Column: Rich Murray, My Point of View

One of the highlights of our new state budget agreement was the commitment by our legislative leadership and Gov. Mark Dayton to reform and redesign our government.

At the start of the year, state spending was outpacing incoming revenue by a margin of 3-1, so I’m pleased both sides recognized that the government of tomorrow could no longer resemble the government of today. The results will make government programs more efficient and less expensive, and I thought I’d share some of these important changes with you today.

In fact, our first reform bill of the session was designed with business interests in mind. The new law makes it easier for job creators to gain approval for business expansion projects by reducing permitting time. Several companies told us it took them a year or more just to have the state agree to allow them relocate or expand — which caused them to take their business to another state. By making our permitting process more user-friendly and efficient, we believe we have removed a barrier that had previously cost Minnesota some much needed job growth, and it should assist in our economic recovery.

But in terms of true, money-saving reform, we should look at health and human services — an area that was projected to grow by an unsustainable 22 percent and will now grow by 4.8 percent thanks to changes enacted last session.

Included is the phased-in repeal of the health care provider tax, which places a 2 percent tax on every medical service performed in the state. Another reform begins to privatize publicly subsidized health care by replacing the government-run program with defined contribution health care vouchers for some MinnesotaCare recipients, while another entirely repeals the rebasing of nursing home facilities and hospitals, which will drastically reduce falsely-inflated forecasted spending for health and human services in the future. Finally, several safeguards have been added to decrease the amount of welfare fraud that takes place in Minnesota, which some investigators have found to cost Minnesota $1.67 billion annually.

State government will also undergo some major changes. We’ve established a Sunset Advisory Commission to review state agencies, consolidate duplicative programs and improve overall operations; consolidated the Office of Enterprise Technology services throughout government; called for the strategic sourcing with private firms to ensure efficiencies in state buildings and vehicle fleet management; and linked state employee pay to performance, with salary increases subject to sufficient ratings.

In addition, our new budget will save counties money through lower reimbursement rates for medical services to local prisoners and end future costly ethanol subsidies when the final ethanol producer deficiency payment is made in 2012.

Remember, these are only a few of the reforms that were enacted into law. When combined with the dozens of others throughout all sectors of government, some analysts project we will have already trimmed $2.5 billion from our next budget — and that may likely be a low estimate.

I’m pleased to report that this is only the beginning of government reform in this state. Legislative leaders already plan to build on this success and are now developing plans for next session. They’re calling it Reform 2.0.

If you have any ideas on how to make government more cost effective, please share them with me. Feel free to send me an email at rep.rich.murray@house.mn or call my office toll free at 1-877-377-9441, as I plan to offer legislation next session that will continue to downsize and redesign state government. I value your input, and look forward to hearing from you!

Have a question or concern? Constituents in District 27A including communities in Freeborn and Mower counties can write to me at 439 State Office Building, 100 Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155. Or call me at 651-296-8216 or email me at rep.rich.murray@house.mn.

Rich Murray, R-Albert Lea, is the state representative for House District 27A.