Almanac: At the Capitol

Governor Pawlenty meets with Senate Republicans as they prepare for budget negotiations, and higher ed bills move forward in both the Senate and the House.

View the Capitol Update for April 14, 2009.

Sources say Gov. Pawlenty is going to talk more about "shared services" in his State of the State address.  Jim Mulder from the Association of Minnesota Counties tells me Pawlenty will use his organization as an example of shared services.  Counties are doing things like sharing 911 dispatching services.  We know this is a big initiative of the governor, especially after the announcement of shared services with Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle this week.

We also have a good idea that state colleges and universities will be moved towards more online learning.  Pawlenty's former communications director who now holds the same post at the U, sent out a release saying "With Gov. Pawlenty's State of the State address on Thursday, we wanted to make sure you had some basic information about what the University of Minnesota is doing in the area of online learning." 

I also hear there will be "some surprises" from Pawlenty.  The fact there will be tax cuts has already leaked out and we hear several tax cuts are in the mix to help stimulate the economy. We already have the speech, but can't tell you anything about it because it's embargoed until delivery (and we in the press do actually honor such requests :).  I am going to read it now because I didn't want to read it before blogging in case I accidently leaked content.