This year’s taxes conference committee has three speeds: slow, slower, slowest

If the House/Senate taxes conferees keep to the current pace, the widely anticipated veto of their final product may cease to be an issue: There could be a new governor by the time they finish their deliberations.

Following last night’s 1 a.m. adjournment, the conference committee has spent a total of 18 hours in session over the course of four working days. During that time, it has managed to get through the fiscal spreadsheet, to discuss the maze of mandates and maintenance-of-effort requirements that Minnesota counties face, and to disagree at length over extending a number of tax-increment-financing districts around the state. The principal revenue-raising measures in the two omnibus packages–across-the-board income tax increases in the Senate; a combination of upper-bracket income tax hikes, sin taxes and tax exemption changes in the House–have yet to be broached at all.

No one thought the committee would make quick work of the substantive differences between the two packages, but the tortoise-like progress so far has amped up the tensions over fundamental disagreements between co-chairs Sen. Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) (pictured) and Rep. Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington).

Last night’s three-hour meeting, which did not convene until almost 10 pm, concerned property tax- and tax-increment-finance-related provisions in the two bills, and once again found the chairs agreeing on little. Generally speaking, Bakk was receptive to hard-times arguments in favor of extending or expanding TIF provisions or granting special tax breaks; Lenczewski, who is taking a hard line on transparency and on ending special tax arrangements and exemptions that bleed the state’s revenues, wanted nothing to do with them.

As the night wore on, the slow movement and lack of common ground seemed to get under the skin of Bakk, whose turn it was to wield to gavel. At numerous points, he sounded exasperated and even incredulous at the limited number of items agreed upon. Two hours and change into the meeting, his frustrations led to the following exchange:

BAKK: We couldn’t get our little apprenticeship thing that we thought was all worked out. We couldn’t get our marina thing that we thought was all figured out…

LENCZEWSKI: Hey, you got that other stuff. And you brought in the whole parade [of testifiers] here to try to make me feel bad…

BAKK: Couldn’t get Rep. Loeffler’s thing for the Catholic elder care…

LENCZEWSKI: You got close on that.

BAKK: Close?

LENCZEWSKI: You got bovine. And the riparian, we compromised on that…

BAKK: All we were trying to do with the bovine TB thing was keep the [ag] department out of court… We couldn’t do Rep. Olin’s little school thing…

The conferees will reconvene this afternoon following the conclusion of floor sessions in both chambers.