Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook)
Minnesota House and Senate leaders appear close to agreement on a supplemental budget bill that would spend part of the state’s 900-million-dollar surplus — but bonding and transportation packages are still unresolved with just over one day to the legislature’s midnight Sunday deadline. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Bakk says Governor Dayton’s 25-million-dollar request for pre-kindergarten programs will be filled, but there’s significantly less than what Dayton wanted for rural broadband and communities of color — 35 million dollars each. But Bakk says, “I believe the governor reluctantly will sign the bill with that funding at those levels.” Bakk says the number for rural broadband is too low, but House Speaker Kurt Daudt wouldn’t go higher. Republicans respond expected federal funding and private investment will bring hundreds of millions of broadband dollars to Greater Minnesota.