Janet Jackson took the stage Tuesday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center wearing a comically oversized jacket that, coupled with the lengthy braids she kept sweeping away from her face, kept her largely hidden from the enthusiastic crowd of about 10,000.

It turned out to be an apt metaphor for her enthusiastic, if underwhelming, performance that echoed the 58-year-old’s three most recent local shows in the time since she returned to large-scale touring in 2015.

Her live band, tucked away in the shadows at the back of the stage, often overpowered Jackson, who also leaned heavily into the prerecorded backing vocals. And, once again, she crammed as many songs into her 110 minute show as she could, even if that meant cutting down some of her most-loved songs to a mere verse and chorus.

Jackson did switch up the set list from her previous show at the X, which happened just 13 months ago. Split into four “acts” and a finale, with downtime between each to facilitate Jackson’s costume changes, the show bumped her biggest hits up against relatively obscure album cuts, many drawn from her post-Super Bowl halftime show years when the music industry pretty much abandoned her.

(I, for one, was hoping — hoping, but not expecting — to hear Jackson throw some shade in Justin Timberlake’s direction following his early morning arrest Tuesday on DWI charges in the Hamptons. Alas, she chose grace, something Timberlake most certainly did not in the years since he tossed her under the bus after her infamous “wardrobe malfunction.”)

Jackson opened the first act with “Night,” from her most recent album, 2015’s “Unbreakable.” From there, she dived deep into her catalog for a series of upbeat, sometimes indecipherable, songs delivered as a lengthy medley. It wasn’t until her a cappella intro to “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” that the crowd got their first clear taste of Jackson’s breathy vocals.

Flanked by her muscular dancers, who wore dress shirts with the arms ripped off and plaid skirts, Jackson revisited a trio of her earliest hits during the second act: “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” “Nasty” and “The Pleasure Principle.”

The concert was nearly half over when Jackson shifted into slow jam mode, kicking off a run of songs with 2006’s ode to, uh, self-pleasure “Take Care” followed, funnily enough, by her 1987 ode to chastity “Let’s Wait Awhile.” She let the audience sing the bulk of “Again” and then broke into tears and announced “I love you so much,” a popular refrain from Jackson the few times she did speak to the crowd.

Well into her second hour, Jackson unleashed her full voice for “Alright,” “Escapade” and “Miss You Much” and did the same near the end during “Scream” (accompanied by her late brother Michael’s recorded vocals) and a particularly fiery and noisy “Rhythm Nation.” It would have been great to hear more of that throughout the show.

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Nothing can stop the Twins at this moment. Not even a long stoppage in the middle of the game.

Though the Twins started off slow on Tuesday night at Target Field, they awakened after a lengthy rain delay, then completed the comeback with a 7-6 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. Carlos Santana played hero, pinch-hitting for Jose Miranda in the ninth inning and promptly hitting a single to center field to score Manny Margot from second base.

The dramatic finish helped the Twins extend their winning streak to six games as they continue to chase the Cleveland Guardians for supremacy in the AL Central.

It wasn’t the cleanest of outings for Pablo Lopez before the rain delay, which spanned 1 hour, 23 minutes. He surrendered a three-run homer in the first inning, another run in the third and a solo homer in the fifth before the skies opened up. He was lifted from the game in favor of Jay Jackson when play resumed.

Given the way Lopez has carried the Twins at times over the past couple of seasons, it’s only right that his teammates picked him up on a rare occasion that he wasn’t at the peak of his powers.

The Twins responded thanks to some timely hitting by Willi Castro. He stepped into the batter’s box in the fourth inning with the bases loaded and tripled to right, scoring Carlos Correa, Ryan Jeffers and Austin Martin. That cut the deficit to 4-3, and Trevor Larnach doubled to left field shortly thereafter to score Castro and tie the score at 4-4.

That score wouldn’t hold, as the Rays got a solo home run from Brandon Lowe right before the rain delay and a solo home run from designated hitter Josh Lowe right after the rain delay.

