In Minnesota, the State Senate recently approved a seven percent cut to public safety and corrections. The public safety omnibus-spending bill failed its first Senate floor vote. Senate Democrats faced serious challenges in terms of getting their members to go along with the cuts. But eleven Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill when it was finally approved 34-31 on a second vote. The State Senate also approved a state government spending bill that makes 5 percent cuts to the governor’s office, the Legislature and other state government offices.

That vote was 59-6. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty had backed the cuts to state government operations. But he set aside public safety as one of the few areas that should be protected from cuts in the effort to balance the state’s two-year budget.

“These are tough bills,” Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis told the Associated Press in a recent interview. “Whenever you’re reducing spending, there are people who don’t want to vote for that.” No one wanted to be pegged as the legislator that voted to cut public safety spending, but the financial realities of the state budget forced the issue.

Sen. Linda Higgins of Minneapolis admitted that making the cuts was difficult. “We had to balance public safety and a fiscal crisis. We have tried to do our best to balance those two items,” Higgins told reporters. Among other drastic measures designed to offset financial problems, the state spending bill instructs the Departments of Public Safety and Corrections to reduce their fleets of vehicles by 20 percent.

The operating budgets for agencies including the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Homeland Security will be slashed by seven percent. While seven percent cuts to the state’s prison system would be softened by $30 million in federal stimulus money, the bill will most likely mean staff reductions.

The portion of the bill that would have required offenders to serve 60 percent of their sentences in prison, lower than the current two-thirds, was removed from the bill during the floor debate.

The debate in Minnesota is reflective of a larger trend across the country where state legislatures are finding it hard to maintain policies often referred to as “tough on crime,” that come with heavy price tags in terms of enforcement and subsequent incarceration.

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