Public safety committee unveils $14.4 million supplemental budget bill

Although this is not a budget year, lawmakers are still crafting smaller, supplemental budget bills to possibly dole out some extra cash to state departments and agencies.

The House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee has honed in on a $14.4 million package in Fiscal Year 2027 to fund projects for the Department of Public Safety, Department of Corrections, and the Peace Officers Standards and Training Board.

A 2025 law appropriated $3.5 billion for public safety and judiciary purposes in the 2026-27 biennium, but the extra money would significantly increase public safety across the state, Committee Co-Chair Rep. Kelly Moller (DFL-Shoreview) said Tuesday.

The bulk of the spending in the amended HF1082, $12 million, would go to a new Minnesota Victims of Crime account in the Office of Justice Programs for grants to crime victim services providers such as Violence Free Minnesota and Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

These providers “are so vital to all of our communities,” Moller said, adding that they have suffered major budget cuts over recent years while the need for their services have dramatically increased. “The $12 million is just the bare minimum to keep this funding stable.”

[MORE: View the spreadsheet]

No action was taken Tuesday, but Moller said the committee is scheduled to officially adopt the delete-all amendment, consider other amendments and then vote on the finance and policy package Wednesday.

Other projects and programs in the bill’s funding are $1 million in Fiscal Year 2027 for a Public Safety Department program for grants to law enforcement agencies to increase the solve rate of crimes that involve nonfatal shootings.

And an additional $2.1 million in the 2026-27 biennium would go into the Philando Castile Memorial Training Fund. Managed by the POST board, the fund supports mandatory training for officers in de-escalation, implicit bias, and crisis management in an effort to improve community-police relations.

Policy provisions

Creation of a criminal offense for grooming a child under the age of 16 is among policy provisions in the bill.

The bill defines grooming as a pattern of conduct by an adult who knowingly “seduces, solicits, lures, or entices, or attempts to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, a child to engage or participate in unlawful sexual conduct that is for the purpose of sexual gratification or arousal of the victim, the accused, or another individual.”

Other policy provisions, some of which would also appropriate funds, would:

• increase the penalty for impersonating a peace officer from a misdemeanor to a felony;
• increase penalties for assaulting security officers providing services in a hospital or clinic;
• establish a task force on improving responses to domestic violence crimes;
• establish a task force on standardized identification for emergency responders;
• prohibit the sale or transfer of a law enforcement vehicle that is equipped with emergency or public safety equipment and insignia that could misleadingly identify it as a law enforcement vehicle; and

• create enhanced penalties for theft when the offender knows or has reason to know that the victim is a vulnerable adult.

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The following are bills that have been incorporated in part or in whole into the omnibus public safety finance and policy bill:

• HF1082 (Moller)
• HF2742 (Frazier)
• HF3356 (Huot)
• HF3404 (Klevorn)
• HF3440 (Stier)
• HF3465 (Liebling)
• HF3489 (Bennett)
• HF3504 (Duran)
• HF3695 (Johnson, P.)
• HF3946 (Moller)
• HF4700 (Stier)