On the evening of Sept. 9, the Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) held a public hearing on Mayor Jacob Frey’s proposed 11.3% property tax levy increase for 2027. There’s a worrying wrinkle in this proposal: Frey, who proposed the levy rate in the first place, is one of six people who will ultimately vote on the proposal. This is structurally impractical at best, and it impacts every Minneapolis resident.
The Board of Estimate and Taxation plays a significant role in Minneapolis’ budget process. Once the board sets a maximum levy, the City Council can negotiate the number down before December’s final vote. This means this vote would carry an outsize influence on what’s possible in the 2027 budget.
Such an impact would be reasonable if Frey weren’t one of the voting members. Besides Frey, the Board consists of chair Steve Brandt, vice-chair Eric Harris Bernstein, Ward 10 Council Member Aisha Chughtai, Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board President Tom Olsen and City Council President Elliott Payne.
The proposed tax levy has already brought about interesting conversations: in the Star Tribune, Brandt wrote, “the mayor’s property-tax proposal is unsustainable for many homeowners and will contribute to Minneapolis’ housing-affordability problem.”
Bernstein has called the levy “a double-edged sword,” writing, “We have to be very serious when we ask the taxpayer for more money, but we also have to take seriously the cost of underinvesting in our shared resources.”
In other words, members of the BET are taking this proposed levy seriously: Both as a way to help the city’s budget and as something that could hit voters squarely in their pocketbooks. It’s worth noting, though, that the sharpest internal critiques of Frey’s budget aren’t coming from outside his administration. They come from people who are intimately knowledgeable with the proposal.
That made the Sept. 9 hearing particularly heartening: Here, people outside of Frey’s orbit offered their own questions and thoughts for the record. That sort of event is worth showing up for even though it won’t produce a number by itself. But, regardless of what the board lands on, it’s worth underlining a simple fact here. The BET’s design isn’t a small quirk reserved for budget wonks; it’s something far more concerning. A city that wants genuine checks on mayoral spending shouldn’t build that check out of people from inside the administration.
Compare that to how St. Anthony Village and Columbia Heights handle this. St. Anthony Village doesn’t have a separate estimate-and-taxation board at all. Its city council — a handful of people directly accountable to roughly 9,000 residents — votes on the levy, publicly, with no intermediate layers. It’s a blunter system, and its relative simplicity is laudable.
Columbia Heights offered a real example of what independent pushback looks like just last month, when its council unanimously rejected a zoning amendment the administration had put forward for a treatment facility on Central Avenue. Whether or not you agreed with the outcome, that’s what a check is supposed to look like: Elected officials pushing back against the executive branch without any potential appearances of conflict.
None of this means Frey’s number is wrong, or that Brandt’s objection is right. Last month, Frey wrote about needing to make “hard choices” for the Minneapolis budget, and it’s entirely possible that he’s right; that 11.3% figure could be what the city needs.
And, to their credit, the BET is making efforts to show their work, whether through op-eds, public statements or public hearings. The Board routinely provides opportunities for public comments at their meetings. This is not an effort to say the Board is working with smoke and mirrors. But St. Anthony Village and Columbia Heights’ governments have a valuable lesson to teach the BET about appearances and structure: A budgeting process this important deserves a clear distinction of powers. By voting on his own proposal, Frey risks muddying the waters.