Minnesota state legislators held back on spending during this year’s 2024 Legislative Session and didn’t accomplish everything counties were hoping for.

That was the conclusion during the Minnesota Inter-County Association’s  (MICA) recap to the Sherburne County Board last week.

MICA Executive Director Matt Massman, Steve Novak (Transportation) and Nancy Silesky (Health & Human Services) gave the commissioners an update on the most recent session and how it might affect future fiscal years.

Massman said although the state had a projected surplus of $3.715 going into the session, lawmakers were reluctant to use most of those funds.

“Legislative leaders were all discouraging a significant amount of new commitment of spending in 2024,” he said. “One of the reasons is the state has a structural imbalance projected for the years going out. There’s an anticipation that less will come in the biennium for revenues than what is projected to be spent on state programs under current law.”

Massman said the state spent a total of just $424 million, with about 25% of that going to cover costs of the Tyler settlement where the state is reimbursing property owners for counties kept from tax forfeited properties.

But because the state spent just a fraction of the surplus, the projected future surplus should be strong, said Massman.

“The 2024 legislative session ended the session with a more positive near-term budget balance than I think I’ve ever seen in my career in terms of money on the bottom line,” he said. “They left $3.291 billion for 2025.”

The downside is that a tax bill with a number of provisions for one-time increases in local government aid, local sales tax authority, some construction material exemptions Soil & Water Conservation District aid, homeless prevention aid and changes to SCORE didn’t pass.

“None of those things happened in 2024,” he said. “The house and senate were unable to reach a consensus on any provisions except child care tax and a package of changes for the Iron Range.”

Steve Novak said very little was spent on transportation this session - just under $120 million. The two most important decisions that will help Sherburne County and other counties are a $15 million allocation to the state road construction fund and another $15 million to the Corridors of Commerce program.

Novak said legislators did manage to revise policy language in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment that will help future road and bridge projects get approved.

He said there has been a movement to try to mitigate the effects of global warming that was affecting how projects were approved. The new language  retains public safety as the top priority for future road and bridge projects.

Novak said neither bonding bill was passed.

“There was probably about $100 million that would have been allocated to county roads, county bridges and local wetland replacement programs. They did not happen,” he said. “That puts them on the top of the list for things we hope happen in 2025.”