Terri Bonoff

Balancing the Budget

The effects of this most recent economic recession on our state budget are clear. As credit markets tightened and economic output decreased, we saw state revenues drop proportionally, while the demand for state services increased. Adding to this problem, the failure of previous legislatures and the Governor to come to agreement on responsible budget solutions has led the state to enact substantial school payment shifts and delays that have added to our budget challenges.

In the short term, we must balance the state budget in a responsible manner, without increased borrowing from our schools. In the long term, we must make Minnesota more competitive in a changing global economy. It is the challenge of the state legislature to address short-term budget shortfalls while laying the groundwork for future growth.

Balancing the budget moving forward will require us to make some tough decisions regarding state spending. At the same time, this can be a tremendous opportunity for meaningful spending reform. I believe we should be employing a zero-based budgeting process to identify potential cuts. We must clean out the closet and examine every dollar spent in terms of its value and outcome.

We must also Redesign and Reform the delivery of government services in Minnesota. While these words are often little more than campaign slogans, I have made structural redesign a focus of my six years in the Senate. In 2010, I passed legislation instituting the Commission on Service Innovation, a partnership of public, private and non-profit leaders who teamed up to identify specific ways to reorganize, streamline and find efficiencies in state government (more info Here). In 2011, I passed legislation to consolidate all IT services in Minnesota under one umbrella agency (more info Here), a critical step in the effort to streamline government operations in our state. 

Even with these reform measures, our current reliance on the income tax will undoubtedly lead to budget shortfalls in the future. We need to ensure during these periods that schools, hospitals, nursing homes and local governments are not put in jeopardy by deep budget cuts. The effort to take a balanced approach to any shortfall should be combined with an effort to stabilize our state revenue system and create a more competitive business climate. The 21st Century Tax Reform Commission recommended we reduce certain business taxes and expand the base of the sales tax. I believe this type of tax reform would help provide a more competitive business climate, reduce fluctuations in our revenue stream, and help avoid large budget shortfalls in the future.

We must not shy away from the challenge of addressing our state’s long-term, structural budget deficit. Tax and spending reform are both critical pieces of this puzzle, and both must be addressed in order for Minnesota to be successful in the future.

Education

A world-class education system is not only the key to our children’s futures, it is critical to the long-term growth and success of our state.

For decades, Minnesota has led the way in crafting a system that provides every child the opportunity for success, despite economic differences that exist across school districts. The spirit of fairness and opportunity that called us to reform our education funding system years ago is calling us again to explore new methods of reaching our most at-risk students and breaking through the cycle of hopelessness and failure that plague too many of our children.

Crafting a world-class education system requires a comprehensive approach that begins with our youngest learners and continues on through high school and post-secondary education. We must provide stable and adequate funding for education while working together to ensure the greatest impact for every dollar spent in our schools. We must demand accountability and excellence from students, parents, teachers and administrators, utilizing every tool available to gauge the growth of our students and to intervene where we see children falling behind.

The path to making certain EACH AND EVERY student achieves their true potential is more accessible today than ever before. In order to achieve this, we must become students of technology - maximizing the power of in-classroom teaching and learning tools as well as understanding and leveraging the power of data analytics. This requires a strong commitment to training and teacher development, as well as a financial commitment. We must enlist the parent community as our partners, and make sure they are not left behind in the technological arena. Understanding the power of technology in the classroom, I authored a matching grant program for SMART boards several years ago and joined the Minnesota Technology Task Force as an active participant. The intersection of making sure each Minnesota family has high-speed access and each child achieves academic success is here and now.

Educating the next generation of leaders in Minnesota is a responsibility we all share in our communities. I have made education a major focus of my work in the Senate. Below are some examples of legislation I have authored to help move our Minnesota schools forward:

Early Childhood Education: Worked in partnership with the foundation and business community to develop a comprehensive, market-based early learning system to ensure all children the opportunity for success.

Alternative Teacher Licensure: Created a new pathway to teacher licensure in Minnesota for mid-level professionals and successful national programs such as Teach for America. Passed into law in the 2011 Legislative Session.

Education Shared Services: Exploring the potential for Shared Services and cooperative purchasing to realize substantial savings in education and drive more dollars into the classroom.

School District Payment Shifts and Delays: Protecting our local school districts from damaging payment shifts and delays that punish those districts that have been most responsible in managing their money. Passed into law in the 2010 Legislative Session.

Reforming Government

In facing our ongoing budget challenges and changing demographics, one thing becomes clear. We must learn to do more, and better, with less. As more and more Minnesotans enter retirement age and leave the workforce, revenues are projected to decline just as demand increases for state services. This presents a challenge to our state that we can and must overcome.

One large obstacle to pursuing this reform is the tendency of the legislative process to focus on the short term, particularly in times of budget shortfalls. True government redesign requires a sustained and long-term effort to implement structural change, with much of the savings being realized several years down the road.

That’s why I authored and passed legislation in the 2010 Legislative Session to create the Commission on Service Innovation. This commission was made up of leaders in the public, private and non-profit sectors, who met over the course of several months to draft a strategic plan for service delivery redesign including the realignment of service delivery by region, the use of new technologies, shared facilities, and centralized information systems.

New technology provides an opportunity to integrate and transform our service delivery system. While private companies have embraced new technology as a tool to lower costs and raise quality, government has failed to keep pace with the rapidly changing face of business operations. A major obstacle to realizing these efficiencies was the fact that all Information Technology Services were maintained separately by each agency. That is why in the 2011 Legislative Session, I authored and passed legislation to consolidate all agency IT services under one organization – the Office of Enterprise Technology.   

I continue to work in concert with a small group of Republican and Democratic colleagues as we move on to the next phase of this important redesign work. The implementation of IT consolidation, which began in the summer of 2011, is only beginning to reveal the potential for cost savings as duplicative services are eliminated and agency efforts become more integrated.

The task of bringing government operations into the 21^st century is a challenge that we must overcome and that we cannot delay.

Energy and the Environment 

We have a tremendous responsibility to protect our state's natural resources and to act as environmental stewards for future generations of Minnesotans. We became national leaders in pursuing energy independence and a clean energy future with the prior passage of our Renewable Energy standards. As we work to emerge from the recent recession, we must utilize every tool at our disposal to harness the power of domestic energy sources while building the clean energy infrastructure of the future.

The natural beauty of our state and the quality of life we enjoy is directly related to the strong environmental protections we have put in place to conserve our natural resources and keep our lakes, rivers and streams clean. Clean air and water are priorities for Minnesotans; that is something they made clear in passing the Legacy Amendment to dedicate funding for these purposes. 

The responsibility to care for our environment is one we all share. As we work to produce more domestic energy and bring new industries to our state, we must be ever-mindful of the environmental impact our decisions will have now and for years to come. We must also work in concert with the business sector, so that we eliminate unnecessary obstacles and barriers to pursuing new frontiers for energy exploration, particularly for our out-state communities who are desperate to harness the economic growth that will accompany this exploration. 

Our energy policy must reflect a balanced and thoughtful approach that protects our planet, makes energy affordable and accessible and allows us to have energy security and independence. 

Transportation

A strong transportation system is a critical component of economic growth and adds to the quality of life we enjoy in Minnesota. We must work to build the transportation infrastructure of the future at the same time as we address our present transportation needs. This means tackling congestion on our roads and building the public-private partnerships that will allow our businesses to stay and thrive in Minnesota.