By Bill Salisbury
St. Paul Pioneer Press
About 800 Minnesota state troopers, conservation officers, prison guards and other state law enforcement personnel will start receiving “pink slips” today notifying them they will be laid off July 1 if Gov. Mark Dayton and the Legislature fail to negotiate a budget agreement by then.
Those employees could be called back to work, however, if they are judged essential.
Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter said in a statement Tuesday that his agency has started contingency planning for a government shutdown at the end of the month, when the current fiscal year ends.
Dayton, a Democrat, and the Republicans who control the Legislature have reached an impasse on how to fix a projected $5 billion deficit in the next two-year budget. Without a new budget, the state can’t operate anything but yet-to-be-determined essential services.
MMB is required to send layoff notices to state employee union members by certain dates specified in their contracts.
The first notices will go to members of the Minnesota Law Enforcement Association, saying they will be laid off next month “unless they are directed to report to work to perform critical services during a government shutdown.”
About 35,000 more state employees are scheduled to start receiving notices on June 10, Schowalter said.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the Middle Management Association, the Minnesota Government Engineers Council, the Minnesota Nurses Association and the State Residential Schools Education Association represent those workers.
Copyright 2011 St. Paul Pioneer Press