House panel OKs human services budget bill that includes $300 million in cuts

Crafting a budget that calls for $300 million in cuts can be difficult.

Yet, the House Human Services Finance and Policy Committee accomplished that task Thursday when they approved the delete-all amendment to HF2434, as amended, and sent it to the House Ways and Means Committee.

“It has been a difficult conversation, knowing the targets we had,” said Rep. Mohamud Noor (DFL-Mpls), a committee co-chair. “… It was a difficult budget to cut, the difficult choices that we were able to make.”

He said the committee may not be proud of what it had to do, but did what was assigned.

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The bill is sponsored by Rep. Joe Schomacker (R-Luverne), the other committee co-chair.

“This isn't easy, this isn't fun, this is just very difficult work that we all signed up for,  everyone on this committee signed up for, because we want to make the hard decisions and do the right things,” he said.

The $18.54 billion budget, which meets the target set forth by House leadership, was presented on Tuesday, where over 40 testifiers mostly voiced their disappointment in the budget.

[MORE: Human services panel reviews potential $300 million in budget cuts]