Session crossroads: Deadlines loom, budget decisions near, sports stadium requests simmer
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Crunch time has arrived at the Minnesota Capitol as the Legislature puts thousands of bills through a funnel, including budget requests and some proposals seeking a state lift for sports stadium renovations.
It’s all coming amid repeat warnings from politicians of a tight budget and a partisan layout that could make anything nonessential a tougher endeavor.
Leaders of the House and Senate both released their budget frameworks in recent days. Lawmakers will spend the next few weeks filling in the details, but the competing plans share an intention of shaving projected spending by hundreds of millions of dollars in the next two years.
That could make it far more difficult for items that aren’t deemed critical.
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In St. Paul, officials say the Xcel Energy Center needs a facelift, in Hennepin County, officials want to keep a sales tax going that can update Target Field, and in Minneapolis, officials would like money to update the outside of U.S. Bank Stadium.
“Whether or not it happens this is yet to be seen, but I think it’s good to hear the proposals,” House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said on MPR’s Politics Friday about the various sports requests.
Her DFL counterpart, Caucus Leader Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park, advised that local sales taxes might be the better route for those asking for sports facility help.
In the last week, local officials, sports teams and organizations that run the stadiums have all presented their requests to the Minnesota Legislature. They’re making their pitches when the state faces a looming budget deficit in coming years.
“We’re going to argue that that’s a pretty good investment,” said St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, talking about a $769 million project that would revamp the Xcel Energy Center, the Roy Wilkins Auditorium and the RiverCentre.
St. Paul and the Minnesota Wild are asking for around $395 million from the state to fund the renovations
“It’s a large number until you compare it to the number and problem we’d be trying to figure out together if we had to, like, tear the whole thing down and rebuild it from scratch,” Carter said. “And it’s a large number until you compare it to the return on investment that taxpayers get when they invest in this facility, as I talk about, the opportunity to invest, make a one time investment that secures half a billion dollars in economic impact every single year in this state for the next 30 years.”
Sen. Sandy Pappas chairs the Senate Capital Investment Committee. The St. Paul DFLer doesn’t quite see the need or the urgency in the same way.
“There’s only so much money that we have to go around,” she told MPR News last week. “So I do think that we have to prioritize. And as I said, the arena is only 25 years old, and perhaps, you know, in another five or 10 years, we may see that that’s the top need."
Pappas and others will have to make similar decisions on a U.S. Bank Stadium request for funding to upgrade their outdoor security setup, on a request for a Ferris wheel at CHS Field in St. Paul, and others.
A request to extend a 0.15 percent sales tax in Hennepin County for Target Field, and to help fund two hospitals, is likely not getting a look this session, after a key legislator said the plan wasn’t ready.
The tax currently collects about $55 million a year, and the county has proposed keeping it going after the stadium is paid for.
Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, chairs the Senate Taxes Committee.
“They don’t have a good plan in place,” she said. “They’ve been negotiating for months, and haven’t been able to come up with that good plan. I applaud their efforts, but they didn’t get there.”
A proposal to legalize sports betting also faces a rocky road this legislative session. Demuth and Hortman both predicted it would have a hard time passing this legislative session.
The requests come as legislative committees approach their first and second deadlines this coming Friday.
The deadlines mean that any policy bill must be passed by committees in the chamber where they were introduced. It's basically a way of getting the legislative session more focused on passing bills, and, more importantly, a budget.
April 11 — the following Friday — is the deadline for acting on appropriation and finance bills.
While those things will help to focus the session from here on out, so will the release of budget targets for committees. Those targets will give committees a good idea of the ceilings for any fiscal decisions they’ll be making this session.
Senate DFLers put out their budget targets ahead of a meeting between leaders in both chambers and the governor Friday afternoon, a move to open negotiations. Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said it demonstrates her caucus’ priorities.
“It is necessary for the Senate to come to the table with a proposal, and we need our House colleagues to come to the table with their proposal,” Murphy said. “When we’ve all put that on the table, we can begin the work of the budget.”
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, was critical of the framework and said it doesn’t target the right areas for cuts.
In the tied House, there is a joint set of budget goals now on the table.
Republican and DFL leaders in the House say they'll aim to shave about $1.15 billion in costs over the next two years. Most of that would come by slowing inflationary spending growth in programs. Cuts would come in health and social service programs while education and housing would see modest increases.
By comparison, the Senate DFL is seeking about $750 million in overall reductions in the next two years.
Both proposals would result in additional pullbacks down the road, which could be necessary to head off a deficit that could arise by 2029 without a change in course.
During the joint MPR’s Politics Friday appearance with Demuth — ahead of Saturday’s release of the chamber’s budget targets — Hortman said Democrats and Republicans decided to unify around a framework rather than come up with competing blueprints.
“I’ll be, of course, forced into the position of being a bit of a double agent because I’m in the House. But I’m a Democrat. And the Democrats are in control of the Senate, and Democrats are in control of the governor’s office. So of course, I’ll have some natural alliances there,” she said. “But once the team in the House figures out our budget targets, that is what we will fight for together, I think that will be really healthy for the institution.”
MPR News politics reporter Dana Ferguson contributed to this story.