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Minnesota lawmakers are preparing to work through the holiday weekend to complete budget bills and get ready for a possible special legislative session next week.

The bulk of a $66 billion, two-year budget remained unfinished on Thursday as legislators met largely behind closed doors to resolve disagreements about how to fund health and social services programs, public schools, taxes and other areas of state government.

“Even though it is slower than we would like, things are going well,” Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth said. “It doesn’t appear like anyone has quit or given up, and that’s a very good sign.”

Demuth said while some working groups are operating in “methodical” fashion, all are making progress in their own way.

Lawmakers have a July 1 deadline to complete the remainder of the budget or face a partial government shutdown. Layoff notices for employees in government programs and agencies not funded would have to go out June 1.

“Human beings are deadline driven,” DFL House Leader Melissa Hortman said, predicting that the pressure would build as May draws to a close.

Pieces of the remaining bills started to surface on Thursday, with legislative groups meeting publicly for the first time to show their work. A human services committee was set to unveil its agreement Thursday afternoon and a jobs and economic development panel planned to present its budget Thursday evening.

An education policy working group made public its proposed changes for public preschool through high school programs. But it didn’t have its funding plan completed as of Thursday afternoon.

The policy plan adds to the power of the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Education during fraud investigations. The bill also allows all school districts to start their 2026-27 and 2027-28 academic years on or after Sept. 1 given the later Labor Day in those years. 

Absent from the agreement are any changes to the cell phone use policy in schools, which will leave it up to districts to write their own rather than have one statewide model.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz met with working groups Wednesday evening to start expediting budget bills that got stuck. With a narrowly DFL-led Senate and tied House, each working group faced challenges ironing out compromise deals that could satisfy members from each chamber and each political party.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said the tied House created an especially unique dynamic in negotiations.

“The House is coming in like a two-headed monster. The Democrats have a perspective and they're offering spreadsheets, and the Republicans have a perspective and they're offering spreadsheets, and then the Senate is in a place of having to try and mediate those differences and offer their own perspective,” Murphy said. “So it’s been more challenging than usual to be able to sew all of that together.”

Hortman and Demuth laughed off the characterization, but said their co-chairs were working in tandem to uphold agreement terms and fight for positions passed by the House.

All three leaders said they canceled holiday weekend plans to finish outstanding budget bills. They said they expected key lawmakers would do the same.

“I was supposed to go to the cabin this weekend. I’m not to make sure we get our stuff done,” Murphy said. “We are making slow and steady progress ironing out our differences in a way that I hope means that we'll be able to get to work of a special session soon.”

On Wednesday, Walz said the soonest he’d be able to call a special session is early next week. He said lawmakers seemed eager to complete their bills and return to take votes.

“I think most of them want to finish it up, you know, because by that point in time, the differences have been put aside. It doesn't mean they've been solved. They've just been put aside for now, and we finish this up,” Walz told TPT’s “Almanac at the Capitol.”

Hortman said there hasn’t been a firm deadline given to the panels that haven’t finished their bills. They had initially been instructed to wrap up by Wednesday evening or face intervention by leadership.

“We haven’t given them a new deadline to blow,” she said.

Dana Ferguson

Author

Clay Masters

Peter Cox

Some working groups dribbled out details of their budget bills Thursday after meeting in private to craft them. The largest pieces of Minnesota’s more than $66 billion budget remained unfinished.

Minnesota lawmakers prepare for working weekend after blowing self-imposed deadline

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