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What’s New at the MN Senate Budget Discussion?

Monday, February 16, 2009

We are adding new content to the website every week.  In response to discussion participants’ suggestions and questions about what it would mean to solve the budget deficit through budget cuts alone, we added a new post to the main page with information broken out by every budget area.  The post is called, “What If We Solved The Budget Deficit Through Cuts Alone?”  If there are other budget topics you would like to know more about, please leave suggestions for us in the “Technical Feedback” section of this website.  Your feedback helps us improve.

 

Beginning on Thursday, the House and Senate Finance Committees are leaving the Capitol and bringing budget hearings to communities across the state.  A few details have changed since the hearing schedule was first posted last week on the Community Hearings tab of the website, so please check the schedule for updates if you are interested in attending the hearings.  These hearings are an opportunity for you to speak directly to legislators about your budget priorities.  We encourage you to pre-register to testify due to an expected high turnout at these hearings.  The committee will allow people who have pre-registered to testify first, and then, time permitting, they will open up the microphone to anyone else in the audience who would like to testify.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Minnesota Senate and House are holding budget hearings statewide to gather broad community input on the budget.  A new page has been added to this website called “Community Hearings.”  In that website tab, you can find a schedule of these out-state budget hearings, as well as information on how to sign up to testify at these hearings.

Senate Committees continue to hold budget hearings at the State Capitol to review the Governor’s budget recommendations.  Check the Senate schedule for upcoming budget hearings of interest to you.  

This website continues to generate a broad discussion of options for this year’s budget.  Over 450 ideas have been submitted from over 140 communities in Minnesota.  (On an interesting side note, there are 855 cities in MN, so roughly 17% of communities in MN are represented in this budget discussion forum!)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Governor released his budget plan today.  It has been posted online at the Department of MN Management and Budget website.  As further details are released, Senate committees will begin holding hearings to review the Governor’s budget recommendations.

In response to the overwhelming interest in the Health and Human Services budget by users of this website, we created an overview of public health care programs in MN.  You can find this information in the tab above titled “Health Care Overview.”

Tomorrow the Senate State Government Budget Division will hear a presentation from the Department of Revenue on the Governor’s budget recommendations and the Department’s efforts to strengthen tax compliance in MN.  The hearing begins at 12:30 in Room 112 of the State Capitol.

Friday, January 23, 2009 

The Governor will release his budget recommendations on Tuesday, January 27, 2009.  Senate Committees will be going through these recommendations in depth starting next week.  Watch the Senate Calendar for hearings on the budget areas that interest you.

The map above will be continually updated as new ideas are submitted to the discussion.  Each blue dot represents a city where a website participant lives.  As of today, there are 61 cities, 138 comments, and almost 100 participants.  Thank you for being a part of the budget discussion and decision-making process!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

People from all over the state are contributing their ideas to the MN Senate Budget Discussion! 

This website went live on Thursday, January 15, 2009.  In the first week of this online discussion, people from the above 54 communities added their ideas to the mix.  Over 115 suggestions for every aspect of the state budget have been posted to the discussion page since last Thursday.

The Senate Taxes Committee heard a presentation from the Budget Trends Study Commission on Wednesday, January 21.  The committee discussed several important trends and indicators that signal the future health of Minnesota’s economy.  You can watch the video archive here.