Today I attended the Jobs and Economic Development Finance Division meeting where they heard fromMN Dep of Employment & Economic Development and Dep of Commerce about their budgets based on Governor Walz’ One Minnesota Budget. You can see the whole meeting below.  Broadband wasn’t a hot topics but a few things came up that were of interest:

For DEED, Steve Grove spoke about various funds, grants and tools to increase economic development opportunities.

• Community Prosperity Grant
  For small towns – based on what community thinks are greatest issues for economic development
  Matching grants
• MN Innovation collaborative
  For everyone innovator job created – 5 more follow – so great network effect
  Get start-ups started – overcome risk aversion
  Education – help people learn how to start a company
  Outreach
• Talk about changing required employee compensation levels – so that if 51 percent of staff make less than $20- you can still qualify. I mention this because there has always been conversation about employ compensation requirements for projects receiving State Broadband grants. And this seems like a similar situation.

For the Dep of Commerce, Steve Kelley spoke about a few specific technology projects:

• $416,000 in FY20. FY21, FY22 to support Commerce IT System Modernization project
• $475,00 in FY20 and $350,00 per year in ongoing funding to modernize the state’s unclaimed property operating system