Template talk:Government of Minnesota

Government, State Agencies vs Semi-State/State Related/Dependencies and other unique situations

I wanted to raise that that there are a couple issues with the current template. Higher Education in Minnesota are not specifically State Government. There is an Office of Higher Education that coordinates public policy at the state level it is an executive branch department. (https://www.ohe.state.mn.us/). There is also the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System they operate directly under the authority of the executive branch and may be governed by the Minnesota State Legislature. Technically they operate under the direction of their Board of Trustees but operate as other departments do. The University of Minnesota system is comprised of 5 "coordinate campuses" as one entity. The University of Minnesota has constitutional autonomy granted to it through a legal ruling by the state supreme court through the interpretation of its founding as independent organization prior to the statehood of Minnesota. It is considered unique and separate from the operations of the three branches of Government in Minnesota. (http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/umcnauto.pdf). A diagram from the Minnesota House of Representatives terms it a semi-state entity and in other places uses the term "state related dependency". (http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hinfo/govser/GOVSER9.pdf).

In addition to this, the Metropolitan Council of Minnesota (e.g. not NY) is considered officially a metropolitan planning organization designated for the 7 county urbanized area around the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN and Saint Paul, MN. The Metro Council is also so large that it acts in place of the Regional Development Commission that were created later in the 1960s to provide economic development assistance to large multi-county areas across the state. Being one of the earliest MPOs to be created it has taken on a number of state functions as directed by the state legislature including the metro sewer and water and transit agency functions. For that reason it is sometimes shown as a state executive branch department (http://www.sos.state.mn.us/media/1370/mn-governmentdiagram.pdf), but it is technically a type of local government similar to other MPOs like the Rochester-Olmsted Council of Governments, the Mankato-North Mankato Planning Organization, the Saint Cloud Area Planning Organization, the Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Interstate Council, the Fargo-Moorhead, La Crosse-La Crescent and Grand Forks agencies.

The hard part here is defining which categories and the type of information desired. For example, the government in Minnesota includes townships, cities and counties as well. (https://www.lmc.org/media/document/1/localgovernmentinminnesota.pdf?inline=true) There are numerous state Boards of XYZ as well that determine policy and make recommendations to the legislature, the governor and others. There is also the Minnesota Zoo and the Gardens - which are state level dependencies but are not executive branch departments. You also have things like the Iron Range Resource Board (IRRB) and others that are quasi-state agencies as well. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 20:53, 4 October 2017 (UTC)