Fortunately for the Twins, Max Kepler followed suit the next time he was at the plate, making it 6-5 with a solo home run of his own. Not long after that, Correa drew a walk and eventually came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Jeffers to tie the score at 6-6.

Aside from Jackson out of the bullpen, the Twins also got solid efforts from Jorge Alcala, Griffin Jax, and Jhoan Duran in relief.

That set the stage for Santana. He watched a couple of pitches whizz by him, then casually barreled up a ball to lift the Twins to a win.

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Amid ongoing questions about transparency, St. Paul’s school board on Tuesday night approved a $1 billion budget for the upcoming school year that will make around $114.6 million in cuts and relies on $37 million in deficit spending.

The cuts come as significant federal pandemic aid from the American Rescue Plan is set to expire, meaning reductions in many programs and positions including arts and music, special-education interpreters and after-school programs.

Last year’s budget had about $128 million in ARP funding that won’t be there in the 2024-25 school year.

“It’s not lost on me that for a brief moment in time, we saw what was possible if there was a greater investment in public education,” said school board chair Halla Henderson. “Now we are here having to say we can no longer provide that same level of support.”

St. Paul Public Schools leadership had known since last year that big cuts were likely for the upcoming school year. And district budget chief Tom Sager noted more cuts are likely down the road unless SPPS gets additional revenue, such as increased state funding.

The end of pandemic aid is just one part of the district’s financial difficulties. Declining enrollment has meant less per-pupil funding from the state. SPPS is the state’s second-largest school district, with 33,000 students, but it’s down about 4,000 students from about a decade ago. Declining enrollment stabilized this year, but it’s still left a hole for the district. Inflation has also raised costs.

Transparency concerns

Members approved the budget in a 6-1 vote, with first-term member Carlo Franco opposed due to his concerns with transparency in the budget creation process. Franco said he appreciated district administrators’ efforts to explain the process and how they shaped overall priorities but noted their proposal to the board didn’t fully explain program cuts.

“The biggest concern that I still have, that we haven’t really talked about, was the impact to our students,” he said ahead of the vote. “Due to the outstanding questions and lack of clarity on how our adopted FY 25 budget will actually impact our scholars’ learning experience and growth in the next school year, I’ll be voting no.”

Board member Uriah Ward, who opposed last year’s budget on similar transparency grounds, said district efforts to meet with the school board throughout the process were an improvement over past years. He said he understood parent and community complaints about transparency and cuts, but said the “pain” of reductions was spread around equally.

“As far as I can tell, we are doing about as good as we can with a really bad situation,” he said, later adding: “Our board is working in really specific concrete ways to change the way that we involve the community and decision-making processes.”

The district has given overviews of how cuts would affect schools, though specifics on many program impacts are yet to be seen. The most recent explanations on cuts come from April and include:

Reductions for school lunch that will result in menu changes, and potential school bus route cancellations.
Loss of additional custodial staff supported by federal aid.
Credit-recovery programs for students at the four high schools with the lowest graduation rates will now only be available after school or in the summer.

Amid cuts, the district also plans to increase spending on early education like pre-K and early-childhood family education with the goal of preparing students for elementary school so they can meet third-grade literacy standards.

Members first saw the 2024-25 budget proposal at their meeting last Tuesday. While district administrators had kept the board updated on the budget process since earlier this year, this was the first time the school board saw what they approved this week.

An original projected deficit of more than $150 million shrank to around $108 million this year, but the district still had to make cuts to balance the budget.

The budget still tops a billion, despite cuts, because of what Sager described as “favorable bond sales,” which grew spending on previously approved construction and renovation projects by close to $90 million. So even with more than $100 million in cuts, the budget is still in the 10-figure range like last year’s.

The 2024-25 budget also marks another year where the district is tapping into its reserve funds to help reduce program cuts. To avoid further reductions, the district is spending $37 million from its reserves, leaving behind $36.4 million — which is slightly above the 5% reserve threshold set by the school board.

Major cuts have been on the horizon at St. Paul Public Schools and many other districts for a while. About 70% of metro-area school districts faced shortfalls this year, according to the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, and St. Paul had one of the largest.

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