Meet Councilmember Matt Bauer
Learning on the job and prioritizing fiscal responsibility
City Councilmember Matt Bauer is focused on learning the ropes of city council and prioritizing fiscal responsibility in budget planning.
Bauer is in his first term on the Roseville city council after being elected in November 2024. Bauer ran for city council after being encouraged to do so multiple times by current and former city council members and people in the community.
"Like most people, I kept saying no, and then eventually I said yes one time, and that was the answer that they latched onto. And that was really good, because I don't know how you can do this job by yourself," Bauer said. The connections and support he had during his campaign and during his first year on city council have made a big difference for him.
He had been serving on the Roseville Planning Commission, where he got his first taste of city government and all the decisions that go into making government work. But it wasn't until he started serving on the city council that he really discovered just how much there was to learn.
"There are so many things that I've had to come up to speed on," Bauer said. For example, coming from the tech startup world, Bauer discovered that city government has a totally different set of accounting standards and processes that he had to learn, as well as how the city government functions.
"I had worked on the planning commission, so I had some insight. I thought I did. But then once you're really looking at it, digging in on the weekend through these packets, you start to understand there's so much to learn," Bauer said.
City councilmembers usually receive meeting packets on Thursdays ahead of Monday meetings. These packets include many documents about the items up for discussion.
Bauer's quest to learn more about how things work has included ride-alongs with the fire and police department. He says it's helped him to better understand the needs of those departments and the people they encounter to understand what the community is experiencing.
"You get to interact with people in the community that don't come to city council meetings or aren't going to email you or those kinds of things," Bauer said. He likes interacting with people out in the community to hear their perspectives and what their experiences are, who may not have time or availability to come to City Hall for a meeting.
Bauer also connects with city staff, residents, and former city council members to better understand how decisions were made in the past, which are informing decisions in front of him today.
"I've gone through old meeting minutes and tracked people down to call them, to ask them, what was the reasoning for things? Getting that information has been very valuable," Bauer said.
Fiscally-Minded Decision Making
Being "fiscally minded" is one of Bauer's top priorities as a city councilmember, with the goal of "keeping the budget strong and tight."
The city council is almost done with the 2026 budget process, which kicked off in the spring with the city budget audit and is ending in December with the Final Budget Hearing/Truth and Taxation Hearing on Dec. 1 and approval of the final budget scheduled for Dec. 8.
"A lot of it is looking at the services that we provide, if they're at the level that we need? Or are there services that we're providing that we don't need anymore and we should shut those down and allocate them to something else, because we have a different need?" Bauer said.
When asked if the city council considered budget cuts in the 2026 budget process, Bauer said there weren't as many proposed cuts as he would have preferred.
"I feel it's important that if we are going to raise taxes or the levy, it's also good for us to evaluate what could we also cut," Bauer said. "That doesn't mean that we're going to cut, but it'd be nice to see a selection of options for that."
Bauer is concerned about the rising tax levy and how that will impact the community. He's thinking about the 2026 budget, but also about how decisions made this year impact the years to come.
Bauer's professional background is in tech start-ups, which involve very fast decision-making.
"Nothing is in your way ever. You can just decide something that morning and it's there by the afternoon," Bauer said. "Government is not that way, nor should it be."
This year the city council has been making decisions about the Maintenance Operations Center and License & Passport Center/Dance Studio, which build on decisions previous city councils have made over the past decade. This project has been in the works since 2016.
Bauer would have rather seen the city build a new police department than a new building for the license and passport center with a dance studio on the second story. He would have preferred the city lease space for the license center and the dance studio.
"The new two story building is going to be very expensive and I very much don't think that was the right choice to do. We'll see. I'll keep fighting to not have that continue, but we'll see. I'm one vote," Bauer said.
The estimated cost of building a new building to house the license center and the dance studio is $14.5 million. Last fall, voters rejected a ballot measure which would have allocated proceeds from a half percent sales tax to pay for it. Voters approved the other question, which implemented that same half percent sales tax to fund the new Maintenance Operations Center.
Naomi Krueger
"Granted, the referendum was about should we use sales tax or not. But I think a lot of residents, the ones I've talked to, have said that [they thought it] was more of a decision of should we build it or not?" Bauer said.
Bauer is also not supportive of building a new space for the parks and recreation dance program, saying it only benefits a small percentage of Roseville. This came up at the June 16 city council meeting too. During that meeting, Parks and Recreation Director Matt Johnson said there are currently over 600 program registrants who use the dance studio year round.
On July 7, the city council voted 3-2 to build a new building on city land. Bauer and Robin Schroeder voted against the motion.
Contributing Writer
Naomi Krueger
Community Connections
Bauer and his wife Stefanie have three kids. Two of his children attend Saint Paul Academy, a private K-12 school in Saint Paul and one goes to Groves Academy, a private school in Saint Louis Park. His eldest son Carsten is on the Roseville Public Works, Environment & Transportation (PWET) Commission. He joined before Bauer was elected to city council. His daughter is a Roseville Fire Explorer, a program for young people organized through Scouting America (previously Boy Scouts of America).
Because of his flexible day job as an entrepreneur, Bauer says he is available for conversations with residents and welcomes phone calls, emails, and opportunities to meet for coffee.
He likes local government because of how accessible and accountable you are to the people in the community. People see him out and about and ask him questions or give him feedback on decisions he's made on city council. The people he runs into in the community are other parents and his kids friends, neighbors, and fellow Roseville residents.
"I can also go ask people, what do you think about this? What are your thoughts? I'm very much for that—pushing decisions down to the people that it affects," Bauer said.
This is the last in the 2025 Meet the City Council series. There will be a city council and mayoral election in 2026. Seats currently held by Wayne Groff, Robin Schroeder, and Mayor Dan Roe will be on the ballot. The Roseville Reader will be covering that election so you feel equipped at the ballot box.
In case you missed them, here are previous city council member profiles published over the past year:
Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
