Dayton threatens to veto education budget bill if no preschool

Gov. Mark Dayton on Saturday threatened the veto of any education budget bill if legislative leaders do not include universal preschool and $150 million more for education above the level included in a deal announced Friday.

The veto threat is the latest turn in a fast-dwindling legislative session that appeared to be coming to a conclusion Friday night when legislative leaders announced an agreement. Dayton, however, immediately objected to the deal that Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, and House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crow, announced.

Dayton is standing firm on his universal preschool proposal, and he also said the education budget target of $400 million is too low.

"I'm going to veto $400 million because it's wrong for the people of Minnesota, for the parents of Minnesota, and for the schoolchildren of Minnesota -- it's wrong," Dayton said Saturday in a news conference.

In an effort to compromise, he said he agreed to reduce his original proposal of $694 million in new spending. All-day universal preschool represented more than half of that in his budget request, but his latest offer is to scale that back to half-day programming.

"It's just nonsensical that they won't agree to another $150 million for better-quality education," Dayton said.