Mid-December not only marks the beginning of the holiday season for many. For cities, it’s also typically the end of budget season.
Like tense family gatherings over the holidays, this budget cycle in the Twin Cities came with its fair share of disagreements — to say the least. While Minneapolis budgeting was messy, long and eventful, those paying attention saw the city’s 2025 budget wrapped before going on holiday break.
The same could not be said for St. Paul. Going into Christmas week, MinnPost was still trying to figure out which version of the budget would be sent to the state Dec. 30: the first one passed by the City Council or a later version that included line-item vetoes by Mayor Melvin Carter. The confusion centered around a timing snafu.
In St. Paul’s case, a day made all the difference. The mayor claimed the council was a day too late to override his vetoes. At the same time, council President Mitra Jalali believed the council’s veto stood because it was before the Dec. 30 deadline to deliver the budget to the state.
On Wednesday of last week, Carter’s office restated in an email that the mayor’s line-item-vetoed budget had prevailed and the council’s override vote was rendered moot. A city spokesperson said in the email: “Any action taken past the Dec. 18 at 11:59 p.m. deadline is unenforceable.”
However, last week, Jalali maintained that the council had successfully overridden the budget with Carter’s vetoes.
“The council’s position is that we acted as quickly as possible within our authority and well within state law of the deadline… Items came to us after the last meeting of the year, and in contradiction of previous communication,” she said.
MinnPost has continued to try to clarify this discrepancy over the last few weeks and last Thursday requested a copy of the city’s final submitted budget. That had not yet arrived at the time this story was posted on Monday.
Here’s a timeline of what went down:
Dec. 11: Before City Council budget deliberation, Carter proposed a budget compromise after the council had rejected his prior proposal. However, the majority of the council ultimately shot down Carter’s counterproposal and moved forward with its own budget. Notably, Carter has five business days to veto council action, per the city’s charter. This meant Carter’s power to veto budget items expired at end of day Dec. 18.
Dec. 18: Prior to the City Council’s regularly scheduled meeting, Carter sent an email urging council members to change particular items in the budget the council passed the week before. The mayor told the council that all changes to the budget needed to be completed by this day, per the charter. The council made no changes, and immediately after it adjourned Carter issued his line-item vetoes.
Dec. 19: The council held a special meeting to address Carter’s vetoes and voted to override all of them. This meeting was placed on the council’s schedule a week in advance.
Dec. 30: The day Carter’s office says is the state deadline to deliver the final city budget.
More about the vetoes
Through his line-item vetoes, Carter cut $2.3 million from the council’s nearly $390 million budget. The largest cut was $1.8 million intended for council office renovations.
The mayor said the renovations were unnecessary and put this funding toward non-emergency police overtime, which was at the heart of much of the city’s budget debate. The mayor’s office has said “non-emergency” police overtime is necessary for things like back-filling patrol shifts for officers away on military or medical leave, time-sensative investigations and testifying in criminal trials. Jalali said at the meeting held a day after the Dec. 18 deadline Carter cited as a reason he believes the override vote is moot that the renovations were meant to make the offices more accessible to those with disabilities.
An additional four line-item vetoes went toward Carter’s goal to rehire a new director for the city’s Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity (HREEO), a job he says is required under the charter. To fund that position, he vetoed $160,000 in funding for street festival security costs, $50,000 for the council’s audit committee and $15,000 for the St. Paul Children’s Collaborative, a group of local agencies that plans and coordinates local services for children. Carter also vetoed the decision to eliminate $227,000 budgeted for the HREEO director.
Carter also directed city department leaders to prepare to freeze new hiring and contracting across all city departments.
What the state says about it
The Office of the State Auditor’s legal team declined to comment on an interpretation of the city’s charter in this situation. However, under state statute, the city’s legal counsel could request a legal opinion from the state attorney general’s office.
In the past, the AG’s office has indicated that a city council is the entity that should interpret its charter and ordinances, with assistance from a city attorney if legal interpretations are needed.
So at the halfway point of the first month of the year, the uncertainty over St. Paul’s budget disagreement continues even as checks need to be cut and city operations must continue. MinnPost will continue to provide updates on the situation as more is learned.
Winter Keefer
Winter Keefer is MinnPost’s Metro reporter. Follow her on Twitter or email her at wkeefer@minnpost.com.
