MINNEAPOLIS: A partisan dispute over who should pay for reinforcing police during the murder trial of a former Minneapolis officer charged with killing George Floyd came to a head Monday at the Minnesota Legislature, where the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate debated two very different plans.
The Senate led the contentious discussions by passing 35-32 a proposal to allow the state to garnish money that Minneapolis gets from the state’s Local Government Aid program to ensure that other law enforcement agencies are reimbursed for their costs of contributing officers for what’s expected to be a massive security effort. It would provide no new state aid.
Backers said Minnesota taxpayers and other communities should not have to bail out Minneapolis, where the police department is more than 200 deployable officers under its authorized strength and some council members have pushed to defund or dismantle the department.
Republican Sen. Bill Weber, of…