By the numbers: The schools shift as a schools cut

The numbers in the pie chart you see here are all familiar to state budget watchers by now. What’s novel about this particular graphic, produced by the office of Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller (DFL-Minneapolis), is that it casts Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s $1.7 billion "mimic" of a school shift as a de facto spending cut. As the chart indicates, that would mean Minnesota schools, which Pawlenty steadfastly pledged to hold harmless from budget cuts, end up bearing fully two-thirds of the brunt of $2.7 billion in total cuts.

This gets to the central point of contention that has emerged between DFL legislative leaders and the Pawlenty administration over the impact of the governor’s unallotments to the state budget. Simply put, there are no provisions in law to ensure the repayment of the $1.7 billion in K-12 education cost shifts that Pawlenty is seeking to enact. Pogemiller has led the DFL charge in asserting that the absence of a repayment mechanism, coupled with a projected 2012-13 deficit of $6-$7 billion, means for practical purposes that schools will never see the payments that Pawlenty claims are only being delayed. (Britt Robson has a pair of stories [I] [II] on the Pawlenty shifts in the most recent Capitol Report.)

Last week’s second and final meeting of the Legislative Advisory Commission, which is charged with reviewing the governor’s budget cuts, was punctuated by a sharp and lengthy exchange between Pogemiller and Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson over the implications of the DIY shift package.

Hanson repeatedly insisted that Pawlenty’s