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Municipal Welfare Debated in Minnesota
Taxation by WalterScottHudson


BLOOMINGTON, MN – As President Obama delivered the State of the Union address in Washington, a gubernatorial debate took place in Minnesota hosted by the Minnesota News Council and the League of Women Voters. A clear dichotomy emerged surrounding the issue of local government aid (LGA), a state-level redistributive funding mechanism which could be characterized as municipal welfare.

WKBT, a local CBS affiliate, reports many Minnesota cities rely upon local government aid from the state to hold down property taxes and fund essential services like police and fire departments. In the gubernatorial debate, which was recorded Wednesday by the New Patriot Journal, local government aid was first evoked by State Representative Paul Thissen, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) candidate. Responding to a question regarding property taxes, Thissen stated he would like to see them replaced by state-level taxes, effectively institutionalizing local government aid as the primary municipal funding mechanism.

Marty Seifert, Republican Minority Leader in the State House, countered with a call for restructuring local government aid to make it more needs-based. “We have four cities that get half the LGA. LGA was never intended to be the hammock that it is now for local government. It was intended to be an equalizer for very poor communities that didn’t have a property tax base.”

The issue later became heated between Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, DFL and State Representative Tom Emmer, GOP. (Note: this writer has served as a volunteer for Emmer for Governor.) Answering a question regarding how state government should respond to home foreclosures, Emmer said he would get the economy moving again by setting budget priorities. Emmer called out the City of Minneapolis, and thus Rybak, for laying off police officers while the City Council received a raise.

Rybak fired back at his next opportunity, blaming Emmer and the state legislature for cutting local government aid and endangering essential services. When Emmer regained the floor, he called for restructuring government to eliminate redundancies and make Minnesota more competitive for business.

In an October interview on US Web Talk Radio, Minneapolis firefighter John Ackerman (speaking on his own behalf and not as a representative of the City of Minneapolis or the Minneapolis Fire Department) described how essential services were perpetually threatened by the city’s reliance on local government aid.

At that time, according to Ackerman, layoffs in the fire department had been avoided only because the city provided temporary funding while waiting for a federal grant. “In two years’ time, unless anything changes, we’re still in the same boat. We don’t have dedicated funds,” Ackerman said, adding Minneapolis already lags behind national standards for firefighter per capita.

WKBT reports Winona Mayor Jerry Miller, Rybak, and other officials held a press conference Thursday to convey the importance of local government aid. “So far, we haven’t had to affect police or fire,” Miller was quoted, positioning himself and allied mayors against the state to secure funding.



Posted 2/1/2010

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