Things are moving very fast up at the Capitol these days. The two bills in both the House and Senate that deal with Public Safety and the Youth Intervention Program have passed through there respective bodies and a Conference Committee made up of 5 Senators and 5 Representatives have been chosen to reconcile the differences in the bills.
The Senate bill language still protects the Youth Intervention Program (YIP) funding from further cuts for the remainder of this year and through 2011. The House language now protects the YIP for the remainder of 2010 but for 2011 allows for not more than a 2% reduction in funding. Of course we want to ask the 10 legislators to please adopt the Senate language. Now is the time to e-mail these legislators as it is their hope to finish by this Friday.
Below is some quick wording you can use to e-mail these legislators. If your are a constituent of any of these legislators it is crucial you do your part in sending out the letter although I am hoping everyone reading this follows through. Cut and paste and it should only take you about 10 minutes to send the e-mail to all 10 legislators.
Dear Senator/Representative XXXX,
I am writing to ask you to please fight for the adoption of the Senate language regarding the Youth Intervention Program funding in reconciling SF 3223, which you are a member of the conference committee.
This year the Youth Intervention Program has already lost 10 of the 67 programs it had in 2009 because of the reductions to the program funding during last years legislative session.
I understand that reductions need to be made to balance the budget but I am hoping that programs that have proven outcomes and a positive Social Return on Investment (SROI) - like the Youth Intervention Program does ($5 return for every $1 invested), will not be where further reductions are made for the remainder of this biennium.
Thank you again for your support!
Your NameYour titleYour address
- Senator Richard Cohen – District 64
- Senator Thomas Bakk – District 6
- Senator Linda Higgins - District 58
- Senator Jim Vickerman - District 22
- Senator Steve Murphy - District 28
- Representative Lyndon Carlson – District 45B
- Representative Ann Lenczewski – District 40B
- Representative Loren Solberg – District 3B
- Representative Michael Paymar – District 64B
- Representative Pat Garofalo – District 36B
Good luck and thank you in advance for doing this!
Scott
Scott Beaty's latest update on the legislative situation:
ReplyDeleteAs I predicted, things moved quickly at the Capitol last week and into the weekend. A Conference Committee made up of 5 Senators and 5 Representatives were chosen to reconcile the difference in the two bills in the House and Senate that dealt with Public Safety and the Youth Intervention Program.
The Senate bill language stood to protect the Youth Intervention Program (YIP) funding from further cuts for the remainder of this year and through 2011. The House language would have protected the YIP for the remainder of 2010 but for 2011 allowed for not more than a 2% reduction in funding.
Adopted was a compromise of the two, and incorporates language that says funding for youth intervention programs must not be reduced by more than 1.5 percent for the fiscal year 2011.
The full House and Senate will vote on the Conference Committee's suggestions, and then send to the Governor to sign. I do not anticipate any problems passing through both bodies and expect the Governor to sign it with some minor line item vetoes. I do not, however, expect him to line item veto anything under the Office of Justice Programs as his supplemental budget had no reductions to it. As we all know, it's not over until the Governor signs the bill.
Thank you to those of you who contacted the 10 legislators on the Conference Committee. We will keep you up to date as we learn more about what this will look like for Minnesota's Youth Intervention Programs.
Scott