Minnesota Lawyer
Mark Dayton (Staff photo: Peter Bartz-Gallagher)
Starting later in October, Minnesota schools will start seeing some more of the money that state lawmakers in 2011 delayed to plug a multi-billion dollar budget deficit.
Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL House and Senate leaders held a state Capitol news conference this afternoon to report that $636 million worth of funding shifts will be repaid to schools owing to increased revenue and lower spending than previously forecast.
In 2010 and 2011, state lawmakers solved budget deficits in part by delaying $2.1 billion in aid payments to schools. Improvements in the economy have generated increased revenue collections and allowed them to whittle down their obligations to schools. And lower spending than forecast, particularly in health and human services, also helped free up money to go toward paying down the shifts.
Lawmakers earlier this year passed an omnibus K-12 bill that accelerated the schedule for paying back the schools. Normally, money left over from the fiscal 2013 budget year that ended June 30 wouldn’t be available until the November economic forecast is released. The acceleration, however, allows the available money to start going to schools in October.
Of the $636 million, $287 million will pay off the school aid payment shift in its entirety. The remaining $349 million will go toward buying down the property tax recognition shift. A total of $238 million in shift debt remains to be paid.
