The Intergovernmental Relations Committee of the Minneapolis City Council met on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, at 3:04 PM CT. Chair Areen Chowdhury presided. Eight members were present, establishing a quorum. The meeting covered a consent item approving a special law for a PERA pension correction and a detailed presentation on state and federal legislative updates.
Federal Legislative Update (presented by Lauren Olson):
State Legislative Update (presented by Steve Huser, Indiria Falana, and Director Topinka):
Next Steps – 2027 Policy Liaison Team (PLT) Process: The PLT process begins June 2026. Departments will submit proposals; draft proposals will be presented to the committee in late October 2026, with adoption of the 2027 legislative agenda expected in early December. The next legislative session starts January 12, 2027.
Good morning and welcome. My name is Areen Chowdhury, and I'm the chair of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee. At this time, I'm going to call to order our regular meeting for Tuesday, June 9th, 2026. I want to offer a friendly reminder to all committee members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. I will now have the clerk call the roll to verify that we have a quorum. Councilmember Payne. Present. Warren is absent. Osman is absent. Schaefer? Present. Stevenson? Present. Chavez? Present. Chigte, present. Whiting. Present. Palmasano. Present. Vice Chair Rainville is absent. And Chair Chowdery. Present. There are eight members present. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum. I'll also remind my colleagues that we are using speaker management today, so please log in. Our first item is on consent. Um, but I am gonna have uh Director Topinka come and speak to this if that's all right. Uh it's a resolution granting a local approval of special law. This special law is related to the public employees retirement association, also known as Para. Welcome, Director Topinka. Thank you, Chair Chowdery and Council members. Um yes, this resolution before you is to approve a special law that the legislature passed as part of the omnibus pensions bill uh during the last session. Uh this special law is specifically for um to address a paraissure related to a former public works employee. Uh this employee was a seasonal employee that was hired in 2016, and then again each year through 2022. Um based on the way para accruals work, this employee should have been had deductions starting in 20 uh 16 through 2022 for his service, but the information was not consistently reported to Para. Um it was identified through an audit and um the city worked with Para to remedy as much as we could administratively, but the only way to ensure the employee could get the credit for 2016, 2017, and 2018 was through this special legislation. Um so we worked with Para and Representative Jordan carried the bill, it went through the pensions committee and was ultimately included in the pensions bill. So just to kind of get it across the finish line, we do need this final step. It's just in statute that council or the local governing body must approve a special law for it to go into effect. So if you do approve the resolution, we will then submit that information to the Secretary of State's office, and the um the special law will go into effect at that point, and then this employee can be eligible for the full uh para benefits that they're eligible for. Great. Thank you so much. Are there any questions or comments? I'll recognize Councilmember Palmasano. Thank you, madam chair. Director Dupinka, the way you describe this is that it is a special law that will benefit one person.