Disappointed in a 2024 legislative session that ended with no bonding bill, Greater Minnesota organizations are encouraging the Legislature to focus on funds for infrastructure projects as this year’s session gets underway.
The Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities and the League of Minnesota Cities, whose requests often overlap, plan to push lawmakers to pass a bonding bill, which would allow the state to borrow funds for local projects, early in the session.
Ideally, that legislation would pass early in the session, said Bradley Peterson, executive director of the CGMC. “This is unfinished business from last year,” he said.
“Front and center for us is the bonding bill,” said Anne Finn, the LMC’s intergovernmental relations director. “Cities really depend on capital investment by the state to complete projects that local taxpayers can’t always foot the bill for. And those include pots of money for things like roads, bridges, water and wastewater infrastructure, housing and the local road wetland replacement fund.”
State economists forecast the surplus for the next state budget to be $616 million, which would be $1.1 billion less than what was projected for the 2025-26 budget period at the end of the 2024 legislative session.
Peterson said he fears people will view bonding as “dessert” rather than, as the coalition believes, one of the larger needs for many Greater Minnesota communities.
“They didn’t get to dessert last year,” he said. “We challenge the premise that dessert implies that it’s … a cherry on top where we know that it funds core infrastructure in terms of water, wastewater, transportation.”
He said things like water and wastewater projects would be a priority if funding was limited. The coalition is asking for $299 million to be put toward public facilities programs that fund water and wastewater grants and loans.
There’s an added layer of uncertainty as the legislative session began without a clear partisan majority in both the House and Senate. In the Senate, DFL leaders on Monday announced an agreement to share power until a special election is held for one of the seats. But it was unclear if House members would come together in a bipartisan manner.
Emergency medical service
Last year, both organizations pressed the Legislature to approve funding for Emergency Medical Service delivery in Greater Minnesota. The Legislature granted $24 million — around $100 million less than had been originally asked for.
The pressure is still on, Peterson said.
“The issue has not gone away. I don’t know that it’s changed a lot, but last year’s injection of money definitely helped. But again, that was just one time. And so we need to try to figure out, ‘What can we do here over the long term to sustain and stabilize these systems?’” Peterson said.
Finn said LMC has identified other issues with EMS service delivery around the state, including staffing and response-time challenges. She said she will be looking toward the new Minnesota EMS agency that replaced the prior regulatory board to see how the agency helps with the persisting difficulties for EMS systems.
Local Government Aid
The groups are also looking for an increase in the amount of aid that goes to local governments.
The Local Government Aid program, which has existed since 1972, distributes state funds to cities annually based on a formula, which has changed throughout the years. In 2023, the Legislature increased the total LGA appropriation by $80 million to $644.4 million. A similar program exists for counties.
Peterson and Finn said local governments are feeling the impacts of higher costs for employees and operations, so they would push for an inflationary increase in LGA built in over time rather than a set amount per year.
“There were significant levy increases around the state during the past budget cycle, and there are a lot of pressures on local budgets, the biggest one being that local governments are employers,” Finn said. “The cost of staffing our cities is growing because of demand and labor market, along with the cost of things like health insurance.”
Local housing control
The groups are also keeping their eye on zoning issues. Last year, a proposal referred to as the “missing middle” that sought to promote the construction of more types of housing in traditional single-family neighborhoods did not move forward.
That proposal — backed by Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as social justice organizations and chambers of commerce — aimed to provide more housing and density in urban areas by requiring cities and suburbs to allow duplexes, triplexes and other housing options in single-family zones.
It would have made it more difficult for local governments to block or delay apartment construction in commercially zoned areas. The LMC and CGMC were among the groups that objected to that bill, worrying that it would infringe on local control of zoning decisions.
“We very much acknowledge that there is a shortage of housing in our state and cities want to be part of the solution. What cities don’t want is for the Legislature to impose one-size-fits-all all policies on local governments,” Finn said. “Specifically, we’re concerned about removal of local decision-making authority related to land use and zoning.”