unallotment

Asked what the biggest threat facing Minnesota now is, gubernatorial candidate and state Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, is quick with an answer: Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unallotments. In a video by Craig Stellmacher, Rukavina says the legislature “should’ve come out swinging” immediately after Pawlenty decided unilaterally to cut $2.7 billion from the state budget. He believes [...]

Sen. Paul Koering, R-Fort Ripley, abandoned his exploratory committee for governor yesterday, citing fundraising difficulties and a refusal of many Republican activists to support an openly gay candidate, ECM Publishers reports.

In a fawning new profile, The American Spectator trumpets Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s early efforts to secure the 2012 GOP nomination for president. While acknowledging that some dismiss T-Paw as “too vanilla” and citing his “lack of magnetism,” the conservative publication gives Minnesota’s outgoing governor props for unallotment:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is heading out of state again, this time to a conference in Nashville, Tenn., titled “Shifting Education and the Economy into High Gear.” Those first two words of the title might not be the ones he’d choose, just as he takes heat for shifting education funding — nearly $1.8 billion in state [...]

Communities around the state are struggling to deal with the budget cuts imposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unallotment authority. Pawlenty signed into law $2.7 billion in cuts to local government aid, human services grants, higher education and medical assistance for the poor. Many parts of the state are bracing for the impact.

Turns out, Gov. Pawlenty does expect state budget cuts to cause taxpayers to pay more taxes.

For state college administrators, the announcement of the Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unallotment plans was a good news/bad news story. The size of the budgetary hit was not as big as they expected. But, it’s still a substantial amount. The state’s two higher-education systems — which comprise 32 colleges and state universities, plus the four University of Minnesota campuses outside the Twin Cities — will each take a hit of $50 million dollars, or about a 3.6 percent drop.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s announced plans to axe state refunds for political contributions of $50 or less has set off an email stampede as candidates urge donors to give before the program dies July 1.

Minnesota’s new Police Officer of the Year, Chad Peterson, is deputy sheriff on a force of 13 in a county that — at least until a Tuesday reprieve — was fearful of having to cut its law enforcement budget by half. Officials in Mahnomen County were sure their population of 5,190 put them in range [...]

Last used as a metaphor for Norm Coleman’s dwindling odds at winning back his old U.S. Senate seat, Monty Python’s Black Knight is again being conjured as a political metaphor — this time by the Independence Party, which likens itself to the tenacious fighter who, despite getting all his limbs lopped off by King Arthur, [...]