Minnesota legislators largely spared K-12 public education from the pain of budget balancing this year, but their deep cuts to one state agency budget could soon have an impact on schools. Officials with the Department of Children, Families and Learning recently announced more layoffs and service reductions, as they cope with an $8.5 million budget cut.

State lawmakers passed a $2 billion budget balancing bill this year that cut the budget for the Department of Children, Families and Learning by 17 percent. Commissioner Christine Jax says she was forced to eliminate 60 agency positions to make up for the lost funding. She says her agency is now one of the smallest state education departments in the nation.

"The service that we're going to be able to provide to Minnesotans is going to be less than desirable, less than what we desire and less than what they desire," Jax said. "We're going to do our best, but there are things that we're just not going to be able to do."

The department's broad mission include oversight of the state's K-12 public education system, including state tests, pre-school programs and charter schools. CFL also distributes state funding to local schools and provides technical support for school district administrtaors. With fewer employees, Jax says she fears her agency can no longer be as responsive as it once was.

"Because I have laws I have to implement, I can't take particular areas and say well we're no longer going to oversee special education, we're no longer going to send money to districts," Jax said. "I can't do that, so all I can do is say that we're not going to monitor school districts as often. We're not going to answer phones or get money as quickly to our constituents."

As a cost cutting measure, Jax is closing an office in Bemidji that operated the Minnesota Indian Scholarship Program. An office in Duluth that provided training and support to schools in the Indian Education program will also close. Those functions will now be handled in the Roseville headquarters.

The department is scaling down a state resource service for librarians, known as Library Development Services. The division's large collection of professional library science books and materials, a library for librarians, is no longer accessible. Chris Olson, president of the Minnesota Library Association, says the CFL cuts could end up costing the state more than $2.5 million annually in federal library support.

"The federal funds actually have an eligibility requirement that there is a state agency that does planning," Olson said. "And we at the Minnesota Library Association are very concerned that the federal administration, the federal agency, will look at Minnesota and say you no longer have that so you are no longer eligible for federal funds."

CFL officials announced last month that budget cuts would mean a delay in scoring the state tests given each year to third and fifth grade students. The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments are taken in March, with results typically available in July. This year, schools must wait until October. Rep. Jim Davnie, DFL-Minneapolis, says such a delay is unacceptable. He's among many lawmakers who want state test scores returned in a timely fashion to provide the most benefit to schools. Davnie also calls the the CFL delay a "gimmick" that would inflict damage on kids.

"The department doesn't score the tests," Davnie said. "The department has a contract with an outside firm to score the tests. This isn't a question of department staffing. This is a multi-million dollar contract that should be delivered on time, and the CFL should be standing behind that, not using it as an opportunity to cut their budget in a way that's least productive for the kids in Minnesota."

Davnie is co-sponsoring legislation to set a permanent May 1 deadline for the department to return the annual test results to schools.