Minnesota Senate rules panel adopts biennial budget, staff pay changes and restores Champion as ethics subcommittee chair

The Minnesota Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on June 13 adopted the chamber's biennial budget and approved a set of personnel and administrative changes, including a committee resolution on staff compensation, updates to comp-time and per-diem rules, and the restoration of Senator Bobby Joe Champion as chair of the subcommittee on ethical conduct.

The actions were taken during a hybrid meeting convened by Senator Murphy (chair of the Rules and Administration Committee). After brief staff presentations, the committee voted to adopt the Minnesota Senate Biennial Budget document dated 06/13/2025. Senator Johnson asked for a comparison to the prior biennium and said, "Here we have 77,928,000. Do you remember what the total was for the previous?" Committee staff said they would supply an offline comparison because member-related expenses have been moved to a statutory appropriation and make direct comparisons more complicated. Senate controller Betty Myers said the newly added PFLMA item is calculated as "0.0088 of the salary line's number." The budget adoption was passed by roll call with 10 ayes and no nays.

The committee also approved the senate employee roster dated 06/06/2025. Committee staff noted the roster was reviewed for correct name spellings and that the roster does not yet reflect the changes in the compensation resolution being considered that day.

On compensation, the committee adopted Committee Resolution 17, the management-advisory-committee-backed package for employee pay and benefits. Secretary Bodnar told the committee the package…