Senate panel hears bill to extend university partnerships aiding small Minnesota towns

The Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee on April 7 heard testimony on Senate File 2203, a bill to continue the Empowering Small Minnesota Communities (ESMC) program that pairs University of Minnesota researchers and staff with small cities and townships to plan and advance local infrastructure projects.

Supporters said the program helps communities with limited engineering capacity prepare competitive grant applications and develop implementable project scopes. "This program was funded by the legislature back in 2023 and was really based on the need we saw ... around the need for capacity and project support on infrastructure challenges broadly in small communities across the state," said Kyle Shelton, director of the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota.

The bill's author, Senator Pappas, described ESMC as a university–community partnership that "identif[ies], creat[es], and match[es] cost effective, community identified solutions," and said the work improves coordination across stakeholders to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies.

Shelton told the committee the program is currently working with about 45 communities at various stages; "more than 30 of those communities were served in the first round," he said. He described a Bridgewater Township project in Rice County that is piloting strategies to remove PFAS from landfill leachate and explore converting some landfill waste into usable materials. Shelton said the township has submitted three grant proposals related to the work, to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and other state funding sources.

Jolene Brink, a Two Harbors resident and University of Minnesota Extension employee, told senators ESMC provided planning resources to advance a long-standing community plan to redevelop 40 acres of Agate Bay waterfront adjacent to downtown Two Harbors. "Despite having the will and lots of heart and community support, [small towns] lack the capacity to develop resilient, sustainable, and adaptable infrastructure projects," Brink said.

Committee members asked programmatic and eligibility questions. Senator Jasinski asked why the program's eligibility uses a 15,000 population threshold rather than a more common transportation definition of "small city" as 5,000 or fewer. Shelton said the threshold is intended to allow collaborative projects that span multiple small jurisdictions (for example, shared landfills or regional park systems) while maintaining a preference for communities under 5,000.

Senator Johnson Stewart, who spoke in support, said the program addresses a common barrier: small municipal staffs often cannot afford the engineering or technical assistance needed to prepare grant-ready proposals. She and other members pointed to the program's potential to increase communities' competitiveness for bonding and federal funds.

The committee laid Senate File 2203 on the table for possible inclusion in the omnibus transportation bill.

The committee did not take public testimony on the omnibus at this meeting; SF2203 testimony was part of the committee's review and informational session.