Committee recommends passage of bill to reestablish historic survey monuments, refers measure to judiciary

The State Government Committee recommended passage on Jan. 28 of Senate File 59, a bill that would require counties to locate and reestablish historic public land survey monuments used to define property boundaries.

Sponsor Sen. Green told the panel the measure aims to halt boundary shifts that have appeared after modern surveys, describing cases in which residents lost access to wells or had property effectively moved by updated surveys. "What this bill does is it will require the counties to go in and do the best job they can to find these original monuments and reestablish them so that we can fix this before it goes any further than it already has," Sen. Green said during the hearing.

Alan Roger Olsen, a resident of Langby, testified that a recent survey showed new lines that removed his neighbors' and his family's historic bounds, affected wells and septic systems and put parcels on the other side of county roads. "We just feel there is some issue going on. You're changing some lines that's causing a lot of problems in our township and in our county," Olsen said.

Phil Raines of the Minnesota Society of Professional Surveyors told lawmakers the public land survey system (PLSS) underpins property tenure across much of the state and that reestablishing section corners is a technical, time‑consuming task. Raines said prior allocations provided roughly $10 million to begin re‑monumentation but that estimates to replace all monuments in Minnesota are on the order of $300 million; he also described a per‑monument cost of about $2,000 and noted there are roughly nine PLSS monuments per square mile.

Committee members pressed on two recurring concerns: (1) whether the bill creates an unfunded mandate for counties, and (2) whether proactive county re‑establishment of monuments could lead to new legal conflicts between property owners. Sen. Gusliffson cited a letter from the Association of Minnesota Counties saying a 2028 completion timeline was unrealistic and that counties lack staff and funding to complete the work. Sen. Crume raised potential legal mechanisms such as quiet‑title actions and Torrens registration that property owners might use in disputes.

Co‑Chair Lang moved that the committee recommend Senate File 59 as amended and re‑refer it to the Judiciary Committee; the motion was approved by voice vote. The committee did not record a roll‑call tally in the hearing record provided; the referral signals further committee work will focus on legal language, timeline and funding mechanisms.

Next steps: Senate File 59 was recommended to pass the State Government Committee and was re‑referred to the Judiciary Committee for additional consideration.