Legislative Update - May 21, 2025

By – Joel Crandall, President & CEO, MnTech

What’s happening in the session?

Yesterday, the 2025 session of the Minnesota Legislature came to its constitutionally mandated close at 11:59 p.m. without reaching an agreement on a state budget for fiscal years 2026-2027.

With lawmakers almost evenly divided between parties (101 Democrats, 100 Republicans), compromise has been hard to come by, particularly as it relates to thorny issues such as health care coverage for adult undocumented immigrants and changes to the state’s paid family leave mandates.

What Happens Next?

• • Special Session: Accordingly, Governor Walz will need to call a special session and has indicated his intent to do so before June 1st.
  • Workgroups: Despite being technically out of session, legislative leaders released a signed document last night outlining a path forward to address remaining legislation via workgroups.

Workgroups?

• • Workgroups will continue where committees left off with membership the same as those on the appointed conference committees.
  • Workgroups are encouraged (but not required) to meet publicly and exchange offers at least twice daily, with offers matching the budget targets outlined in last week’s global target agreement.
  • They will have until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday the 21st) to complete their negotiations and sign off on policy and appropriation language.

What We’re Watching:

After following policies on competition, privacy, data centers, and many other topics, MnTech is monitoring the remaining deliberations of the Education and Jobs & Workforce workgroups.

Computer Science Education (Education)

Why it matters:  MnTech believes that all students in Minnesota need training and awareness on critical computing and problem-solving skills to compete in the economy and workforce of the future.

What we’ve done: For the past four years, MnTech has been working with our partners in the CSforAll-MN coalition to create expanded and equitable access to computer science education for K-12 students across Minnesota. We successfully secured a $1 million appropriation in 2023 for the current 2024-25 biennium that paved the way for the creation of a full-time Computer Science Supervisor position at the MN Department of Education and the development of a statewide CS strategic plan.

Where we’re at: The House education bill included a $1 million appropriation for computer science education initiatives while the Senate version contains no such funding. 

What may happen next: While we are increasingly optimistic that CS funding will be included in the final bill, we’ve been disappointed before.  

• • • Helping our cause is last week’s diversion of funds that was earmarked for a train from Minneapolis to Duluth (the Northern Lights Express) that will now fund unemployment insurance for hourly school workers, such as janitors and bus drivers, who aren’t paid during summer breaks.
    • With the redirected NLX funding covering unemployment benefits, it arguably frees up capacity for investments in computer science education.

SciTech Internship Program (Jobs & Workforce)

Why it matters: MnTech believes that giving young adults relevant STEM work experience in Minnesota increases their earnings, sharpens their trajectory, and encourages them to pursue STEM careers in Minnesota.

What we’ve done: MnTech has hosted SciTech since its inception. Since the program’s launch in 2012, more than 3,300 interns have been placed in 672 small companies in more than 150 cities across Minnesota. In 2024 alone, 255 interns were placed in 123 hiring companies in 58 Minnesota towns, with the average company size being 43 employees. Notably, 64% of the interns hired were women or people of color, further engaging underrepresented populations into the STEM field.

Where we’re at: There is currently no money appropriated in either the House or Senate workforce bills for the continuation of the SciTech Internship Program MnTech has operated on behalf of the state for the past 12 years.

What may happen next: House leaders are trying to move away from direct appropriations to nonprofit organizations and would like to see more competitive grant programs managed by DEED and others. This being the case, we’ve aligned with an organization called the MN STEM Ecosystem (which is included for funding in both the House and Senate bills) to increase the amount of funding it receives which can then be sub-granted to programs like SciTech through a competitive grant process.

So that’s where we stand – another legislative session where lawmakers were unable to agree on a balanced budget without having to go into overtime. But at least we’re near the goal line and if the working groups find common ground in the coming days, we should be able to get a budget passed in the coming weeks and avoid another state government shutdown.