Legislative leaders send Hanson et al. some unallotment homework

The Legislative Advisory Commission may lack the power to change anything that Gov. Tim Pawlenty is proposing to do in cutting the Minnesota general fund budget, but that doesn’t mean it can’t leverage its "consultation" with the administration to the hilt.

The LAC is scheduled to meet again next Tuesday, and they have a few questions they’ll want answered then. There are a total of 39 queries and complaints in the 10-page package of correspondence (PDF) that Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller (DFL-Minneapolis) and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) sent to Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson yesterday:

• 21 questions from Kelliher and Pogemiller, 17 of which concern details of Pawlenty’s schools cost shift and the legal basis for it;
• 4 questions from House Taxes Committee chair Ann Lenczewski (DFL-Bloomington) about tax-related provisions of TP’s unallotment plan;
• 7 follow-up questions arising from the last LAC meeting, ranging from estimated job losses to the specifics of state agency cuts, from House Majority Leader Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm);
• 7 objections to unallotments in health and human services, which authors Sen. Linda Berglin (DFL-Minneapolis) and Rep. Tom Huntley (DFL-Duluth), who chair their respective chambers’ HHS finance divisions, question on grounds that they exceed Pawlenty’s statutory authority.