Each year the Minnesota Chamber holds its Session Priorities dinner to tie in with the start of the State Legislature and the Eden Prairie Chamber had a table at the event again this year. I have come to really enjoy this event because you do get a sense of priorities and expectations for the session from the Governor, House leaders and the Senate leaders.
I was very interested to get a sense of where our elected officials would focus their time and in particular their approaches to the budget issue. I was excited to hear both parties interested in doing a zero based budget – starting with a blank sheet and setting the top priorities first and determining their costs and continuing on until the dollars are used up. The reason I like this approach is because it gives our businesses and residents the chance to know what their priorities really are. One of my criticisms of the past few years is with budget deficits and cutting costs the communication did not do a good enough job telling us what were the priorities and what was the top budgets that needed funding.
I am hoping we will get a better understanding of priorities and we will learn more at our February program with our Eden Prairie state elected officials. Stay tuned!
