Submitted photo Area legislators, including Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne, and Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, said finding ways to curb spending would be important as Minnesota faces a projected $6 billion deficit in future years.

MARSHALL — With Minnesota facing a projected $6 billion deficit in 2028-29, the state needs to control its spending, area legislators said this week. But deciding how to do that will be the hard part.

“There are some difficult days ahead,” as legislators focus on passing a budget, said Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne. Weber and other area legislators said it’s likely that neither Republicans or Democrats will get everything they want this session. “Where the cuts are going to occur is going to be a difficult discussion.”

Over the past couple of weeks, Republican legislators including Weber and Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, said the cuts shouldn’t come from services for the elderly and disabled people. Dahms said Minnesota could look at reducing fraud, and evaluate whether organizations like nonprofits were using funding efficiently.

Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, said Minnesota would need to “right-size government” in order to deal with the projected deficit.

On Friday, Weber, Dahms, and Swedzinski gave the Indpendent updates on the legislative session.

Area legislators said a major focus this session is passing a budget for the next biennium. Friday was the Legislature’s third deadline for committee action on bills, Dahms said. Major appropriation and finance bills needed to be passed out of committee by that deadline. Budget negotiations, and passing bills off the House and Senate floors, would be the next steps, area legislators said.

“We will be passing bills off the House floor after Easter break,” Swedzinski said.

Weber said while it was possible that legislators could bass a budget bill on time this year, there could be challenges ahead. Dahms thought it was possible, “if we stay focused.”

The Minnesota House was in an unusual situation early in this session, with House Democrats boycotting three weeks’ worth of the legislative session.

“It put a dent in our ability to get done on time,” Swedzinski said. But Republican legislators kept working during the boycott, he said. The session could still wrap up on time.

Legislators said the question of how to curb spending in Minnesota government was an issue that Republicans and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party did not agree on.

Last week, Republican senators including Dahms and Weber criticized the 2025 budget targets released by Senate Democrats in March. The proposal included more than $533 million in cuts to Health and Human Services over the next biennium, Dahms said. Weber and Dahms also said that the budget targets also set the stage for up to $687 million in education cuts during the 2028-2029 budget cycle.

“Senate Democrats are backing Governor Walz’s plan to balance the budget at the expense of vulnerable Minnesotans. Their proposal includes massive cuts to special education and essential services for individuals with disabilities,” Dahms said in a news release.

On Friday, Weber agreed that funding for nursing homes and services for the disabled wasn’t a good place to make cuts.

“That gets to be a non-starter for many people,” he said.

Dahms and Weber said this week, Senate Republicans were also proposing to take some financial burdens off of schools through package of legislation. The “Students First” package included bills that would allow school boards to waive some state mandates.

Dahms said Minnesota had put record amounts of funding into education in the last couple of bienniums, but at the same time put in place mandates that were costly for school districts to follow.

“In the past two years, over 80 mandates were placed on our schools,” Weber said.

“In my opinion, what we have to do is to take a look at school districts,” Dahms said. “We have good administrators in our schools. We have good school boards. We have excellent teachers and parents,” he said. Local school boards should have be able to decide on solutions that worked best for their students’ needs, he said.

While 2025 is not a bonding year for the Minnesota Legislature, “Bonding is being talked about,” Dahms said. The Minnesota Department of Management and Budget has said that the state could bond for about $700 million in the 2025 session.

“I could see a small bonding bill” this session, Dahms said. He said a bonding bill this year would probably focus on items like water and sewer projects for small communities, or Higher Education Asset Preservation and Replacement (HEAPR) projects at colleges and universities.