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Politics & Government

City Prepares For State Government Shutdown

How a state shutdown might impact Eagan is unknown, but department managers are on the lookout for potential problems.

During Tuesday's staff meeting, City Administrator Tom Hedges asked the heads of city departments if they had any sense of how the looming July 1 state government shutdown might impact Eagan. 

Hedges said that although Eagan doesn't depend on the state for day-to-day operations, there will doubtless be some impact.

Hedges has instructed department managers to identify areas where the city may have to make contingency plans and determine what the costs of such plans might be.

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Some example given of potential impacts include:

  • Anything associated with grants, especially if there is nobody to process them. Hedges wonders if grants will go away if the state can't deliver on projects and he hinted at the possibility of having to delay construction of the new parking lot in the Cedar Grove Development Area if grant monies are held up due to a shutdown.
  • If state workers who respond to incidents on I-35E are not determined to be essential workers, the City of Eagan may be tasked with responding.
  • If there are no MnDot inspectors to approve the work being done on the Duckwood overpass, Eagan may have to hire outside inspectors. If such an additional expense had been anticipated at the start of the project, the city could have appropriated those funds or even delayed the the project until things were more certain.

Hedges also indicated that he has heard of spillover impacts into the private sector.

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According to Hedges, Eagan staffers have heard from private consultants that state workers are not proceeding with new contracts because they are unsure if there will be anyone from the state around to monitor them.

Despite the obvious challenges this time around, Hedges didn't recall any significant issues for Eagan when the state government shutdown for eight days in 2005. 

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