1410 WIZM

Minnesota's top leaders have no budget negotiations scheduled on Thursday as the state's government shutdown reaches the end of its first week.

Democratic Governor Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders met with others Thursday morning to discuss funding and policy for public schools, but  they didn't discuss the overall budget picture.

The education meeting came a day after Dayton and top lawmakers met without making headway on resolving their long-running dispute over spending and taxes.

Senate Majority Leader Amy Kochis pushing to wrap up the schools bill, but Dayton is holding out for an overall budget deal.

His latest offer asks Republicans to choose between a temporary income tax hike for top earners or a $1-a-pack cigarette tax increase. They reject both options.

All kinds of ways for local governments to save money. The latest method in Wisconsin: cutting back on places to vote. At least some municipalities in the state are playing that card as a way to cut back on costs during the upcoming recall election primaries on Tuesday. The state says some are scaling back on the numbers of polling places for those six senate districts that have primaries. In the 32nd senate district, only a few municipalities have more than one polling area, with La Crosse having by far the most at 17. All of which, says city clerk, Teri Lehrke, will be open on Tuesday for primary voting from 7 in the morning until 8 at night.

There looks to be a third year of Lacrosse Spartan Football next year. At a board meeting of the Lacrosse Center yesterday, Art Fahey says he met briefly with Spartans GM, Chris Kokalis, and his plans are to hit the ground running again in 2012. Fahey says the Spartans would like to see an increase in attendance next year, and with the added wins the team got this year, Fahey says things could be looking good for the IFL team. Kokalis is currently assembling a schedule which would go the center for their approval then it would go to the IFL for final approval. The team is looking at 7 or 8 home games next season, beginning possibly in late January.

Paying for overtime and contract work that accrued during the tornado cleanup in May and up until now.....got a bit easier yesterday for the city's public works department. They voted to approve taking a half a million dollars from the city's reserve fund to pay those bills. It now has to pass the finance committee and the full city council.

Public Work's Director, Dale Hexom, says they state may reimburse the city for some of those monies.......but not all. He says the entire process can be a headache.

But not for private damage that property owners originally thought they would get. The monies would go towards overtime expenses and then out of pocket expenses for replacement of sidewalks, street damage, and some of the Green Island Ice arena. It received $300 thousand worth of damage alone