LINO LAKES, Minn. — For the first time ever, the state of Minnesota is sending direct public safety aid to every city, county, and tribal nation in the state.
The $300 million package has been divvied up based on population, with checks set to arrive next week. It will be up to each local community to decide how to spend their piece of the pie.
“What’s nice about this model is that local governments are in control of the funds, and local governments are also elected by their communities,” Sen. Heather Gustafson, the Vadnais Heights Democrat who carried the bill in the 2023 Session, told reporters Thursday.
Gustafson appeared at a roundtable event at a Lino Lakes fire station to highlight a piece of legislation that was overshadowed by other major headlines coming out of the legislature last spring. She said her bill also included townships with populations over 10,000 on the list of recipients so that White Bear Township in the North Metro wouldn’t be excluded.
“We wanted to make sure that counties were getting a certain amount of it, cities were getting it, tribal nations were getting it, and that's because they all have different needs, especially in Greater Minnesota."
At Lino Lakes City Hall they're expecting a $930,000 check to arrive next week.
"The local control part of this, that's vital," Lino Lakes Public Safety Director John Swenson told KARE. "Because what we need in Lino Lakes is very different from what Bloomington or White Bear Lake needs for example."
Swenson said the city will spend $200,000 replacing the police department's body-worn cameras and in-squad cameras. It's an expense they were expecting to take on in future years, but now they will be able to move that up on the calendar.
"Within the last year, we've seen more failures of our cameras and repair costs have gone up, so this is an opportunity for us to kind of get ahead of that."
The city will use $230, to buy down the loan payments on two new fire trucks, to save local taxpayers on $20,000 per year on interest costs for the next 10 years. Another $156,000 will go to fire suppression gear needed to outfit those two fire rigs.
"We’re going to be having some discussions with our city council about the remaining in our public safety aid to see how we’re going to be using those for things like retention and recruitment of police and fire staff."
At the press conference, other area public safety leaders described a wide variety of uses for the funds.
This aid package is on top of historic levels of local government aid to Minnesota cities and counties.