Worried about proposed cuts to local governments — particularly to their big cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis — Mayors Chris Coleman and R.T. Ryak testified at a state House committee this morning that the proposed GOP budget bill would be devastating.
Coleman said the proposed cuts in HF 481 would make St. Paul less safe and could turn the two core cities into another Detroit. The bill calls for drastic cuts to cities and counties: phasing out LGA to metro suburban cities by the end of the biennium and eliminating LGA for Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth by the end of 2015, MPR notes.
Coleman said that would mean that even if he cut every discretionary service in the city, it would not be enough to cover the proposed losses from state aid.
Rybak said he’d been told that Minneapolis could lose $40 million in state aid under the bill but now thinks it might be $48 million. That’s out of a city budget of $392 million in city spending that he controls. Without making further cuts to public safety or public works (the potholes, you know) Rybak said there’s only about $87 million left to fund all the rest of city government and services. The $48 million cut would take a huge chunk of that.
Drawing down the city’s fund balance to make up the difference could hurt the city’s AAA bond rating, he said.
Mayor Mike McGuire of Eagan asked the legislators to “reconsider the drastic cuts” to the big cities, which, he said, “would undermine economic development, stability and job creation” in the metro area.
“Minneapolis and St. Paul are the economic drivers for the region, and Eagan’s success is linked to the success of the core cities,” he said.
Mayor Dan Ness of Alexandria also spoke, saying that the Legislature and previous governor have treated the LGA payments as a rainy day fund, rather than an agreement between cities and the state.
Legislators, though, seemed unimpressed with the testimony and hurried each of the mayors along. While the GOP majority in the Legislature may eventually pass some form of these cuts, it’s unlikely that Gov. Dayton will go along with them at this level, and the issue will be part of the horse trading in May needed to resolve the budget deficit.
So if LGA gets cut will the Republicans allow the cities to retain their sales tax revenues? The bargain instituting LGA required cities to give their sales tax revenues to the state. If the GOP is ending that bargain, it better be well and truly ended. Then we’ll see how much they like the resulting wealth concentration in Minneapolis.
But no, the GOP have never been about keeping promises or honoring commitments.