Bonding bill, EMS funding, sports betting all in play in final month of legislative session

With the 2024 session of the Minnesota Legislature being a non-budget year, lawmakers are not really required to do anything. However, wish lists tend to appear in the even-numbered sessions, and this year is no different. 

Three of the primary issues getting attention are a bonding bill for building projects around the state, funding for emergency medical services in Greater Minnesota and sports betting.

Lawmakers and the governor have generally agreed on the parameters of a bonding bill under $1 billion, but there is no guarantee it will happen because it takes a three-fifths supermajority of Democrats and Republicans to pass.

“Remember last year we passed a $2.6 billion bonding bill,” says Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks. “A lot of that bonding bill money is still tied up right now. Projects are just getting rolling on that. Those dollars are being rolled out, so we don’t have to do this bonding bill.”

But the political reality is a bonding bill probably will happen.

“If you zoom back a couple years, we didn’t do a bonding bill for several years before last year’s bill, so we had a lot of projects that we were making up for lost time when we passed last year’s bill,” says House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis.

Long and Johnson appeared for a recording of “At Issue with Tom Hauser” that will air at 10 a.m. on Sunday.

The two lawmakers say they also continue on responding a request from emergency medical service agencies in greater Minnesota who say ambulance and paramedic services are in a crisis.

They’ve asked for $120 million, but so far the governor and DFL lawmakers who control the House and Senate have only proposed $16 million.

“I think $120 million is overstated for the need, but I don’t think we disagree at all there’s a need in greater Minnesota for EMS services,” Long said.

Johnson didn’t commit to a number but says it needs to be more than $16 million.

“We want to make sure we stabilize EMS,” Johnson says. “Last year we had the opportunity to with $18 billion [in surplus] to really put some money into these resources or these needs that we have across the state. You know what the Democrats did. They spent that, raised taxes, now we find ourselves back here trying to scrape together some dollars.”

Then there’s the issue of sports betting. Polling by KSTP/SurveyUSA consistently shows a majority of Minnesotans support the idea. However, the issue is bogged down by disputes between lawmakers, Native American tribes and Minnesota’s two horse tracks.

“We’re working together to come up with a negotiated outcome,” Long says. “I mean, the truth is there are people in both parties who support it and people in both parties who don’t in terms of sports betting.”

While the DFL is aligned with protecting Native American gambling, Johnson says Republicans want to help charitable gambling interests and the horse tracks.

“We look at charities. There’s work that can be done there. We can always do more for those charities to get their work done,” Johnson said. “… The tax issues that are involved around it, plus the horse racing aspect of it really is impacting this whole discussion right now.”

This week a House committee approved a bill banning “historical horse racing” machines that had been approved for the two tracks by the Minnesota Racing Commission. The tracks sought approval for the machines as they said it appears they’re being largely shut out of offering legalized sports betting.