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Sexton









Legislative Update

Greetings,

I hope you are doing well!

As I mentioned last week, I intend to go back and discuss at least one more of my recent meetings during the week of September 15th.

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Last Week's Growth Breakfast & The Budget

On Thursday, October 16th, 2025, I joined many others at the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce for the monthly 'Growth Breakfast.' We heard from Independent School District 761 Superintendent Dr. Tammy Champa on the upcoming operating levy which is on the ballot for November 4th, 2025.

During the event, I had the opportunity to discuss several facts that I would like to repeat again. First, in the fiscal years 2026-2027 (two-year cycle), K-12 education continues to be the largest budget area at $25,562,000,000.00 out of a total general fund total budget of $67,780,000,000.00. In other words, K-12 education represents 37.7% of the total general fund budget and it is the highest percentage of the overall budget for the entire State of Minnesota. In comparison, Health and Human Services represents the second highest percentage of the budget at $24,147,000,000.00 or 35.6% of the overall general fund budget. Added together, we invest 73.3% of our State of Minnesota general fund budget on our next generation (K-12 education) and our most vulnerable generations through the Health and Human Services portions of the budget. As you can see, I am intentionally writing out the entire budget number as we should not become desensitized by scale of these budgets as they continue to rapidly balloon.

Second, the K-12 education did not increase or decrease for fiscal years 2026-2027 relative to the other portions of the overall budget based on the budget targets we were provided at the committee level. It did increase by over $1B for inflation compared to the fiscal year 2024-2025 budget. However, we are looking at addressing a $420,000,000.00 overall K-12 education budget gap between the forecast fiscal year 2028-2029 proposed budget with inflation and the available resources at our current tax rates. In addition, we will be addressing funding challenges for special education as it is the fastest growing portion of the K-12 education budget. In November 2025, we will receive the next budget update from Governor Walz's staff. It will show us a comparison between the actual taxes received over the last several months compared to their previous forecast provided in February 2025. In summary, given our current information and challenges, we know we have a significant amount of work to do in the coming months as we prepare for the next session starting in mid-February.

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Bonding Tour

Bonding Tour

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Bonding Tour

"The Minnesota House Capital Investment committee visiting Moorhead State University."

Shifting to this week, we started our bi-annual bonding tours for the House Capital Investment committee. Based on the bills already presented and several new bills meeting the constitutional guidance validating the project, our team assembles five different multi-day bus trips to different locations throughout the state to view potential projects. Of course, we get to see our fellow legislators along the way as we visit their district projects.

This week we toured portions of North and Northwestern Minnesota. Along the way, we stopped at the National Sports Center in Blaine, the Coon Rapids Dam, Camp Ripley, Brainerd, Bemidji, Thief River Falls, Crookston, Moorhead, Fergus Falls, Alexandria, Sartell, St. Cloud, and Anoka. As a general theme, we have a significant need for infrastructure replacement and structural rehabilitation across the entire state! Successful critical drinking water and clean water (wastewater processing) projects that were built in the 1930s – 1960s, when we had no capacity, are now failing and must be replaced as small scale, band-aid repairs. These repairs have extended many facilities well beyond their expected lifecycle. We know this is a significant and essential set of issues as we address current water-related infrastructure issues and the expanding need to address “forever chemical” issues now being found in relatively new water wells in different parts of the state.

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Special Session...

Capital

Regarding a Special Session: I do not have any tangible updates on a specific special session as mentioned by Governor Walz. Senior leaders, including Governor Walz, have continued meeting to discuss options.

Two things should be kept in mind moving forward. First, only the Governor of Minnesota can call a special session. Second, per the MN House standing rules, 90 of the 134 members (2/3rds) of the Minnesota House are required to vote affirmatively to suspend the rules requiring a proposed bill to bypass the committee structure prior to being introduced on the House floor. Currently, those votes do not exist, so any proposed bill will likely need to go through the committee structure prior to being introduced for a vote on any bill. This process may take days or weeks, since each committee is perfectly balanced between the two parties.

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Coffee with Tom

In addition, please feel free to join me for Coffee with Tom at the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce on October 3rd at the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce from 12:00pm-1:00pm. Senator John Jasinski is currently scheduled to join me for this event.

Our next meeting in Waseca continues to change. I now have a scheduling conflict on October 17th, so I am trying to coordinate for October 31st, 2025. Please continue to check the Waseca Chamber of Commerce schedule and future newsletters for updates.

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I want to hear you

I am always here to listens to concerns or ideas of my constituents. I can be reached via email [email protected] or phone 651-296-5368. 

Tom Sexton Signature

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2828 Centennial Office Building
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St. Paul, MN 55155 [email protected]
651.296.5368







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