ST. PAUL, Minn. - On Thursday, the Minnesota Senate voted to cut $830 million of spending in the upcoming budget cycle, and an additional $125 million from the budget that ends June 30 - a package similar to the House version that passed last week. The bill makes permanent the reductions to local government aid, higher education and health care that were made at the end of the 2010 session. The Senate passed the bill along a 37-to-27 party-line vote, with the Republican majority winning.

Eliot Seide, president of AFSCME Council 5, criticized the action.

"The Republican majority just broke its campaign promise to cut taxes and create jobs. Their budget cuts thousands of jobs, raises property taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars, and hikes tuition on students. Their top priority is to hurt workers while protecting the rich."

Seide says he understands that addressing a $6.2 billion deficit is going to be a painful process that will require some cuts, but that raising revenue must be part of the solution.

"The choice is clear, we can tax workers out of their homes, or we can tax the rich. We can lock libraries and parks and lose police and fire protection, or we can tax the rich. We can make college unaffordable for working families, or we can tax the rich. We can cut child protection, or we can tax the rich. We can abandon the elderly and disabled, or we can tax the rich. Those are our choices."

Senate Finance Committee Chair Claire Robling (R-Jordan) authored the Senate bill. She points out that this early budget bill only addresses one-sixth of the deficit.

"We know we're going to have to cut at least that much, so I certainly don't believe that this bill needs to have any new revenue in it. We're going to try to balance this budget without a revenue increase, but especially this one doesn't need to address that at all, because we are a long, long way from addressing $6.2 billion dollars."

Robling adds that the programs and communities affected by the cuts have already dealt with the budget reductions and were fully aware that the cuts might happen again.

The House did not accept the language in the Senate version, so the bill now goes to conference committee. Gov. Mark Dayton has said he opposes what he considers a piecemeal approach to balancing the budget, but hasn't said whether the bill would be vetoed should it reach him. Dayton is expected to present his budget proposal on Feb. 15.


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Today, groups working with lower-income families in Connecticut are raising awareness about the state's "benefits cliff" with a day of action.

The benefits cliff is when a person might get a raise, have a kid with a part-time job, or some other income increase which then makes them ineligible for certain benefits. The changes can have severe impacts on communities and disproportionately affect families with children.

Stephen Monroe Tomczak, professor of social work at Southern Connecticut State University, said it is part of a larger workforce problem.

"People, particularly people of low income, are in a sense disincentivized to participate in the labor force and denied adequate jobs and income when they try to do that," Tomczak explained.

Several General Assembly budget bills could have dealt with the issue but most failed, which inspired today's action, a mock funeral procession to the governor's office to eulogize the bills, including the refundable Child Tax Credit, a housing voucher funding boost bill, and a bill eliminating the asset limit on the HUSKY C medical insurance program.

Social service advocates know the bills will resurface in next year's budget process.

Rose Ferraro, program lead of health justice policy advocacy for the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, said people are taking alternate steps like going to food banks or avoiding medical care to cover lost benefits.

"Folks will lose their rental assistance and then, they will sort of have to make some tough decisions," Ferraro noted. "'Do I put food on my table or do I make sure to pay rent?' And, so it becomes a sort of untenable position."

Ferraro added interwoven state and federal funding makes it hard to reach the core of the issues leading to benefits cliffs. One eulogized bill would have established a benefits cliff pilot program. For two years, it would have provided subsistence for people who've reached the benefits cliff.

New York towns are reaping many benefits since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed.

Along with funds for larger clean energy projects, the state was awarded $158 million for the IRA's Home Energy Rebates program.

Smaller towns and villages use these grants to implement their climate action plans.

Brighton Town Councilmember Robin Wilt said an IRA grant they applied for will help upgrade the town's HVAC system.

"We will be implementing geothermal and then use a solar array to make the system close to net zero, not quite," said Wilt. "I think we'll get 55% of our energy back with the solar panels."

The bureaucratic process to access the funding was challenging, but some groups are working with the Department of Energy to improve it.

Wilt said feedback on the clean energy projects has been positive. Future projects using IRA funding include increasing walkability and sustainable redevelopment.

Critics have said the IRA includes multiple provisions to increase fossil fuel production.

Towns nationwide are using IRA grants to bolster clean energy projects.

Joel Hicks is a council member for the Borough of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

They've just applied for a grant to work on energy efficiency and solar projects with Harrisburg. He said this will have positive impacts beyond establishing clean energy.

"We were really excited at this potential," said Hicks, "because we saw that the cost savings we would have for putting in substantial solar projects on our public property would actually fund many of our other public municipal goals."

These include purchasing an electric vehicle fleet and having more efficient solid waste programs.

One thing Hicks said he wants to see in future is state and local governments helping small towns and municipalities with putting together their IRA grant proposals.

A new report analyzes Pennsylvania's existing voucher programs, that divert public funds to private schools.

This comes on the heels of Gov. Josh Shapiro's plan to create a new voucher program for K-12 students.

Diana Polson - senior policy analyst with the Keystone Research Center - said last year's Commonwealth Court decision ruled that Pennsylvania's system of funding public education is unconstitutional, therefore the state doesn't have a dollar to waste on expanding existing private-school voucher programs or creating a new one.

"The basic-education funding commission estimated the state must pay $5.1 billion over the next seven years to make sure our public schools are funded equitably and adequately," said Polson. "Meanwhile, our report finds that existing private-school voucher programs are siphoning millions from taxpayers with little to show for it."

Supporters argue that vouchers let children leave under-performing public schools and get a better education at private schools.

Polson said Pennsylvania's voucher programs have no "meaningful educational or financial accountability," so they really have no way of knowing if these programs operate as intended or are beneficial to low-income or moderate-income students.

Polson said the report reveals that the programs have grown, and just this year they will cost the state nearly $500 million.

However, these voucher programs exclude students in rural areas, because there are few if any participating private schools in these regions.

Local public schools remain the primary option for most rural families.

"We also found that private schools receiving these funds are allowed to - and do - routinely discriminate against students for reasons including disabilities, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and more," said Polson. "These programs are also exclusive. They subsidize the state's most elite and expensive private schools as well as affluent families."

Polson said the report reveals that the Independent Fiscal Office estimated that the average EITC program scholarship was $2,314, while the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit was slightly less at around $2,000.

The cost of attending one of the top 25 private schools in Pennsylvania is around $41,000 per year. This means these schools are still out of reach for many low- and moderate-income families.