Layoff notices go out to state workers as Minnesota lawmakers continue to debate state budget

Allison Kite, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Jun 2, 2025

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MINNEAPOLIS — State agencies are starting to warn workers they could be laid off in the coming weeks if Minnesota lawmakers remain deadlocked over the budget.

Lawmakers on Monday entered the third week since they adjourned without a two-year budget, and while they kept working over the weekend toward a special legislative session, it wasn’t clear Monday morning when they might reconvene.

House and Senate leaders said Thursday they hoped to reach consensus in time to allow Gov. Tim Walz to call a special legislative session later this week.

“I thought we could have done it by May 19,” said House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, “but it’s not because things broke down. It just took a little more time.”

If lawmakers don’t pass a budget deal by the end of the month, the government would enter a partial shutdown on July 1.

Under contracts with unions that represent public employees, the state is required to warn weeks in advance that layoffs may be coming. Nurses received the first of those warnings on Friday. If Minnesota lawmakers still can’t reach a budget deal by June 9, layoff notices will go out to the rest of the state workforce, Walz said last week.

“There’s so much uncertainty right now, we don’t want to add any more to that,” Walz said.

House Democratic Leader Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, said Thursday she was “very confident that there will be a budget in place very soon.”

“We are working to make sure that as they are receiving those (layoff) notices,” she said, “that they can point a date on the calendar when the special session will happen and that they can also...point to bills that have been posted that will fund all these agencies so that we can do our best to minimize stress that they shouldn’t have to be going through right now.”

The Minnesota Nurses Association said in a statement that the layoff notices issued Friday “arrive amid ongoing upheaval for nurses and other public employees,” citing federal cuts to health funding and the state’s mandate that public employees return to the office.

Legislators kept meeting over the weekend in working groups to negotiate contentious elements of the state budget, including state government’s two largest line items — health and elementary and education.

They posted agreements ahead of a Monday afternoon public education working group meeting.

Lawmakers have not reached consensus, however, over a bonding package to provide funding for roads, bridges and other essential construction projects.

Hortman claimed last week that Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, was stymieing efforts to reach a bonding deal by making unrelated demands in exchange for support for bonding, which requires a supermajority to pass.

Johnson said in a statement that Democrats were holding up bonding and “playing political blame games to appease their activist base.”

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