Minnesota Government Shutdown Ends

Minnesota’s three-week state government shutdown ended Wednesday, which will allow its interstate highway rest areas to reopen, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

Gov. Mark Dayton (D) signed a budget Wednesday morning that state lawmakers had worked on overnight, the newspaper reported on its website.

Minnesota had kept its highway rest areas and commercial driver’s license credentialing closed during the shutdown, which began July 1.

The shutdown began when the state ran out of appropriated funds because and the Republican-controlled state legislature failed to agree on a budget, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

The shutdown end means that 22,000 laid-off state employees will be able to begin returning to work, the Pioneer Press said.

Late last week the two sides reached a tentative agreement that involved borrowing $1.4 billion from school districts and selling bonds to be repaid with future tobacco settlement revenue, the paper reported.