Audio Minnesotans begin feeling pinch of new budget (story audio) Listen to Laura McCallum's extended interview with Kelly Chase Listen to Laura McCallum's extended interview with Ray Bracht Photos Fees going up Pay now or pay later Chopping the budget More from MPR Child care industry fears effect of state cuts (06/30/2003) Minnesota: Land of the fee (06/29/2003) Penny criticizes state budget fix (06/29/2003) Your Voice News Forum: "Families who have children with severe disabilities often need to use the social service system and public health care programs to ensure that our children's needs are met."

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Minnesotans begin feeling pinch of new budget
by Laura McCallum, Minnesota Public Radio
June 30, 2003

Steven Chase has severe cerebral palsy. His personal care attendant costs $190. That fee is going up to $475 a month. (MPR Photo/Laura McCallum)

Minnesotans will feel the impact of the state's new budget in areas from health care to state parks. Residents won't pay higher state taxes to erase what was projected to be a $4.2 billion deficit. But certain Minnesotans will pay more out of pocket, depending on what state services they need.

St. Paul, Minn. — Kelly Chase of Brooklyn Park says she'll feel the effect of the new state budget when she pays her July bills. Chase's 13-year-old son, Steven, with severe cerebral palsy. She pays $190 a month for a personal care attendant to care for her son before and after school, until she and her husband get home from work. That fee is going up to $475 a month.

"To go to a 150 percent increase, it's just like, what do you do? It's like if your taxes went from $2,000 to $5,000. What would the general public do?" Chase says. Chase says she's trying to figure out ways to cut her family budget. She says that could include buying less meat for meals or dropping cable, although her son likes to watch the Twins games. Chase isn't alone; the new budget recalculates the fees that parents of about 7,000 children with disabilies pay each month. Most of them will now pay higher fees based on their income.

Ray Bracht of Big Lake says the fee to help care for his 6-year-old autistic son will jump from $25 a month to nearly $300 a month. Bracht says some people might think $25 dollars a month is far too low, but Bracht says people don't understand how expensive it is to care for a special needs child.

"Things in my house get broken all the time," Bracht says. "I probably repaint my house on the inside three, four times a year; repair walls, it's just damage. People say, 'well, you know, you should control your child better.' And it's like, well, you don't understand, it's not like something they can learn it's wrong."

Bracht says he doesn't know where he'll get the money for the higher fee, but says he'll come up with it somehow because he won't put his son in a group home. While Bracht and other parents will pay higher fees immediately, other elements of the state budget will be phased in over the next two years.

	Pay now or pay later

State officials estimate about 15,000 Minnesotans will lose state health coverage in the next year, and about 1,000 families will lose subsidized child care over two years.

Gov. Pawlenty says the state had no choice but to rein in skyrocketing health care costs. He says the health and human services budget was scheduled to go up more than 20 percent over the next two years, while the budget he signed into law slows down the growth to about eight percent.

Pawlenty says all Minnesotans have to sacrifice to help the state weather a historic budget crisis. "We live in a very difficult time, with war and recession and historic budget deficits and possibility of domestic terror and public safety concerns, and so we will keep Minnesota's quality of life high. We can make it even better, I believe, but in the meantime, everybody's going to have to sacrifice a little bit and be mindful of the times by slowing down the rate of growth of state government," Pawlenty says.

DFL leaders say they offered a budget solution that would have spread the pain more fairly through statewide tax increases. They say Minnesotans will end up paying more through fee increases, tuition hikes and local property tax increases.

Republican leaders say Democrats are simply trying to scare Minnesotans, and many taxpayers will barely notice the effects of the new budget.

	Chopping the budget

David Strom, legislative director for the conservative Taxpayers League of Minnesota, the group that sponsored Gov. Pawlenty's no-tax-increase pledge, says Democrats want Minnesotans to think that their quality of life depends on state government subsidies.

"Minnesotans, when they value things, invest in them. And one of the things that we've seen actually is that as government subsidies for certain valuable community services have fallen, people have stepped up to the plate and said, 'we're going to protect the James J. Hill house, that's a good thing.' And I would have argued that that should have been the way it was to begin with. Why should the state be subsidizing something that people in a particular community value?" Strom says.

The state Historical Society had planned to close the James J. Hill house in St. Paul and six other historic sites on July 1. All will stay open at least through the summer, thanks mostly to last-minute fundraising by community groups.

State officials also announced last week they'd found the money to fund the state's Gang Strike Task Force for the next year. DFL leaders say Minnesotans will have to decide if the tradeoffs to a no-new-state-tax-increase budget are worth it.

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