Ewald at the Capitol/Special Edition: Budget

Gov. Walz's 2-Year Budget Proposal

Yesterday, Gov. Walz released his 2-year budget proposal for the 2022-23 biennium, totaling about $52 billion. The "COVID-19 Recovery Budget" focuses heavily on his administration’s ideas for economic and community recovery.
In his announcement, Gov. Walz emphasized the following topics:

supporting small business,
driving economic recovery,
ensuring students catch up on learning, and
supporting working families.

More than half of the budget proposal is dedicated to education funding.

The November Budget and Economic Forecast showed that the state has a $1.27 billion budget deficit for the next biennium. Gov. Walz’s proposal includes a carryover from the current fiscal year, transfers from the budget and stadium reserves and various tax increases to make up for any deficit gap as well as provide for additional spending. Next month, the February Budget and Economic Forecast will be released with an update on the budget outlook for the state.

The release of the governor’s budget recommendations is the first step in the budget process. Over the next several weeks, the House and Senate each will advance their budget priorities as well.

The state must balance and pass a budget prior to July 1, 2021, to avoid state shutdown.

Additional budget proposal details will be outlined in Friday’s edition of Ewald at the Capitol.