Minneapolis Faces Tough Stadium Funding Questions (Almost Too Late)

Stadium subsidy deficits sometimes take eight or 10 years to destroy a community's budget, or in the case of Glendale, at least until your team threatens to move again.  But in Minneapolis, there's already trouble brewing for the Vikings' new yet-to-be-opened stadium.

According to Field of Schemes, the state of Minnesota's budget & economic forecast indicates its stadium reserve fund will be depleted by 2016:

And after 2016, what happens? Minneapolis tax revenue currently going to pay off the convention center should be available starting in 2020, but until then, it’s anyone’s guess. Schowalter said the state could “restructure” the payments to forestall any budget gap until the convention center money starts flowing, but that would mean higher payments later, and the convention center money is also going to be needed to pay for previously approved renovations to the Timberwolves‘ Target Center, so … I’m serious, this is really the kind of thing that should be explained in a budget forecast document. If budget forecasts were really about the explaining.