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School funding will trigger numerous battles
Thanks to the recent November economic forecast, which revealed that a $1.3 billion budget surplus is headed to Minnesota’s schools to pay down the state’s $2 billion-plus K-12 aid shift, lawmakers could simply tout the good news and pass a budget for the next two years that leaves the state’s school funding structure in the same shape it’s been in for more than a decade.
DFL majorities pick their leaders
Close on the heels of Tuesday’s election, members of the new DFL House and Senate majorities gathered behind closed doors on Thursday to elect their leaders. As expected, the minority leaders who helped steer Democrats back into control — Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, and Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook — were elevated to House speaker and Senate majority leader.
How the stadium deal was done
Left for dead in April, the Vikings stadium bill sprinted to passage in the session’s closing days. What happened?
So long, adios, auf wiedersehen
After adjourning in the wee hours of Thursday morning, the Minnesota House of Representatives plunged ahead with the bittersweet biennial ritual of retirement speeches from departing members.
Redistricting pitted a disproportionate number of female legislators against their male counterparts
It was one of those votes no one wanted to take. The state’s new maps dropped DFL senators and allies John Marty and Mary Jo McGuire into Senate District 66, forcing activists in the area to pick between them at a recent endorsing convention.
Marty/McGuire contest, 14-person scrum in District 59 among races to be settled
Minneapolis DFLers lost another legislator last weekend. Freshman Rep. Marion Greene, who replaced former DFL House Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher in the chamber, fell in an endorsement contest against DFL House colleague Frank Hornstein.
Legislative map: All shook up
The most anticipated political event of the year at the Capitol — the unveiling of court-drawn state legislative and congressional districts that will be used for the next decade — arrived at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
DFLer Greiling to retire after 2012 session
Greiling's announcement is the latest in a string of DFL retirements that have seen some of the party's most seasoned lawmakers leave the Capitol, including Sens. Larry Pogemiller and Linda Berglin.
School districts turn to voters for financial help
Keith Lester’s first day as superintendent of Brooklyn Center Schools was Sept. 12, 2005. The next day, voters shot down a proposed property tax levy increase to help fund the schools. If Lester thought at the time that it was a temporary setback, he was wrong.
Dynamics change for K-12 lobbying ‘cartel’
DFL Rep. Mindy Greiling has spent years wrangling with the likes of education lobbyists as groups tried to sway the former House K-12 finance chairwoman to change longstanding policies or win a bigger piece of the multibillion-dollar budget pie. But no other group was more persistent, or powerful, than the so-called “education cartel.”
School levies spike
In the past three years, the Waseca school district has cut its budget by 20 percent — more than $5 million all told. District busing is just meeting state mandates. Elective classes have been cut at the junior high and severely reduced at the high school. Many teachers have left for wealthier districts.
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