Latest news with #MinnPost
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
St. Paul walks back rent control
Renters and activists urged the St. Paul City Council not to exempt affordable housing from the city's rent control policy during a public hearing on Aug. 24, 2022. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer. New — and new-ish — rental properties in St. Paul will no longer be subject to the city's 3% cap on yearly rent increases. The St. Paul City Council, at the behest of Mayor Melvin Carter, voted 4-3 Wednesday to permanently exempt new construction and rentals built after 2004 from the rent control ordinance, which voters approved by ballot measure in 2021. While increased interest rates and slower growth in rents reduced homebuilding across the country in recent years, local developers have pointed the finger at St. Paul's rent control ordinance as a major factor in their reluctance to build in the city. Since the council first implemented the ordinance in 2022, construction has dropped off a cliff in the city; In 2024, 80% fewer housing units were built in St. Paul compared to the previous three-year average, according to a MinnPost analysis. (In Minneapolis, voters gave the city council power to enact rent control in 2021, but the council has not passed a rent control ordinance. Minneapolis had an even steeper falloff in construction in 2024 than St. Paul.) St. Paul's rollback of the ordinance is a bad sign for rent control advocates in Minneapolis, who have pushed the council to implement rent stabilization in recent years. Prior to Wednesday's vote, the St. Paul City Council weakened the rent control ordinance in other ways: In 2022, the council permanently exempted affordable housing developments; gave new construction a 20-year exemption, and instituted 'vacancy decontrol,' which allows landlords to raise rents by more than 3% when a tenant moves out. Landlords could also request permission from the city to raise rents by more than 3% if their expenses rose significantly; St. Paul approved the vast majority of those requests. Minnesota is one of the only Midwestern states without a statewide ban on local rent control ordinances.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Topline: Rural county accounts for majority of charges under archaic drug law
Getty Images Welcome to The Topline, a weekly roundup of the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones that you might have missed. This week: the illicit drug tax; Minnesota's federal workforce; new legislation to erase medical debt; and population projections for the Twin Cities. MinnPost reported on ongoing bipartisan discussions to repeal an archaic drug war-era law requiring people to pay special taxes on any illicit drugs they possess. Because people don't typically report their illicit activities to state agencies, the tax has virtually never been paid. But the law was put on the books in order to let county prosecutors threaten drug users with steeper punishments. Today, it's a tool that few prosecutors rely on. In 2024, county attorneys charged violations of the law just 18 times. Thirteen of those alleged violations — more than 70% of them — were filed in rural Polk County in the state's northwest corner, home to just 0.5% of the population. One of the people Polk County prosecutors charged with a drug tax violation was Jessica Beske, the North Dakota woman facing first-degree felony charges for possessing bong water. Regular Reformer readers will also recognize Polk County as the jurisdiction charging a massively disproportionate share of the state's school zone drug possession offenses. Lawmakers tried to repeal the tax stamp law last year, but it got lost in the shuffle at the chaotic end of the session. The Trump administration began firing thousands of federal workers last week, part of the new president's efforts to gut the public and nonprofit sectors of the economy. The latest round of firings target newer employees with less than a year of service, who have fewer job protections than established workers. It's unclear how many workers in Minnesota will be affected. There are roughly 18,000 civilian federal workers in the state, according to a December 2024 Congressional Research Service report. Those employees are spread fairly evenly across the state's eight congressional districts. District 1, represented by Republican Brad Finstad, has the fewest number of federal workers at around 3,500. District 2, represented by Democrat Angie Craig, has the most at 7,500, comprising nearly 2% of the district's workforce. In some parts of Maryland and Virginia federal workers account for more than 15% of the total workforce. DFL lawmakers, supported by Attorney General Keith Ellison, have introduced legislation that would appropriate $5 million from the general fund to the nonprofit group Undue Medical Debt in order to pay off the medical debt of anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 Minnesotans. The nonprofit has worked on similar efforts in other states, and has already partnered with the city of St. Paul to pay off about $110 million of city residents' medical debts. Because $1 can typically purchase $100 of debt from collection agencies, supporters of the bill estimate that $5 million could wipe out $500 million in total debt. 'Medical debt isn't like other types of debt,' said Sen. Liz Boldon, DFL-Rochester, a bill sponsor whose district includes the Mayo Clinic. 'No one plans on having their appendix burst or having a heart attack. Medical expenses shouldn't be treated like a loan for a business.' Minnesotans with household incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level, or who have medical debt exceeding 5% of their household income, will be eligible. There is no application process, as the nonprofit obtains data from credit reporting agencies in order to identify candidates for relief. The latest projections from the Metropolitan Council have the seven-county Twin Cities metro population growing by about 20% between now and 2050, from 3.1 million people in 2020 to 3.8 million by the middle of the century. It's a somewhat slower rate of growth than what the organization envisioned 10 years ago under its previous long-term plan. The population of Minneapolis, which stood at around 430,000 in 2020, is expected to grow to more than 510,000. St. Paul would add close to 30,000 new residents. But most rapid growth is expected to happen in the suburban regions of the metro, the Star Tribune reports. Remote work is now much more common than planners envisioned prior to the pandemic, so proximity to downtown workplaces is less of a concern for people looking for housing. That growth will have implications for the balance of power in the state Legislature, with suburban battleground districts becoming even more important in determining the composition of the House and Senate.
