on July 14 that he would accept the last Republican offer before the shutdown, albeit with certain conditions. The Republican offer called for an approximately $35 billion budget and no tax increases, and relied on delaying the payment of some K-12 school aid and issuing bonds against future tobacco revenue to cover the remaining gap. It differed from the previous Republican proposals in several provisions, particularly increasing the K-12 per-student formula by $50 per year to cover additional borrowing costs, adding $10 million to the University of Minnesota budget to equalize Minnesota State Colleges and Universities cuts, and restoring funding to the Department of Human Rights and the Trade Office. Dayton's conditions were that measures on social issues such as abortion be dropped from the budget, 15 percent reductions to state employees in all agencies be dropped, and a $500 million infrastructure construction bonding bill. When a final agreement was reached with the Republican legislative leadership, Dayton called a special session of the legislature on July 19. The legislature met on July 20 and passed the budget bills, which were signed the same day by the governor. Most state employees returned to work on July 21, facing a backlog of unfinished work and new problems in many agencies. After the budget was passed, Dayton said he approached Republicans again after meeting with ordinary citizens—who said they wanted government services to resume and did not care how the shutdown was ended—and because he feared a worse budget deal and unease in the DFL legislative minorities. Zellers said when the deal was finalized that in his view it was "a deal that we can all be disappointed in, but a deal that is done, a budget that was balanced". His sentiments that a 'balanced' budget needed to be passed, and that both sides had something to be unhappy about, were echoed by Koch. Political influence According to a MinnPost poll, Minnesotans blamed the Republican legislature more for the shutdown. Overall, 42% said Republicans in the legislature were more responsible, 21% said the DFL governor was more responsible, and 22% volunteered an answer that they were equally to blame. As expected, partisans blamed the other party more; only 10% of Republicans blamed the legislature more, and only 2% of DFLers blamed Dayton more. Following the shutdown, DFL Representative Phyllis Kahn authored a continuing appropriations bill that would prevent government shutdowns in the event