Little Progress After Fifth Day of Minnesota Shutdown

yielded little progress toward resolution. Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican lawmakers met for the first time since last week.

At odds are a $1.7 billion difference between the budgets proposed for biennium 2011-13 and, more specifically, how to close it.

GOP leaders on Tuesday again asked Dayton to call a special legislative session to pass a lights-on bill that would provide temporary funding and allow the state government to resume operations for an additional 10 days.

"The shutdown was unnecessary," Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R-Buffalo) told reporters assembled outside the governor’s office. "We want the parks open and construction going."

But while Dayton called the talks "constructive" and said he would consider "anything" to achieve progress, his stance on the lights-on bill remained unchanged. With Republicans sticking to their $34 billion-dollar budget, Dayton said he isn’t hopeful.

"We have the same gulf between us that we have always had," Dayton said Tuesday.

Dayton said the K-12 Education and Health and Human Services bills would receive special scrutiny this Wednesday and Thursday, owing to their complexity and size.

Dayton said he reached out over the weekend to a handful of moderate Republicans—but wouldn’t divulge which legislators he contacted—to break the budget impasse.

The parties are scheduled to meet again Wednesday afternoon in the governor’s office.