CBS News
15-02-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Minnesota bill would repeal new 50-cent retail delivery fee on packages of $100 or more
Minnesotans are paying 50 cents more on large package deliveries thanks to a law change that took effect last summer — designed to raise more funding to support road and bridge repairs. But a bill that would ditch that delivery fee, less than one year after implementation, advanced in the state legislature this week. Rep. Erin Koegel, DFL-Spring Lake Park, introduced the fee two years ago because she noticed her own shopping habits change and wanted to be creative to ensure the state would be able to sustain transportation infrastructure projects into the future. The main sources of revenue come from the gas tax and other user fees, like car tabs. "We know with more of an adoption of electric vehicles, that we're going to lose gas tax revenue. And so we need to find ways to kind of look towards the future and figure out how we're going to fund our transportation system so we don't end up with a huge budget shortfall," she said. Rep. Jim Joy, R-Hawley, introduced legislation this session to repeal the law and also undo some gas tax increases. He believes it's necessary to help Minnesotans struggling with the high cost of living. "This is the first time in Minnesota we've had a tax on clothing because of the delivery fee. This is making Minnesota more affordable," Joy said. The 50-cent fee applies to packages valued at $100 or more, but there are exemptions like groceries and prescription drugs when calculating that threshold — items for which customers also don't pay sales tax. Clothing is not exempt from the delivery fee, though a sales tax isn't applied. Bruce Nustad, president of the Minnesota Retailers Association, told the House Transportation Committee on Monday that these caveats can be burdensome for businesses as they try to determine what they owe. "Businesses small and large have had to build entirely new compliance systems to track, collect and remit the fee," he said. The original retail fee proposal two years ago was a 75-cent fee on most deliveries and an estimate projected it would bring in $210 million annually, according to MinnPost. The compromise in the end was the 50-cent fee with the $100 purchase floor. In the first six months since implementation, revenues have been about $12 million, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Revenue. That's short of the initial estimates under the first proposal, but Koegel believes having a new dedicated funding stream — no matter how much — is better than not having one at all. "We know that our small cities and townships were desperate for any kind of source of revenue, and so this was a foot in the door," Koegel said. "I would really love to come back and see the threshold or the rate lowered, and then have it applied to more deliveries and maybe just set it at all sales taxable items." Joy's bill to outright repeal the fee is unlikely to pass in a divided legislature where Republicans and Democrats will have to find compromise on the next two-year budget. But there could be room for tweaks to the law, like Koegel suggested. Joy's bill did advance out of its first committee on Monday, though he acknowledged the legislation likely would change. Nustad, who represents retailers, testified removing the $100 threshold would simplify the process for businesses.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Topline: Minnesota's biggest spenders on lobbying
Getty Images Welcome to The Topline, a weekly roundup of the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones that you might have missed. This week: Minnesota's biggest spenders on lobbying; how our corporate tax rates stack up; billionaire political spending; quantifying executive actions; and how much taxes undocumented immigrants pay. MinnPost reported last week on the state's biggest lobbying spenders. Xcel Energy topped the list, according to data from the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, spending $1.4 million to influence state government as well as local governments. Education Minnesota, the state teacher's union, was the only other organization spending more than $1 million. Much of Xcel's spending went toward cases before the Public Utilities Commission, particularly on rate-setting efforts. Education Minnesota's lobbying was mostly directed toward bills in the Legislature, including bills on education funding and teacher pensions. Other top spenders include the pharmaceutical industry, a group opposing single-payer health care, labor unions, and FairVote MN, which advocated for ranked-choice voting. Last year, Minnesota's corporate income tax rate was the highest in the nation, at 9.8%. But recent changes in New Jersey have pushed that state's top rate above 11%, putting the Garden State in first place. The latest analysis from the Tax Foundation finds that Minnesota remains one of just four states with a top corporate income tax rate above 9%. Many states have top marginal corporate tax rates below 5%, and several don't tax corporate income at all. Stanford political scientist Adam Bonica finds that Republicans raised more than half of their total 2024 campaign funds from just 100 donors, a new record. Less than 20% of Democrats' funds came from their top 100 donors, meanwhile. The data includes contributions to candidates, political action committees and super-PACS, and comes from the Database on Ideology, Money in Politics and Elections. As recently as 2008 both parties raised less than 10% of their money from their top 100 donors. But the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates for virtually unlimited election spending, with minimal restrictions. 'Trump's embrace of the billionaire class — and their embrace of him — will only supercharge this trend,' Bonica writes. He also argues that 'this isn't a competition Dems can — or should — try to win. Instead, the party should disavow contributions from billionaires and corporations. You can't credibly fight oligarchy while courting mega-donors.' USAFacts notes that the 26 executive orders signed by Donald Trump on the first day of his second term is the highest number going back to at least the Nixon administration, and likely beyond. The second-highest number was 9, notched by Joe Biden on the first day of his term in 2021. Prior to Biden, no president had signed more than two orders on their first day in office. Biden signed a total of 160 orders during his four years in power, a record low for the modern era and behind even fellow one-term presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Jimmy Carter signed an average of 80 executive orders per year, the most of any of the past 10 presidents. Historically, Republican presidents have been more inclined than Democrats to rely on executive orders. Trump's executive orders targeting undocumented immigrants may have the unintended consequence of putting a major dent in tax collections, according to this July 2024 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. In Minnesota alone, the undocumented paid more than $220 million in state and local taxes in 2022, according to the group's analysis. Nationwide, undocumented migrants pay close to $100 billion in taxes annually when including federal receipts. 'For every 1 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the country, public services receive $8.9 billion in additional tax revenue,' the organization's analysts write. In addition to payroll taxes, undocumented immigrants pay local sales and excise taxes. Conversely, they're often barred from receiving typical credits and reimbursements, and prohibited from relying on services like food stamps or unemployment benefits. In Minnesota, the undocumented contribute more than $80 million in sales and excise taxes, $59 million in property tax, and $75 million in personal and business income tax.
