(This article is courtesy of MinnPost. Carver County Local News has permission to republish MinnPost content that has relevance to the Carver County community.)

A spending bill that would avert a government shutdown fails to fund dozens of special projects.

WASHINGTON — The city of Carver, once the last stop for steamboats traveling up the Minnesota River, wants to upgrade a levee that has kept the river from flooding the town.

So the city sought the help of Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, who has asked for more than $27 million for local transportation projects in the 2025 budget. Emmer put in an earmark request for $3.35 million to help the city of 7,000 people raise enough money to upgrade that 60-year-old levy to the standards set by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But that request, as well as the rest of Emmer’s requests and hundreds of millions of dollars in earmark appeals from other Minnesota federal lawmakers, aren’t likely to be approved, having fallen victim to Congress’ inability to approve appropriations bills and the GOP’s determined efforts to cut federal spending.

That has dashed the hopes for federal money for local transportation projects, new firehouses, police stations, airports, recreation centers, wastewater treatment plans and money to non-profits that provide medical care and housing help.

Carver Mayor Courtney Johnson said she asked for the federal help because she was “trying to leave no stone unturned” in seeking the $13 million needed to fortify and modernize the city’s levee.

She said she was disappointed that the help won’t come — at least not this year. “We don’t ask for that much in Carver,’” Johnson said.

But the city has raised $9 million already and plans to start work on the levee next year anyway.

The reason Carver, and dozens of other towns in Minnesota, won’t receive hoped-for funding for special projects is complicated.  

Since the appropriations process in Congress collapsed this year, federal agencies have been funded through a series of short-term, stop-gap spending bills that, unlike the appropriations bills, don’t have earmarks.

See the original article at MinnPost here.