Complaints about all the closed-door negotiations and meetings at the Minnesota State Capitol have been commonplace over the past three weeks.

Those complaints have now been amplified by a provision in the transportation bill that caught metro area counties by surprise and has them crying foul.

“Yes, we all were very surprised by it,” said Washington County Commissioner Karla Bigham when asked if counties were blindsided by a shift of $93 million from counties to the Metropolitan Council. “There hadn’t been a bill or hearing or any sort of discussion about this.”

State lawmakers were flooded with letters from several metro area counties, including Washington, Dakota, Carver, Anoka and Ramsey. A letter from Dakota County is typical of many of the letters, saying if the provision were to stay in the bill, it would break a deal made in 2023 regarding how revenue from a new metro area sales tax would be distributed.

“It resulted in a funding package that, among other things, guaranteed the seven metro counties would receive 17% of the regional sales tax revenue for transportation,” the letter to lawmakers says. “Now, the working group’s agreement would cut the counties’ share in half to 8.5% and send the remaining 8.5% to the Metropolitan Council for (Bus Rapid Transit) buildout. Dakota County will lose millions. Should this new transportation budget agreement become law, Dakota County will lose more than $7 million in sales tax revenue for transportation projects in 2026 alone. Over the biennium, the county will miss out on $14.4 million. That funding was already programmed for a variety of transportation projects, including pavement preservation on aging roadways and regional trail construction.”

One member of the transportation working group who asked not to be identified told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the provision was proposed by a lawmaker who intended to introduce it during the legislative session. It was adopted, despite some bipartisan opposition.

The future of the provision remains in doubt. “The transportation bill isn’t going to pass with this (provision) in it,” the source says.

The goal of legislative leaders and the governor is not to call a special session until they have an agreement on bills that can pass.

Legislative leaders acknowledged on Wednesday there were issues with the transportation bill.

“My understanding is there is some technical language that was slowing up the posting of the transportation bill,” DFL Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman said on her way into a meeting with the governor.

It turns out the problem is much bigger than “technical language” for metro counties.

“This is going to create a hole in our budgets, in our capital improvement plans,” Bigham said of the impact on Washington County.