The Documents Everyone (and I Mean Everyone!) Wants to See.  A lot of documents related to the House and Senate omnibus education finance and policy bills have been hitting the web and I thought that I would post them as well.  I will be developing a side-by-side comparison of the major components in each bill during the legislative break that begins next Tuesday, but the data runs that show the amount of general education and special

More (and More) Numbers.   The Senate released their version of the omnibus education finance and policy bill today and while it spends the same amount of money, it does it in just about half of the pages as the 314-page version being considered by the House.  There are a number of significant differences in the bills and the biggest difference starts right at the top.  The House adhered to the Governor’s recommendation on the general

It’s the House Omnibus Education Finance and Policy Bill! The House Education Finance Committee posted its omnibus education finance and policy bill online this afternoon and it’s a whopper!  The 314-page document incorporates the education policy provisions along with a set of proposed expenditures that adhere to the agreed-upon budget framework that was released last week. Here is a link to the bill: HF 2497 Delete-All Amendment I have yet to see a detailed budget sheet

This is (Not Quite) It.  The Legislature has been in session for just under three months and it’s been a whirlwind pace with a number of high profile bills passed and signed by the Governor.  These bills largely dealt with policy items that were discussed during the 2022 election campaigns but there have been some fiscal bills passed, most notably the free breakfast and lunch bill for Minnesota E-12 students.  Now attention will turn to

House Passes Free Breakfast and Lunch Bill.  The House gave final approval to HF 5 this afternoon and the bill will now go to the Governor for his signature.  This measure was included in the Governor’s budget, but rather than incorporating it into the omnibus bill that will be constructed and passed later this session, legislative leadership decided to pass the bill as a single piece of legislation.  The bill first passed the House on February

Equalization Gets Its Own Day! Four property tax-related bills were heard in the Senate Education Finance Committee this morning.  The meeting started with two bills authored by Senator Rob Kupec.  The first was SF 1330, a bill that would expand the use of Long Term Facilities Maintenance Revenue to include the remodeling of buildings acquired by a school district.  Moorhead school district purchased a Sam’s Club facility that had closed and Fergus Falls had purchased

Education Policy Bills Pass First Deadline.  Both the House and Senate Education omnibus policy bills–HF 1269 and SF 1311–cleared their respective committees last week and were referred to the Education Finance Committees in both instances.  It remains to be seen whether these bills will be folded into the omnibus education funding bills to have a single bill addressing almost all of education funding and policy this session or if the education policy bills will be passed

Look Down and a Week Has Passed!  I apologize for letting the blog lag for a whole week.  The legislative schedule has been hectic with committees working overtime to get as many policy bills heard before the first policy bill deadline of Friday, March 10.  Both the House and Senate Education Policy Committees have released the first draft of their omnibus bills (more on those later) and they will be out of their respective committees by