Politics & Government

LETTER: Looking At The 2012 Legislative Session

Rep. Sandra Peterson talks about the issues, proposals and work ahead for the 2012 legislative session.

To the Editor:

The 2012 Legislative Session is underway. Once again, we have an opportunity to tackle the many challenges still facing our great state. We have tremendous obstacles to future prosperity that we must address: a shrinking and struggling middle class, increasing property taxes, and an education system that isn’t preparing enough students for the world economy.

After last year’s difficult, contentious session that resulted in a government shutdown and an eventual agreement that included the irresponsible expansion of the K-12 shift and borrowing through the sale of tobacco bonds — and the huge interest due on those bonds — I’m hoping for a renewed sense of bipartisanship, cooperation and collaboration.

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If the November forecast of an $876 million surplus — the result of the 2009 budget, increased tax collections from improved job growth and wages, and savings from health care reforms — holds up through the February forecast, the legislature can focus on policy reforms and bonding, rather than emergency budgeting.

Traditionally, the primary focus of each even-year legislative session is prioritizing capital investment projects — more commonly known as bonding. These projects can include construction and repairs of roads and bridges, flood mitigation, buildings on college campuses, waste water treatment plants, parks and trails, among others.

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Investing in Minnesota’s infrastructure is an essential part of sustaining and enhancing our economic recovery.  Bonding helps small businesses and communities grow by building the long-term infrastructure needed to help businesses be successful in the future and put construction workers back on the job. I support the passage of a comprehensive and sizable, but reasonable, bonding bill.

Specifically, I support the use of bonding money to expand the Minnesota Children's Museum. We have a unique Children's Museum that is among the best in the nation. The Children's Museum does a fantastic job educating our kids, and instilling a sense of wonder and a love of learning.

While bonding and policy reforms should be a major focus of this session, growing jobs and improving the economy must be our number one priority. As a member of the Small Business Caucus and the Governor’s Workforce Development Council, I’ve been working with business leaders, economists and other policymakers to discuss solutions to speed the state’s economic recovery.

In addition, Governor Dayton and DFL legislators recently announced a jobs plan for the 2012 session.

The plan contains tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed Minnesotans, veterans, or graduates in the next year, a $775 million bonding bill, additional funding for the Minnesota Investment Fund, which has a track record of helping Minnesota to attract businesses to locate or expand here; expanding training to fill Minnesota’s skills gap, and internet sales tax fairness, which would put local retailers on a more even playing field with online retailers like Amazon. More information on the jobs plan can be found here.

It’s time to put politics aside and work together to pass a meaningful jobs bill for Minnesota. Jobs are what Minnesotans care about, and it’s what we should care about. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on these ideas and others to strengthen our economic recovery.

Along with job creation, my other top priority is education. In recent years, we've irresponsibly borrowed more and more from our schools. Including inflation and the property tax recognition shift, we now owe our schools over $5 billion. This has forced schools to lay off teachers, increase class sizes, ask local taxpayers for more money, and in some cases, borrow money for cash flow. This is unsustainable and unacceptable. We need to repay the school shift as soon as we can.

I also strongly support early childhood education. We all know that positive, high-quality early learning experiences prepare our children for a lifetime of future success and can help close our unfortunately large achievement gap. 

I’m currently sitting on the bipartisan Principal Evaluation Workgroup tasked with creating recommendations on how to best implement a principal evaluation system. This reform was included in last year’s final education bill. I’ll continue to advocate for smart, meaningful reforms that will improve student experiences and achievement.

As session moves along, I welcome input on these or any other legislative issues. Thank you again for the honor of serving you in the legislature.

- Sandra Peterson

(Note: Rep. Sandra Peterson is the state representative for District 45A, representing the communities of Plymouth, New Hope, and Crystal. She can be reached at 651-296-4176 or at rep.sandra.peterson@house.mn.)


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