With the close of session drawing near, Gov. Mark Dayton and House and Senate DFL leaders have reached agreement on the broad outlines of a budget for the upcoming biennium.

Jeremy Hanson Willis, City of Minneapolis CPED (Community Planning and Economic Development) executive director since April 23, 2012, said he has spent the past year doing a lot of listening. “I had worked for the mayor [R.T. Rybak] for seven years, and I came into CPED with a real agenda for change. However, I wanted to do it in a way that respects people and the work they are doing. People who work for the city do noble work every day, but our governmental systems are broken and we need to fix that.

With less than two weeks left, the Minnesota House of Representatives is putting in long hours to get bills passed off the House floor. But, at least one bill, expected to be taken up early in session, has remained noticeably missing from House floor action. That could change on Friday, however, when the omnibus legacy finance bill is scheduled for consideration by the full House.