Leitz detailed efforts aimed at addressing website glitches, with a team of experts from IBM working on-site over the last two weeks.

Dayton was forced to try to explain why Todd-Malmlov took time off in November.

Jason Alvey says he’s tired of mincing his words when it comes to the powerful lobbying forces that have protected a decades-old ban on Sunday alcohol sales in Minnesota.

In an apparent reversal from the negotiated deal on the Legacy bill earlier this week, Gov. Mark Dayton has line-item vetoed two projects that the Legislature appropriated from the Outdoor Heritage Fund. The projects were controversial because neither was recommended by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council.

It was four minutes to midnight on the final day of session when the Minnesota Senate passed the omnibus tax bill that wrapped up the Legislature’s work on the state’s $38 billion budget for the 2014-15 biennium. The down-to-the-wire finish followed a contentious final two weeks of negotiations between House, Senate and the governor’s office over the terms of final budget and policy deals.

Differences that had festered all session long on the Legacy dedicated funding bill for environmental and cultural projects were settled early in the morning on the last day of session. The House and Senate passed the compromise, which now awaits approval by Gov. Mark Dayton.

The Senate Finance Committee has passed its Legacy bill to the floor. Sportsmen and conservation groups favor the Senate's bill because it is limited to the recommendations of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council. The House adds projects that weren't vetted by the council.

The proposal, offered by DFL Rep. Tina Liebling as an amendment to a broader liquor bill on Wednesday, would have also allowed liquor sales on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve. But the House defeated the amendment down on 106-21 vote, one of the widest margins of defeat for the perennial issue in years.

The Minnesota House is getting pushback as it seeks to reset the calendar for appropriating Legacy dollars for hunting and fishing habitat.

Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter went before the House Ways and Means Committee on Monday to give an overview of the February forecast, which had cut the projected budget deficit from $1.1 billion down to $627 million over the next two years.