Slower boot up times in Sequoia 15.1 + Wallpaper not appearing after a few seconds after login

I just updated through a clean install from Sonoma 14.5 to Sequoia 15.1 on my 2014 Mac mini with the 2.8 GHz core i5-4308u, 8GB ram, 128GB nvme ssd, and Intel Iris 5100 graphics. These are the same specs from the 2014 MacBook Pro 13 inch. The overall performance is great and feels faster than Sonoma, but I noticed the boot time is a good 20 seconds longer than on Sonoma. On Sonoma, it took 30 seconds, but on Sequoia, it takes 50 seconds. Then after I login, I noticed the wallpaper also doesn't appear after about a few seconds. Is anyone else also experiencing the same issues? I have disabled spotlight and screen saver, but I still have these issues. Are they just Sequoia bugs?