Overheard at the Capitol: The stimulus package says–what?

One of the most striking things about talking budget with members and staffers at the Legislature these days is the continuing confusion over what’s kosher and what’s not under the terms of the federal stimulus package passed last month. A month ago, chaos reigned at the Capitol as everyone scrambled to absorb the details of the bill. The common refrain at the time: "Things should be pretty clear within a week or so."

They weren’t, and in many respects they still aren’t. The Minnesota-bound dollars were easy enough to locate, but questions about how they can be deployed in the budget, and what the state must do with its overall budgeting to conform to the array of federal rules attached to the various pots of money, are still very much on the minds of staffers, legislators, and the governor’s office.

Case in point: A couple of weeks ago, I asked an official with the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget how much of the $300 million in higher education cuts that Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed back in January would have to be restored to the budget owing to federal stimulus requirements. "All of it, I think," he said. And then: "Is that what you’re hearing?"

As a matter of fact, it was, but his query was a clue of sorts in itself. Fiscal staffers around state government have been tied in knots by the intricacies of the federal requirements. And they don’t all come to the same conclusions about them.

Flash forward to this week. I asked both DFL senators and staffers whether they were certain they could cut that same higher ed budget line and backfill with stimulus dollars. The answer, essentially, was We think so.

Ask about potential complications if and when it comes to doing unallotments from the ‘10-’11 budget, and you hear the same story: That is, some say yes and some say no.

"There are still, uh, questions of interpretation about the federal money," as one Senate staffer laconically put it. "Some finesse may be required."