Truly Incredible
The State will likely be raiding our School District piggy banks reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Rather than borrow money from a lending institution, low as interest rates are these days, why not borrow it for zero interest from School District cash reserves? It seems prudent, if it truly is short term such that it's truly repaid in July and that District cash truly is a reserve not needed in the interim.
Critics correctly point out that this is in effect punishing the better managed districts who made the aggressive budget cuts in anticipation of these days. But look who's among those critics:
State Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, said school districts that showed fiscal prudence by building reserves will be punished by a state that didn’t exercise the same discipline.
True enough, but it still pegs the chutzpah meter. Here is one of the arsonists complaining that the flames are getting out of control. Even if her signature Minnesota Miracle bill were to pass, we'd be in the same situation since the new money was all earmarked for the public schools. No, it would be worse because her plan puts in a fourth income tax bracket that would make our revenues even more unstable.
No doubt she is thinking of Governor Pawlenty as being the irresponsible party. Never mind that the DFL frittered away the first two months of the 2009 session to the point where even the Star Tribune called them on it. The DFL had but one plan, to embarrass the Governor into tax-raising submission as the clock ran out. As we saw, the clock ran out on the DFL instead.
It should be interesting to see what the DFL game plan is for the 2010 session.
Cross-posted at Speed Gibson. Comments welcome.
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