Good morning, and happy Wednesday. Here’s the Digest.

1. As legislative Republicans try to free up money for a big tax cut, school funding and road construction, they're looking to cut projected spending growth in other places. And they're betting they can find hundreds of millions of dollars by ensuring people are really eligible for subsidized health care programs. Gov. Mark Dayton and other Democrats are skeptical the savings will materialize. (MPR News)

2.A House and Senate conference committee unveiled Tuesday a two-year education budget proposal that includes $303 million in new moneyand that would bringstate spending the next two years on public schools to $18.6 billion.That’s more than lawmakers in either chamber initially wanted to spend, but their latest proposal is less than half the $713 million in new money Gov. Mark Dayton wants.The bill also includes a number of fundingchanges and policy provisions Dayton has said he opposes, including shifting money away from one of his key priorities: public preschool. (Pioneer Press)

3. Dayton may have the public behind him as he enters budget negotiations. He enters his final 18 months in office with the highest job approval rating of his tenure, according to a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll. More than three out of five Minnesotans - 62 percent - approve of Dayton’s performance, according to the poll. It’s the DFL governor’s highest approval rating in a Minnesota Poll since he took office at the beginning of 2011, and also higher than he ever scored in the poll as a U.S. senator from 2001 to 2006. That’s likely to embolden Dayton as he grapples with the Republican-controlled Legislature over the state budget. (Star Tribune)

4.The federal government says Minnesota is failing to provide adequate dental care to low-income children and risks losing funding. Some dentists say they can’t afford to provide care for patients on government programs, and Minnesota is among the states with the lowest reimbursement rates.Many Minnesota dentists limit the number of patients on government programs, or refuse to accept any Medicaid patients. Access is a problem for children and adult Medicaid patients, but the federal focus is on care for children. Federal regulators told state officials that they must devise an improvement plan within 90 days. (MPR News)

5.The former chairman of one of the House committees that drafted legislation to repeal and replace large parts of the Affordable Care Act came out against a new version of the bill on Tuesday, saying the measure now "torpedoes" protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee as the Affordable Care Act repeal movement built steam, declared on a local radio show, "I cannot support the bill with this provision in it," just as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan was insisting that the legislation would protect the sick. (New York Times)