Are there limits on how much a governor can unallot?
The only restriction, according to Joel Michael of the House Research Department, is that unallotment cuts cannot be greater than the amount of the projected revenue shortfall. And the size of that number is up to the governor’s commissioner of Finance (now the Department of Management and Budget). There are limits on the governor’s power to unallot funding for certain state government functions, however. Pawlenty can cut funding for the state’s constitutional offices–governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, and attorney general–as long as the cuts don’t require the essential duties of each to be transferred to other bodies. But the governor cannot unallot the legislative or judicial branches.
