Survey: How Will Your City Spend Its Public Safety Aid?

The League is working with the Minnesota Legislature to learn how cities have spent or will spend their aid.

As part of the 2023 omnibus tax bill, the Minnesota Legislature authorized a new aid for local governments to be used for public safety purposes. The aid was sent to cities, counties, and tribal nations on Dec. 26, 2023. Unlike local government aid, the new public safety aid is not to be used for general purposes — though the language was written broadly to include various types of allowable uses, such as personnel and equipment.

While the authorizing language did not include any reporting requirements, the Legislature would like to know how the aid is being spent. It has reached out to League of Minnesota Cities staff to facilitate a survey to better understand how cities are spending their public safety aid.

Take the survey and share how your city spent or will spend its public safety aid.

The results of this survey will be made available to legislators. It is also possible the Legislature may pursue enacting retroactive reporting requirements on public safety aid, particularly if it is unable to glean enough information from voluntary survey results.

For questions, please contact League Intergovernmental Relations Representative Nathan Jesson at (651) 281-1262.

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