Commissioner Bob Jacobson told the Minnesota Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee on Feb. 10 that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) will seek “measured agency operating adjustments” in Governor Tim Walz’s 2025 budget to cover rising personnel and benefit costs across the agency’s roughly 2,200 employees.

The presentation, which was informational and did not include any committee votes, covered several division requests and policy items. Jacobson described a proposed change to grant administration authority that “would protect grant fund investments by allowing DPS to use up to 5% of grant funds for non competitive grants and up to 5% of grant funds for competitive grants to ensure stable and adequate funding for the costs to implement those controls that prevent fraud, waste, and misuse of tax dollars.”

Why it matters: the change would let DPS retain a limited portion of some state grant awards for oversight and administration. Supporters say the revenue would pay for staff who review grantee compliance and reduce fraud; some senators said they are willing to consider oversight needs but want to compare the 5% figure with other programs.

State Fire Marshal Dan Kreier described several fire‑service items included in the governor’s recommendation. He said the proposal would shift oversight and appropriations for specialized rescue teams to the State Fire Marshal office and increase resources for teams’ training and equipment. Kreier outlined three groups the request targets: the Minnesota Air Rescue Team (a joint powers team that performs hoist and remote rescues), two Urban Search and Rescue task forces that respond to high‑angle, low‑angle and structural collapse incidents, and 11 hazardous‑materials (hazmat) teams located across the state. “Ultimately, our goal is to make Minnesota the most fire safe state in the nation,” Kreier said.

Kreier also described a statutory inequity in school inspection fees. Under current law, charter schools pay a flat $100 fee for fire inspections that are statutorily required at least once every three years; public schools are charged on a per‑square‑foot basis. Marshall Cryer, who discussed the fee calculation with the committee, said a $100 fee “is about a 7,500 square foot building” and that “a 100,000 square foot building would be charged around $1,400 every 3 years,” which Cryer described as roughly a $1,300 increase for the largest facilities compared with the current flat fee. The DPS proposal would apply the existing per‑square‑foot fee schedule to charter schools as well.

Office of Justice Programs interim director Kim Beibine described two budget and policy items. The governor’s recommendation would provide $5,000,000 in one‑time funding for crime‑victim services grants to local nonprofits, tribal governments and local units of government; Beibine said that funding is needed because costs to deliver services have risen and prior one‑time funds are expiring. Beibine also described a workforce grant program created in 2023, the Intensive Comprehensive Peace Officer Education and Training (ICPOET) grants, and said the proposal would continue funding to help recruit, train and retain officers.

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans said the BCA’s budget package includes funding to support a newly combined financial‑crimes and fraud section (including a forensic accountant and contracted prosecutor support), and a one‑time request to build a more user‑friendly missing‑persons database. Evans said the state currently enters missing‑person records into the FBI’s NCIC system but that local and state partners need richer, queryable Minnesota‑specific data to identify trends and flag repeat runaways. “This would be a 1 time cost so that as that entry comes in and we work with various stakeholders, we can make sure that we're capturing additional relevant data,” Evans said.

Evans also presented several policy proposals including banning the sale, importation and possession of childlike sexually explicit dolls and banning AI‑generated child sexual abuse material that is “indistinguishable from real images.” He told senators the department has drafted language intended to avoid constitutional problems and that stakeholders have reviewed the concept.

On data‑release rules for officer‑involved cases, Evans asked the committee to consider narrowing what video must be posted online within 30 days after a closed officer‑involved shooting. He told senators that long extraneous body‑worn camera recordings require extensive redaction and that limiting mandatory uploads to footage that “captures the event or the events leading up to the officer involved shooting” would preserve the current data classification while making the 30‑day requirement more achievable.

Evans also described a proposed statutory exception to allow law enforcement limited use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track fleeing suspects across private property without a warrant, arguing it would reduce risk to pursuiting officers and the public.

Bonding requests described to the committee included a $68,000,000 Mankato laboratory and regional office for the BCA, which Evans said would accommodate about 50 positions and relieve overcrowding at Saint Paul headquarters, and land acquisition and design funding for a smaller Bemidji regional facility.

What happens next: committee members asked questions and signaled they will review the detailed budget requests in department budget hearings; no formal action or votes were taken at the Feb. 10 informational hearing.