Environment committee receives base budget briefing

When state agencies set about determining how and where to allocate and spend hundreds of millions of dollars, they have to start somewhere.

The House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee learned Thursday more about where the Department of Natural Resources will begin.

Chief Financial Officer Barb Juelich said the agency will have a base budget of $926 million as it plans for the upcoming 2018-19 biennium.

“A base budget is the legal starting point for agencies to build off of,” Juelich said.

She explained that Minnesota statute 16A.11 defines the base budget as the amount of money appropriated for the second year of the current biennium with any adjustments to the base required by law.

WATCH DNR budget presentation to the House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee

Adjustments are things like one-time appropriations that don’t carry over from year-to-year and must be removed from the total to arrive at a base number.

This means that while the DNR’s budget for the 2016-17 biennium is $1.36 billion, once one-time appropriations and other money such as Legacy Funds are taken out, the agency has $926 million remaining.

Broken out by program, the base funding levels are:

• Parks and Trails - $188 million (20 percent)
• Fish and Wildlife - $184.3 million (20 percent)
• Operations and Support - $182.9 million (20 percent)
• Forestry - $141 million (15 percent)
• Enforcement - $90.1 million (10 percent)
• Ecological and Water Resources – $89.7 million (10 percent)
• Lands and Minerals – $32.2 million (3 percent)
• Pass-thru funds – $17.9 million (2 percent)