Minneapolis City Council overrides mayor’s veto of 2025 budget

The Minneapolis City Council enacted its 2025 budget on Thursday, after overturning a veto by Mayor Jacob Frey.

The budget includes a 6.9 percent property tax levy increase for residents. The council amended that from an 8.3 percent levy increase in the mayor’s original budget proposal. The council lowered the levy in part by cutting spending on technology programming, and nixing raises for some of the city’s highest-paid staff. 

But the council’s budget also added more than $6 million in new spending. Frey had vetoed it, criticizing that spending as unvetted and unnecessary.

Council members supporting the budget said that money is going towards services residents want, like addressing homelessness, environmental protections, support for workers and funding for services for immigrant residents. 

“The mayor’s proposed budget was completely … out of touch with the most pressing needs of our residents, especially those residing in our most underserved and under resourced communities,” said Council member Robin Wonsley.

Following the vote, Frey said he’d hoped council members would reconsider some of the new spending.

“They’re benevolent uses of cash that I’m sure we would all want to fund, but you have to provide the core basic city service first. And the problem that I see is… they cut the needs and then added the wants,” Frey said.

Frey said the cuts threaten police recruitment programs, homeless encampment prevention and clearing and services like plowing and pothole-filling.

Some council members agreed. Council member Linea Palmisano voted against the budget, and said the cuts were irresponsible.

“All we have done is kick a budget crisis down the road — maybe to next year, maybe to another council — but eventually these bills come due, and that’s on us,” Palmisano said.

It was an unusual budgeting cycle. Council members added more than 70 amendments to the mayor’s proposed document, which the mayor and some council members said was far more than usual.

It’s also the first time Frey has vetoed a budget from the council.

Frey urged the council to be more stringent with spending this year, anticipating a potential decline in federal funding in 2025. He said money from the federal American Rescue Plan went a long way over the last few years, and it won’t be renewed. He noted President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to cut funding to cities harboring undocumented immigrants, like Minneapolis.

Several other jurisdictions around the state are also hiking up property taxes to ease the funding gap. St. Paul is considering an increase, too.

The council overturned the veto with a 9-4 vote. The same nine council members had voted in favor of that budget earlier this week; Council member Andrea Jenkins had also voted in favor but voted Thursday not to override the veto. Nine votes are the minimum needed to override a mayoral veto.

The council also took up the mayor’s veto of a resolution supporting non-violent protesters at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. Council members had authored the resolution in support of students arrested during an occupation of Morrill Hall demanding that the school divest from Israel. Those students are now facing suspension.

Frey vetoed the measure, saying the occupation was not peaceful or protected speech.

The council voted 7-6 to override the veto, falling short of the two-thirds vote threshold. Council members stuck to their original votes on the issue.

Council members pointed to a trend of increasing disagreements between their body and the mayor’s office, following the budget process in which both bodies accused the other of recklessness, miscommunication and politically motivated choices.

Council member Jeremiah Ellison said he thought the mayor missed opportunities to collaborate better — but called on the council to make improvements in the new year, too.

“I think both sides of the government, of our government, need to sort of look in the mirror and figure out how we’re going to mitigate some of the fighting,” Ellison said. “I think that it would behoove the mayor to give some phone calls over the holiday. I think it would behoove us to give the mayor and some of his staff some phone calls over the holidays.”