Second Week Highlights.  It's the time in the non-budget year of the biennium when things are moving both slowly and quickly at the same time.  There hasn't been a lot of talk about funding across the entire budget, which is to be expected in the non-budget year.  The February forecast comes out in the next week or so and all expectations are that the budget numbers will remain favorable, especially for the remainder of this biennium.  The dicey part is projecting budget numbers into the next biennium, where up to this point, the cost of inflation absorbs almost all of the projected surplus.  Both sides are proposing items--tax cuts in the Senate, increases in spending (especially in the area of early childhood) in the House--and it remains to be seen how those differences can be reconciled.  It further remains to be seen what the Governor will propose as part of his supplemental budget, which is rumored to be very modest.

The Senate E-12 Finance and Policy Committee heard from retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neil Kashkari provided a brief presentation on the proposed constitutional amendment they have been promoting last Monday.  There wasn't a lot of discussion of the proposal and while it is early in the session, the groundwork for serious legislative discussion has yet to be laid.  There's plenty of time left in the session, but a bill with the amendment's proposed language has yet to be introduced and the first policy committee deadline falls on March 13, leaving only three weeks for it to remain alive (at least formally) during the 2020 legislative session.  Not meeting the committee deadline wouldn't necessarily kill the proposal, but given that there does not seem to be universal acceptance of the approach and the possibility of amendment and negotiation between the House and Senate if the proposal were to pass each house of the Legislature in a different form makes the amendment's prospects a bit dicey at the current time.  Again, just because it sits where it does right now doesn't preclude it getting moved--and moved successfully--during the 2020 session.  It just makes passage more unlikely with each passing day.

The Senate also received a comprehensive presentation on Minnesota's education funding framework and how it stacks up when compared to the rate of inflation and the levels of funding in other states.  On Wednesday, the committee heard from a variety of "turnaround" schools that have shown dramatic improvements in academic performance.

The House Education Finance Division has spent its hearing receiving testimony from organizations that received grants last session.  The testimony has been quite interesting and has shown that good things can happen when creative approaches to education are funded.

The House Education Policy Committee has been taking testimony on individual bills that may either find their way into an omnibus education bill or travel on their own to the House floor.  Compelling testimony was heard on Wednesday in support of Representative Mary Kunesh-Podein's HF 3201, which would expand the Teachers of Color Act by providing additional funding to put more people of color in front of Minnesota students.  On Tuesday, the committee spent considerable time on Representative Heather Edelson's bills relating to the prevention of vaping.  Representative Edelson's HF 3164 would expend $250,000 for grants to individual school districts to discourage vaping.  Her HF 3166 would require school districts to provide instruction to make students aware of vaping and to prevent its use.

Attention on Equalization.  It's been a good week for the topic of equalization. Whether anything comes of the welcome attention remains to be seen, the issue did come up in two separate venues last week.  On Thursday night at the Minnesota Department of Education's session of the Education Finance Working Group, South St. Paul superintendent Dave Webb and Finance Director Aaron Bushberger gave a stellar presentation on the issue, providing a great example of the disadvantage property taxpayers in low property wealth districts face when attempting to augment state funding for operations or for building projects.  Kudos to both of them on a job well done.

The next day, the Senate Republican caucus announced that referendum equalization will be part of their $1.3 billion tax relief proposal they hope to pass during the 2020 legislative session.  The linked article from the StarTribune (Minnesota Senate GOP: Turn surplus into tax cuts) doesn't mention equalization, but in conversations with Senate staff, the equalization effort would spend approximately $20 million per year and would give districts the option of using either resident pupil units or pupil units served when calculating their levy ratio.  Here is the press release outlining the proposal:  Get your billion back, Minnesota!

The pace will be picking up in the next two weeks as the first committee deadline is March 6.  That likely means some night meetings to get as much legislation through their policy committees by this deadline.  As I said above in my discussion of the proposed constitutional amendment, missing the deadline isn't fatal, but it usually puts the subject in the legislative equivalent of the intensive care unit.  I hope to provide more insight as things take shape.