GOP revives cuts to commissioner

pay, campaign subsidies

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – House Republicans are reviving cost-reduction measures in a second budget go-around, detailing their plans Thursday to cut state agency commissioner salaries, freeze public employee hiring and suspend Minnesota’s public campaign subsidy program.

The legislative deja vu comes as state lawmakers work out how to spend a $900 million surplus. The cost-cutting proposals were part of the GOP’s budget framework last year but were tossed out during negotiations with Democrats.

The latest move by House Republicans adds disputable elements to opposing surplus-spending plans of Republicans and Democrats in charge of the Legislature.

The issue of commissioner salaries consumed the Capitol for weeks last year as lawmakers temporarily blocked Gov. Mark Dayton’s unilateral move to raise his cabinet members’ pay by as much as 58 percent. Dayton later enacted slightly smaller bumps, pushing most above $150,000 annually.

House Republicans’ bill would cut the higher pay rates by 5 percent while also taking a bite out of deputy salaries and reducing some upper-agency management positions. Their plan also would implement a yearlong hiring freeze across state government ranks and a one-year suspension of Minnesota’s income-tax checkoff program that gives candidates public subsidies for agreeing to spending limits – a system Republicans tried to eliminate entirely last year.