May 11, 2021
The Constitutionally mandated adjournment date of May 17th is feeling less and less like the hard deadline to set the state’s next biennial budget. While this legislative session will end next Monday, the real pressure point for lawmakers is June 30th, the date after which the state would go into a partial government shutdown if a new budget has not been passed. With guidance on how federal relief funds can be spent arriving yesterday there will now be a scramble for Senate and House counsel to sift through the guidance and advise legislators of their options. The $2.8 billion Minnesota is set to receive via the American Rescue Plan has been a sticking point in ongoing budget negotiations, and with guidance finally in hand, there may be an opening for a deal.
Speaker Hortman and Majority Leader Gazelka had set a deadline of last Friday (May 7th) to agree to joint budget targets to allow their Conference Committees one week to finalize and pass their omnibus bills. But that deadline has come and gone and we are still waiting for signs of agreement from the two leaders. The legislature has not passed a two-year budget without going into a special session since 2013, and it is very much looking like 2021 will follow this trend.
EDAM remains in contact with Conferees as we try to advance base funding for the Redevelopment Program at DEED.
As a reminder, the ten Conferees for the Workforce and Business Development Conference Committee are:
Senate Conferees:
House Conferees: