Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Supreme Court: Pawlenty overstepped authority on unallotment

May 5, 2010

St. Paul, Minn. — The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Wednesday that Gov. Tim Pawlenty overstepped his authority when he made unilateral cuts last year to balance the state's budget.

In a majority opinion written by Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, the court said Pawlenty's decision to cut a nutrition program came before the budget-making process was completed.

Pawlenty used his unallotment authority to cut the program, but clients of the Minnesota Supplemental Aid Special Diet Program sued, arguing that the governor shouldn't have been allowed to make the cut without legislative approval.

A Ramsey County judge agreed with the plaintiffs in a decision issued in December. Pawlenty then appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case in March.

The Supreme Court's ruling could have broad implications for the state's two-year budget that began last summer. The nutrition program was only one of many cuts Pawlenty made through unallotment.

Pawlenty issued a statement saying he "strongly disagrees" with the court decision.

"Nonetheless, it will require the Legislature and my administration to address its budget impacts. The funds do not exist to reinstate my unallotments and the state budget needs to be balanced without raising taxes. I call upon the DFL-controlled "egislature to ratify the unallotments I enacted last year," said the governor.

Minnesota's budget deficit could now grow to as high as $3.7 billion, because in the end Pawlenty cut $2.7 billion from the state budget through unallotment.
The cuts came after Pawlenty signed all the DFL-controlled Legislature's spending bills but vetoed the tax bill used to pay for the spending. He then cut the budget on his own.

It its ruling, the court said the unallotment statute gives the governor authority to address "an unanticipated deficit that arises after the legislative and executive branches have enacted a balanced budget."

But the court concluded that wasn't the case last year when Pawlenty used the authority.

"Because the legislative and executive branches never enacted a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 biennium, use of the unallotment power to address the unresolved deficit exceeded the authority granted to the executive branch," Magnuson wrote.

Three justices dissented, including Lori Skjerven Gildea, G. Barry Anderson and Christopher Dietzen.

Gildea wrote in her dissent that Minnesota's Constitution requires a balanced budget, and that the unallotment power was given to the governor to fulfill that obligation.

"Whether that process is the wisest or most prudent way to avoid deficit spending is not an issue for judicial review," she wrote. "That question should be left to the people themselves to debate and resolve through the political process."

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/05/05/unallotment-ruling/