Minnesota officials working to gauge effects of federal shutdown

Minnesota officials say they're crunching the numbers to see what possible effects the federal government shutdown could have on state agencies.

Myron Frans, Minnesota's commissioner of Management and Budget, told MPR News on Sunday that he doesn't expect any immediate impact to state employees or services — if the shutdown just lasts a few days, like most of them have in recent years.

If it stretches beyond that time frame, Frans said it will be difficult to coordinate projects and programs that rely on federal funding and resources.

"The problem is, obviously, in many cases there's no one there to give us very many answers, so we have to look at what advice they sent out on Friday night" before the shutdown took effect," he said. "So we're looking through that federal advice that we got Friday night from agencies that were shutting down, and hopefully that will give us some clue as to what payments may or may not be made in the next week or two."

Frans said areas of state government depending on federal money, from agriculture to disaster relief, could be among the first areas to eventually see the effects of the shutdown.

"We haven't had (a federal shutdown) that's extended more than a week or so for quite some time, he said, "and so what's we're doing now is we're having all of the state agencies contact the federal agencies that they work with and get the information about how those agencies that have been shut down will affect the ... state agency."

Frans said the state is closely monitoring the status of the Internal Revenue Service because Minnesota's tax filing season — which typically starts at the end of January — cannot open until the IRS filing season opens.