Minnesota legislators closer to budget agreement, but special session still likely

ST. PAUL (KVRR) — On Thursday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced that a budget deal was close to being reached, but it ended up falling short of the needed support to pass.

The state legislature has less than 4 full days left in the regular session to come to an agreement on a budget, making a special session likely.

State Senator Rob Kupec told KVRR News that while the budget debate continues, several bills that have been passed are stuck in committee due to a lack of joint spending targets between the house and the senate.

But even though a final agreement on the budget wasn’t reached on Thursday, Kupec says progress has been made on those spending targets.

“On the senate side we passed, basically, all our bills and their waiting to go to conference committee,” Kupec said. “Those conference committees have been held up because we didn’t have joint spending targets. So the house said, ‘We can spend this much,’ and the senate said, ‘This much,’ and they weren’t in alignment. So the agreement this morning did get us that alignment of budgets.”

The legislature’s regular session ends at midnight on Monday.