If Pawlenty were not governor he would not be able to veto. He does not veto by convincing anyone his position is correct or wise, he veto's because he believes he is more correct and more wise. Or that his values are more valued by MN.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/05/17/budget-folo/
The funny thing about pushing it off is that the budget shortfall for the next budget is 5 billion larger then this one if MPR is quoting properly.
Another MPR article quoted that the total salaries of state employees is 1 billion. So anyone who says they can balance the budget by cutting state employees or salaries is mistaken.
Does MN want to pay or not, fun question.
Nobody will argue that raising taxes continuously is a sustainable.
So we haggle over the right percentage for the time. Many things determine the wisdom of a certain percentage in a certain government in a certain time unfortunately. Hence the many perspectives on government.
Employee salaries and benefits make up the majority of the state-operating budget.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.doer.state.mn.us/component/content/article/1144-cost-projection-faqs/1175-what-are-cost-projections
Yes. But a "state operating budget" is not a "state budget". If you want to examine the budget at the state site I think you want to go here. http://www.doer.state.mn.us/budget-summary
ReplyDeleteKyle I couldn't find a break out of salaries and benefits, they look to be buried in each department. But I did find this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mmb.state.mn.us/doc/budget/report-cons/feb10.pdf
Page 9
MMB Non-Operating expense for 2010 is 4,112. Not sure if they include debt service as an operating expense or not, that looks like a big number too.
They also have other dedicated expenditures of $19,456. So I think it's safe to say that salaries and benefits are the biggest items in the state budget except for maybe interest payments on the debt.
Doesn't that make sense? The state government if primarily a service organization. It's not like they are manufacturing widgets, what else are they going to spend money on? You can only build so many roads and schools.
Yes. And the point of that part of the post was exactly that, state employees and salaries are a very small part of the budget. Changing or cutting them won't help you balance the budget much. You basically have to decide if you are willing to pay more taxes to keep providing the services you do and there is nothing else that can be done. MN keeps prolonging that decision and now Pawlenty will escape without having made it. Or, maybe he is willing to get rid of those services and he was making it all along.
ReplyDeleteHow do you get from state employee salaries and benefits are the majority of the state operating budget to the salaries and benefits are a small part of the state budget? I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the post it says they are a small part. "The funny thing about pushing it off is that the budget shortfall for the next budget is 5 billion larger then this one if MPR is quoting properly.
ReplyDeleteAnother MPR article quoted that the total salaries of state employees is 1 billion. So anyone who says they can balance the budget by cutting state employees or salaries is mistaken."
It's nice that the MPR article said that, but what about the actual budget website that says salaries and benefits are the majority of the operating budget. The non-operating budget doesn't seem that big other than interest, and you can't cut that.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the MPR article is a tab confused on the facts.
I don't see why you think that. Teachers salaries from the 47% of the budget spend on education for example aren't state employee's. There is a report on the site of the state agencies spending on professional and technical services, its about half a billion. https://www.mmb.state.mn.us/businessobjects/enterprise115/desktoplaunch/InfoView/logon/logon.do Or you could go to the FTE report which has employees by department. http://www.mmb.state.mn.us/doc/budget/report-fte/2009/fte-history.pdf Also, the article from MPR had the former governor's budget dude doing the speaking, if that matters to you.
ReplyDeleteWell, if that is your rationale, good day sir. If the state pays for a salary but you don't consider it salary because it's doesn't get paid to a "state employee", I don't know what to tell you. The state budget website does not appear to make that distinction.
ReplyDeleteIf they aren't spending it on salaries and benefits, what are they spending it on?
The biggest expenditure is for education. The majority of that must be for teachers salaries and benefits. You can say all you want those aren't state employees that doesn't change the fact they are still paying for salaries and benefits.
They are trying to balance a budget. They can't negotiate contracts with each school in the state in an effort to reduce costs, all they can do is cut the amount they pay to schools and force them to save money somewhere. You are missing the point that many people feel state workers are over payed or inefficient. That may be true, but changing their amount or rate will not help the state balance the budget. And that is the only point listed above.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I don't think the state reports it that way. I just gave you a link for how they report their FTE's. FTE = Employee. Whose salaries totaled half a billion in the 31 billion dollar budget in '09.
ReplyDeleteNo they can't cut state salaries to balance the budget. They could cut support to local school districts for the teachers salaries and budgets.
ReplyDelete