Council overrides St. Paul mayor’s vetoes of 2025 budget items

The St. Paul City Council on Thursday overrode a series of Mayor Melvin Carter’s line-item budget vetoes that would have slashed City Council office renovations in favor of police overtime.

The mayor and council members had previously clashed on $6 million in proposed cuts to Carter’s proposed budget aimed partially at curtailing police overtime and eliminating library positions through attrition. The council eventually adopted a 2025 budget that resulted in a 5.9% tax levy increase, down from the mayor’s original proposed levy of 7.9%.

In a letter to the City Council on Thursday, Carter expressed his concern at cutting $1.2 million in non-emergency police overtime, something he said is usually required to cover patrol shift for officers on leave and for “pursuing time-sensitive investigations.”

To make up for that spending, the mayor vetoed a proposed $1.8 million renovation of City Council offices.

Speaking outside the council chambers following Thursday’s special meeting, Council President Mitra Jalali defended the choice to uphold that spending.

“Our office is a public workplace, so we need safety improvements, we need accessibility improvements, modernization for the public to come in and receive services — all of that’s underway,” Jalali said.

Carter also attempted to carve out room in the budget to keep the city’s Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity (HREEO) director — a position that the mayor says is required under the city charter. To accommodate the position’s $227,180 salary, he vetoed spending for events and festivals programming, the St. Paul Children’s Collaborative and expanding the City Council Audit Committee.

Jalali contended that the adopted budget wouldn’t have eliminated the position at all; rather, it would have rolled back the salary until the council and mayor agree on a plan to fill a role that Jalali said has been vacant for about two years.

In his letter, Carter said the City Council hold the power to initiate the hiring process for the HREEO director.

Carter noted this was just the third veto he has issued while in office.

“Thoughtful dissent is a hallmark of our democracy. As such, veto power should be used sparingly and with extreme discernment,” Carter said. “Over my seven years as Mayor, this is only my third time exercising such authority. This conviction is strongly evidenced by the many items in the City Council’s 2025 adopted budget with which I vehemently disagree but left to proceed unimpacted by administrative veto action.”

In addition to these line-item vetoes, the mayor said he told city departments to prepare for hiring and spending freezes due to nearly $2.4 million in “unattainable savings.”

Carter’s office said according to the city charter, the City Council’s last chance to alter the budget was before midnight on Wednesday and that any actions taking during Thursday’s special meeting would not be legally binding.

Jalali asserted that Carter left council members no choice but to act on Thursday.

“Not only do I think it is fully within the law and our purpose as local government but I think it was necessary given the timing by which he delivered this to us, after our last meeting of the year,” Jalali said.