Minneapolis climate program advocates push back against proposed budget cuts
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On a corner lot in south Minneapolis, community gardeners celebrated the end of the season Saturday by cooking blue corn tortillas over a fire. Leticia Cordova said they grew the corn a few yards away.
It was “everybody’s work,” she said. Together, the gardeners picked and shucked the corn. Then Cordova used a friend’s grinder to prepare the purplish masa, or dough.
The organization Plant Grow Share, part of the Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization, began cultivating the site a few years ago after a lot they were using was set to be developed. Volunteers dug up shrubs, hoisted garden beds and a shed, and moved it all six blocks, said Lane Brown, the group’s co-executive director.
“We’ve kind of had to be nomadic,” Brown said. “Which is odd because we’re a garden.”
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They recently learned their lease was renewed, but the sense of stability was short-lived. The funding for a city program that supports their work is at risk due to proposed cuts in Mayor Jacob Frey’s budget for 2027.
The proposal slashes about $4 million from environmental programs within the city’s Climate Legacy Initiative, which is funded by franchise fees paid by utilities.
Supporters of food and home energy services are urging the city to preserve the funding and find a different way to close the city’s $30 million budget gap. They will have an opportunity to speak to city leaders at a public hearing Monday night.
‘We are not on track and probably not close’
During a recent City Council meeting, Patrick Hanlon, deputy commissioner of sustainability, healthy homes and environment in the Minneapolis Health Department, broke down what he called “a significant reduction to climate spending” in 2027.
His presentation showed the loss of three full-time staff positions and $3.6 million in Climate Legacy Initiative contracts related to local food, green workforce training and home energy efficiency.
Hanlon said the city will spend money on climate initiatives in other parts of the budget and prioritize funding that addresses hard-to-reduce emissions and reaches low-income neighborhoods.
Council member Soren Stevenson asked Hanlon about the city’s progress toward its climate goals, which include reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Hanlon said the city needs to do more, noting “we are not on track and probably not close.”
The city’s climate initiatives will soon begin to show results in emissions data, he added, although many of those initiatives face potential cuts under the proposed budget.
Food policy work under the radar
The Homegrown Minneapolis initiative oversees leases for more than 50 community gardens in lots across the city. It also runs compost, farmers market and food waste programs. Brown said the garden lease program is a national model.
“It helps decrease blight in neighborhoods. It helps decrease crime. But it also just helps uplift community connectedness and education and food access,” Brown said.
The mayor’s budget proposes cutting all of Homegrown’s contracts to help close the projected 2027 budget gap. In 2026, the city budgeted about $540,000 for the program. Like many Minneapolis Health Department programs, it relies on grants for much of its funding.
This type of work often gets taken for granted, said Jenny Breen, who serves on the city’s food policy council and helped create Homegrown more than a decade ago.
“I don't think most people disagree with the idea that it's important,” she said. “I just think most people don't realize how much it's connected to our daily lives and the quality of life that we have in the city.”
Breen said food policy is inseparable from human health as well as the causes and challenges of climate change.
She doesn’t know what the budget cuts would mean for the leased gardens or Homegrown’s other projects, including a $1.3 million food waste prevention grant she said the initiative has been awarded from the state.
Door-to-door home energy projects
The proposed budget also cuts 32 percent from services that subsidize energy projects in homes and businesses. That includes simple steps like improving insulation or sealing windows as well as more costly ones, like switching to electric appliances or renewable heat or power.
Andres Alvarez Arboleda goes door-to-door in green zones, or areas of the city designated as historically underserved and over-polluted, to spread information about funding available for home energy improvements. He said some residents are uninterested or skeptical but others are excited, even relieved.
He remembers one moment when he knocked on the door of a woman with an unsealed attic and old furnace. “She basically started crying because she was so happy. Earlier that year, maybe it was two years ago, she ended up getting frostbite on her toes because of how cold her house was,” he said.
Alvarez works for Unidos Minnesota, which contracts with the city, but he doesn’t know if his contract will be canceled. As the federal government turns away from climate investments, Alvarez says the city should double down.
"There's not enough funding to help the residents of Minneapolis transition off of relying on carbon, and so the franchise fee is the last line of defense that we have,” he said.
Last year, Unidos and other groups successfully pushed the City Council to raise the franchise fee to generate $4 million in additional funding. It angers Alvarez to see about that same amount in proposed cuts.
“It's almost like a slap in the face because it's like some of these programs, the annual budget is basically the equivalent of three days of overpay for policing,” he said.
Frey wants to hike the police budget by more than $20 million with much of that expected to go toward overtime.
In a speech announcing the budget this summer, Frey said due to staffing limitations, the department needs to use overtime to provide services expected by residents. He said he’s trying to match the budget to what the police department spends each year.
Supporters of the at-risk climate programs plan to speak to council members at Monday’s 6 p.m. meeting at City Hall. It's the final public hearing scheduled before council members present budget amendments next month. They are scheduled to finalize a budget in mid-December.
