Council Passes $2 Billion 2026 Budget After Weeks of Negotiation

The Minneapolis City Council adopted a roughly $2 billion budget for 2026 on Dec. 9, 2025, approving the spending plan on an 11-0-0-2 vote — 11 in favor, none opposed, none abstaining and two members absent — and setting an 8% property-tax levy increase for the year.

The vote followed weeks of negotiation with Mayor Jacob Frey, who delivered his budget address Aug. 13, 2025, proposing a roughly $2 billion plan with a 7.8% levy increase. The council reworked the proposal through committee markup, restored cuts the mayor had proposed to his own office staffing, and ended at an 8% levy — the maximum the Board of Estimate and Taxation set in September.

Unlike the prior year, when the council passed the 2025 budget over Frey's veto, the 2026 plan came together as a negotiated agreement announced jointly by Frey and Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai of Ward 10. The shift reflected a council that, after the 2025 election, no longer holds a veto-proof majority and had to reach terms the mayor would sign rather than override him. Chughtai said the council wanted departments to understand that "their budgets are not suggestions".

Among the changes, Council Member Robin Wonsley led a successful amendment directing $1.4 million in one-time funding to the city's Safe and Thriving Communities work. The budget fully funds the charter-mandated police force and continues court-overseen police reforms without launching major new initiatives.

For Lowry Hill and the lakes neighborhoods, the budget sets the city portion of the property-tax bill and funds the services residents use daily — police, public works, regulatory services and infrastructure. The owner of a median-value $333,000 home would pay $2,272 in city property taxes in 2026, an increase of $242.

The adopted budget governs the 2026 fiscal year. Residents can read it at minneapolismn.gov/government/budget and see the levy's effect on their parcel through their Hennepin County property-tax statement.