In this interview with Carol Becker, we cover Minneapolis’s budget process, the political dynamics between the mayor and city council, property tax impacts, and broader housing and transit issues.
Carol writes regularly for the Minneapolis Times, and her Star Tribune op-eds often draw significant public reaction. With the mayor’s budget proposal due next week and Metro Transit’s recent performance report showing a 7% drop in ridership, we thought Carol could offer a timely and valuable perspective.
It will be interesting to see whether Mayor Frey and the city council can work together in an election year, or if the tension between them will lead to an even messier budget process than last year’s.
Becker outlines the annual budget cycle, beginning with early-year accounting closures, followed by months of departmental planning, revenue forecasting, and mayoral decision-making. She contrasts “base service level” budgeting with zero-based budgeting, noting the latter’s potential for deeper scrutiny but higher workload. Becker stresses that the budget is a political document setting city priorities and cautions that meaningful influence happens in June and July, not in December.
A major theme of our discussion is the relationship breakdown between the mayor and council in 2023, when the council proposed 70 budget amendments—many, Becker says, driven by ward-specific or “self-dealing” priorities, some outside the city’s scope. She criticizes the tendency to fund projects better suited for state or county oversight.
The Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET), on which she served, sets the maximum property tax levy. Becker recalls balancing essential services with affordability, noting that property tax increases often hit homeowners harder than the official levy percentage suggests, due to shifts in property values—especially with declining commercial and apartment assessments shifting the burden to single-family homes.
Becker links housing affordability challenges to city development patterns since 2009, which she says overwhelmingly favor rental units over ownership housing, especially larger units for families with children. She criticizes the lack of homeownership initiatives, the impact of private equity buying North Minneapolis housing, and policies like rent control, which she argues deter construction. While acknowledging Mayor Frey’s investment in affordable housing, Becker says the next priority should be building ownership housing for families to reduce poverty and stabilize communities. We discuss how the shortage of family housing in Minneapolis has driven many families to seek homeownership in the suburbs.
The discussion closes with transit, where Becker explains that the Metropolitan Council, not the city, runs the system, with the city’s role limited to public safety around stations. She questions the efficiency and environmental benefits of lightly used diesel buses and the high per-ride costs, suggesting that alternatives like direct subsidies for low-income riders could be more cost-effective.
The Southwest Light Rail project is over-budget and behind schedule. The Met Council is an unaccountable, governor-appointed body. The conversation ends on a philosophical note with a brief discussion of Plato’s views on democracy and the merits of “smart bureaucracy” versus democracy.
We end by acknowledging that both democratically elected boards and appointed boards have their challenges in producing effective governance.
If you have any issues playing the video, it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@BetterMinneapolis/videos
As always, you can email terry@betterminneapolis.com with questions or comments.
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