Minnesota School Safety
Mapping Requirements

Minnesota's program is a state-funded grant initiative rather than a direct mandate on individual schools. The 2024 Session Laws Chapter 123 appropriated $7 million for the Department of Public Safety to grant regional 911 boards to digitally map school facilities. The obligation and funding sit with the state and the regional emergency communications boards, which coordinate the mapping — schools participate through their regional board rather than each producing maps on their own.

The Commissioner of Public Safety awards grants to regional emergency communications boards — the regional bodies that coordinate 911 dispatch. Those boards procure mapping vendors through a statewide RFP and manage the work, collaborating with the schools being mapped and with local public-safety agencies during procurement. Because the program runs through the 911 system, Minnesota schools generally do not contract mapping services individually; they are mapped through their regional board, and the finished maps are shared with fire, police, and EMS.

Minnesota appropriated $7 million on a one-time basis (2024 Session Laws, Chapter 123) from the state government special revenue fund supported by 911 fees. The funding was available through June 30, 2026, with the mapping targeted for completion and reporting by July 1, 2026 (extensions possible). This is state-level funding — federal STOP School Violence Act and COPS grants fund training and prevention but do not cover physical mapping or 3D scanning services.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the statewide 911 program administer the mapping initiative — not the Department of Education. Because the funding flows through 911 fees and is executed by regional emergency communications boards, it is treated as an emergency-communications investment. This is different from states like Georgia or Florida, where school mapping funding is run through the education department.

Minnesota's mapping data must be compatible with the public-safety software responders already use (at no added fee), available in printable formats, field-verified through an on-site visit rather than built from outdated blueprints, and perpetually available to districts and public-safety agencies. The maps must also be shareable with fire, police, and EMS. 3D laser scanning produces the field-verified source data these maps are built from — point clouds and measurement reports that import into the agencies' own mapping and dispatch systems.

The program requires field-verified maps built from an on-site visit and compatible with public-safety software. 3D laser scanning with equipment like the Trimble X12 (±1mm @ 10m / ±2mm @ 20m accuracy) physically captures every room during the scanning process — this IS the on-site verification. The resulting point-cloud scan data (E57, RCP, LAS, LAZ), plus PDF measurement reports and 360° panoramas, imports directly into the CAD, GIS, and 911 systems that regional boards and their vendors use to build the responder-facing maps.

Professional 3D laser scanning for school safety documentation costs $0.20-$0.70 per square foot, with a $1,000 minimum project. For a standard 50,000 sqft Minnesota school building, expect approximately $10,000-$20,000 depending on the level of detail required. Matterport virtual tours for schools start at $1,500 per building. Pricing varies by location and project scope, and volume discounts are available for district-wide or multi-building scanning programs.

Yes. The one-time $7 million appropriation ran through mid-2026, and the maps it produced are intended to remain perpetually available. Schools that were not covered — or that have renovated, added buildings, or reconfigured spaces since being mapped — can still pursue professional documentation using existing safety or facilities budgets. Proactive mapping gives first responders current building intelligence regardless of the grant cycle, and a fresh survey-grade scan keeps the underlying data accurate as facilities change.

Minnesota has not enacted its own version of Alyssa's Law — the panic-alarm mandate named for Parkland victim Alyssa Alhadeff that a dozen states have adopted. Minnesota's school safety investment instead focuses on mapping: the 2024 Chapter 123 appropriation for digital school maps through the 911 program. Panic alerts and school mapping data are two different categories of school safety measure — you can read more about the alerting side in our Alyssa's Law guide at /schools/alyssas-law/. Schools interested in comprehensive safety often pursue both alerting technology and field-verified mapping.

Yes. THE FUTURE 3D provides professional 3D laser scanning nationwide, including Minnesota, and is equipped to coordinate with regional 911 boards, district safety officers, and local emergency response agencies. We are an NYC DOE Approved Vendor (#THE770638) with experience serving 20+ NYC DOE schools and 5+ years documenting schools; we typically respond to inquiries within one hour. Our equipment — the Trimble X12 (±1mm @ 10m / ±2mm @ 20m accuracy), NavVis VLX3 (mobile scanning for rapid campus coverage), and Matterport Pro3 (virtual tours) — produces field-verified deliverables meeting Minnesota's mapping requirements. A single visit can also yield a dual-purpose result: safety scan data for responders plus a Matterport tour for enrollment marketing.