EXCERPT: “A number of school superintendents, board of education members, teachers and students from across the region took to the stand Friday to share with Minnesota legislators the unique educational needs of Greater Minnesota school districts. During an approximately two-hour long field hearing at Windom Area Middle/High School, those affected most by education finance and policy ...

  Kelly Asche, research associate at the Center, has been working on the next part of his workforce series, this time looking at people recruitment around Greater Minnesota. There’s a big difference between traditional economic development strategies—attracting jobs—and the strategies being used now to attract people, Kelly tells us. 

EXCERPT: “Plans to make historic investments in Greater Minnesota could sail through fights at the Capitol over contentious pieces of Gov. Tim Walz’s spending blueprint. Some of the central tenets like a 20 cents per gallon gas tax hike and decision to keep in place a 2 percent tax on medical providers faced instant opposition from ...

EXCERPT: “One-in-five U.S. rural hospitals are at a high risk of closing unless their financial situation improves, according to a new Navigant (NYSE: NCI) analysis of publicly available data. The study also shows that 64% of these at-risk rural hospitals are considered essential to the health and economic well-being of their communities. The analysis, which ...

One economic issue getting a lot of attention is particularly associated with rural areas: agriculture. Global trade, relationships with countries such as China and Mexico, and agricultural commodity prices have a major impact on ag and farming due to the large quantity of commodity crops we export around the world. Prices for corn and soybeans ...

EXCERPT: “City officials are hopeful that bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday in the Minnesota Legislature will give a long-awaited boost to the state’s Local Government Aid (LGA) program. SF 1304/HF 1102, led by chief authors Sen. Bill Weber (R-Luverne) and Rep. Dave Lislegard (DFL-Aurora), aims to increase LGA funding by $30.5 million, the amount needed to bring ...

EXCERPT: “Minnesota lawmakers weighed some of the first proposals aimed at addressing the shortage of child care providers in Minnesota’s rural areas Wednesday, Feb. 13. Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Family Care and Aging advanced two bills that would set aside up $10 million in grants to help child care providers in Greater Minnesota expand ...

  This week we talk about the Center’s newest undertaking: a new blog that will discuss our latest research and other rural issues. We’ll be posting new pieces weekly, at least for now during the legislative session, and at least bi-weekly after that.  We also talk about the Center’s new State of Rural report for ...

EXCERPT: “The Minnesota Department of Commerce will continue to appeal Enbridge Energy’s proposed Line 3 oil pipeline, Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday morning, Feb. 12. Walz said his administration, through the Department of Commerce, will petition the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to reconsider the certificate of need it granted to the project, allowing an appeal filed ...

February 13, 2019 By Kelly Asche, Research Associate Each year, the Center for Rural Policy and Development provides a brief report on various economic and demographic conditions in rural Minnesota. The State of Rural Minnesota 2019  provides data points both current and historical, illustrating how rural conditions have changed and where they are at now. ...