Union leaders told state senators on Thursday that Minnesota’s federal workers are now missing rent and are taking home boxes of food at the end of their shifts.
The sobering testimony on Thursday comes as the federal government shutdown nears a month. It was the latest meeting of the Minnesota Senate’s Subcommittee on Federal Impacts.
Mark Johnson, of Duluth, representing Transportation Security Administration agents with the American Federation of Government Employees, said roughly 1,000 of Minnesota’s 18,000 federal employees are TSA agents.
“I’ve got officers that have come to me that say my rent is due on Nov. 1. I don’t have the funds for that. My landlord is unwilling to work with me. And, ‘Oh, by the way, they told me there was going to be a $50-per-day late fee.’ How do people sustain that when you are … paycheck to paycheck?” Johnson said.
Johnson has been with AFGE for 18 years and said this isn’t his first rodeo. At day 30, with the longest shutdown on record at 35 days, he said he would “like to hope” another record isn’t set, but that he’s “just not sure.”
“It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for the shutdown,” he said. “There’s no partisanship in this. We need our elected officials to please, please get together and hammer this out.”
Neal Gosman, an AFGE leader and a TSA agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said his employees took home donated food boxes after their shifts on Wednesday.
Members of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture who have partnerships with the U.S. Department of Agriculture also testified. Dr. Nicole Neeser, director of the Dairy and Meat Inspection Division, said their services in testing meat are considered essential since processing plants can’t sell products without inspectors.
Dr. Brian Hoefs, director of the state Board of Animal Health, who oversees animal disease, said Minnesota is already the state most affected by avian flu, with 208 confirmed cases. He said if a new disease emerges, he’s not sure how his staff would respond.
Hoefs said his communication with the USDA, which provides 20% of his staff’s budget, is “not where it used to be.”
“The USDA contingency plan for the federal shutdown has also been removed from the website … we don’t know why, but that’s kind of the … status of where we’re at with communications,” he said. “We don’t get a lot of direct communication like we used to. There’s … decisions being made that we aren’t always privy to, and we find out about them after the fact.”
Alex Fitzsimmons, with the Children’s Defense Fund, testified about her concerns with the federal nutrition program Women, Infants and Children. Minnesota receives roughly $9 million a month for WIC, and funds are expected to last through the third week of November, according to reports from Minnesota Management and Budget on Wednesday.
“Oftentimes, we’re concerned about being hyperbolic as advocates; in this situation, this isn’t hyperbole,” she said. “Losing access to WIC would result broadly in increased hunger, poorer health outcomes, and greater financial strain for thousands of pregnant women, infants and young children in Minnesota.”
Attorney General Keith Ellison testified before the subcommittee regarding a 25-state lawsuit against the USDA that argues the halt in food stamp benefits during the shutdown is illegal and that a $6 billion contingency fund should be tapped. Ellison reported that a federal judge was expected to make a ruling on the case soon.
“It’s intolerable that nearly one half-million Minnesotans could go hungry when the law clearly provides for funding to help it across previous federal government shutdowns,” Ellison said of the Trump administration’s decision to stop paying food stamps during the shutdown. “SNAP benefits have never been interrupted by a lapse on appropriations, until now.”
It’s unclear what state lawmakers could do to mitigate the effects of the federal shutdown.
Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, said she’s looking for legislative fixes that could “backfill” the loss in federal funds. The state’s budget for the next two years was already passed in the 2025 session, with the hopes of curbing a $6 billion projected deficit for 2028.
She mentioned Minnesota’s rainy day funds, but said she hasn’t “been around long enough to know what constitutes a rainy day.” DFL Gov. Tim Walz said Monday those funds are untouched and that the Legislature would have to come back to approve their use.
“This is not something that a state should be having to figure out. Like, this is why we pay federal taxes,” Maye Quade said. “This is why we have federal partners, having 50 different governors and, you know, D.C. and then Puerto Rico trying to figure out, how are we going to backfill and figure this out with 50 different solutions? That’s dire.”
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