The longest-running government shutdown in Minnesota’s history ended on Wednesday morning when Gov. Mark Dayton singed all the budget bills for a new two-year state budget into law, although local Republican lawmakers had mixed reactions to the budget.

The agreed-upon budget allows the state to spend about $35.7 billion, an increase in spending over the previous biennium.

Dayton said after he had signed the budget bills into law that he thought what was not in them was notable- no ban on stem cell research, no ban on abortion, no ending of tenure for teachers, and no other Republican-sponsored social proposals that Dayton refused to support. He also lamented there is not tax increase for the state's top wage earners.

He took aim at Republicans and fired away, demanding future tax increases to fund spending increases.

“I raised revenues responsibly and sustainably," he said. "They were not willing to raise taxes.”

Republicans, instead of agreeing to fund the increased state spending with a tax increase, decided on $700 million in tobacco bond borrowing and $700 million in school shift borrowing.

Dayton also insisted on passage of a $500 million bonding bill that he said would put Minnesotan's back to work.

Rep. Ernie Leidiger, a Mayer Republican, was not happy with the final budget. On his drive into St. Paul on Tuesday for the special session that Dayton called, Liediger said he thought the budget didn’t accomplish enough spending cuts.

“What you’re doing is growing government. You’re sucking money out of the private sector,” he said. “This amounts to an increase in spending that I can’t support. I will not vote for this.”

Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Joe Hoppe, a Chaska Republican, said in e-mail correspondence that although he was “not thrilled with the budget deal” he would nevertheless vote for it during special session. Sen. Julianne Ortman, a Chanhassen Republican and chair of the Senate tax committee, said she would vote for it, too.

“We have to get the state back to work,” she said.

The state government officially shut down on July 1 because legislative Republicans and the Democratic governor were unable to agree on a budget during the Legislature’s regular session. Lawmakers need to eliminate the $5 billion deficit in the state’s two-year budget cycle for 2012-13, which began on July 1. Without a budget, on July 1, 22,000 state employees were laid off, hundreds of state offices closed, state websites were taken down, road construction projects were halted, state parks closed, and numerous other services the required state government funding stopped.

With a new two-year budget in place, the flow of dollars to state agencies now begins on Thursday morning.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Legislators commonly use public school funding as a means to save the state money by changing the formula the state uses to reimburse schools for the cost of educating students. For the current year, the state pays 70 percent and holds back 30 percent until the following year. The new budget proposal would change that to a 60-40 shift in education funding.

Local school districts seem to be all right with the shift, and they have made plans to deal with cash flow issues that might arise.

As a result of recent school board decisions, Minnetonka School District has approximately $13.5 million in additional liquidity to handle cash flow issues, according to Janet Swiecichowski, executive director of communications. District 112 Superintendent Jim Bauck said his district would likely need to borrow money as early as next spring. The state has also promised to allocate $50 per pupil to cover any interest expense that school districts incur as a cost of borrowing due to the education funding shift.