there was a huge roar of conversation heard 600 miles away in Chicago.
Uff-da!
There's also a Paul Bunyan Amusement Park in Bemidji, as well as Paul Bunyan's Animal Land, which is Minnesota’s largest wildlife park/petting zoo.
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It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the different proposals for balancing the state budget. The Senate just started laying out their own proposal, which is similar to the Governor's but includes some key differences, according to 
As the world’s leaders meet to discuss ways to reduce emissions and combat global warming, schools in Minnesota are looking to do the same. Over 100 schools in Minnesota have formed Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon earlier this year to cut their energy use. One of the participating schools is the University of Minnesota-Duluth, according to the 
A new study by the Commonwealth Fund and the Center for American Progress Action Fund estimates that health care reform legislation will lead to greater savings than the Congressional Budget Office had predicted. While the CBO does not score savings from prevention, modernization, and payment reform, this study uses a more inclusive analysis, according to the 
What does Minnesota’s anticipated $1.2 billion deficit and no hope for a special session mean for Minnesotans as the first real snow begins to fall? In the summer it meant fewer lifeguards on duty and cuts to parks and public works budgets. This winter you might notice that the streets are snowier on your way to and from work. Mayors across the state are holding their breath, waiting to see if Tim Pawlenty will cut even more local government aid this month. 
With the Senate currently debating the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, 
The House and Senate climate bills have many similarities, but there are also some key differences. The Senate bill aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly than the House bill, which passed in June. While the House bill requires a 17% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, the Senate goes further and is pushing for a more ambitious 20% decrease. It also plans for an 80 percent reduction by 2050. Environmentalists are praising the Senate bill because it sets a stricter emissions cap than the House bill, according to the 
If there’s one thing we learned on the 
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