Public tells legislators: Save our services

One after another, they paraded to the microphone. They told different stories, but consistently sent the same message: Save the services Minnesota communities need. And, if necessary, raise the revenue to do it.

“Passing the state’s problems onto Greater Minnesota and onto poorer constituencies is not really a solution,” said Jim Hurm, city administrator in Austin.

“Let’s work together to find a solution,” said Brenda Liker, chief administrator at a New Richland nursing home.

Snowplow driver Gary Zech of Owatonna urged lawmakers to find common sense solutions to the budget crisis. Photo by Michael Kuchta

Overflow crowd
Hurm and Liker were among more than three dozen citizens who spoke at a legislative “town hall” meeting Friday morning in Albert Lea. For nearly three hours, a dozen legislators from both parties listened as speakers spelled out the grim details of how Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposed budget could dismantle life in Minnesota as we know it.

A standing-room only crowd of more than 125 packed the City Council chambers. An overflow of 50 more listened in a room down the hall.

It’s a scene being repeated across the state, as House and Senate committees visit two dozen Minnesota cities, trying to learn firsthand what’s at stake as they wrestle with a $4.8 billion budget deficit. Meetings continue this week in the metro.

We’re talking common sense
Gary Zech, a MnDOT employee out of AFSCME Local 106 in Owatonna, was impossible to ignore. It wasn’t just because he was still wearing his safety-green coat. Zech brought a strong dose of common sense to the microphone. “I think everybody in this room would kick in an extra five bucks a week, I’m sure, on taxes, because we have to pay our bills,” he said.

He pointed out the folly of laying off public employees – who, he noted, also pay taxes. With a snowstorm on the way that eventually dumped as much as 7 inches in the area, Zech had the crowd laughing while making his point: “The job I do is very important. If you don’t believe me, come by tonight about 8 o’clock.”

What the cuts really mean where we live
Local officials fleshed out what Zech alluded to. They cited black-and-white evidence of how Pawlenty’s cuts disproportionately target them. Their real point, however, was that their communities can’t absorb continued reductions in Local Government Aid payments from the state.

Albert Lea is staring at cuts that would pay for six police officers, six firefighters, half the library budget, more than the entire parks budget, or two winters of snow removal and road salting, city manager Victoria Simonsen said.

The city has fewer employees than it did a decade ago, but property taxes still have risen 180 percent. “The citizens of Albert Lea cannot tolerate more,” she said.

As former Republican state legislator Dan Dorman put it, “A reduction in Local Government Aid is a tax increase locally on homeowners and businesses.”

Down the highway, Austin also faces $2 million in LGA cuts – enough to pay for half the police department or for the entire fire department, city administrator Hurm said. Austin already has slashed its workforce from 185 to 141, he said; additional losses in state aid “will clearly affect the services we provide and the employees we have.”

Township and county officials spelled out similarly dire choices. “We won’t cut core services at a time when human service needs are increasing,” said Craig Oscarson, the Mower County coordinator. If the governor’s cuts take place, he said, the county will have to eliminate 7 percent of its workforce – yet still need to raise property tax rates by double digits.

A Geneva Township resident asked legislators which services the township should eliminate: road maintenance, ambulance and fire service – or maybe elections.

On overflow crowd packed the Albert Lea City Council chambers (above) while legislators listened. Photos by Michael Kuchta

Other sectors aren’t immune
Other speakers highlighted specific glimpses of the consequences of Pawlenty’s proposed cuts in other areas.

“The court system is at the tipping point,” said Hans Holland, court administrator in Waseca County. Courts are so short-staffed that they are losing their ability to process cases, he said. “It’s a threat to public safety.”

Pawlenty’s proposed reductions in higher education would force Riverland Community College’s three campuses to cut so much staff that the college would have to deny enrollment to 700 students, president Terrence Leas said. That’s at a time when more out-of-work adults are using local colleges to develop new skills for different careers.

Hospital officials said Pawlenty’s proposed health-care cuts would cost them additional federal matching money, as well as add to the state’s growing pool of uninsured adults.

Michael Brunner, an Austin psychologist, called Pawlenty’s plan to raid the state Health Care Access Fund “unjust” and said it “violates the commitment to use health care dollars for health-care services.”

Brunner was among those calling for “more fair” solutions to the budget predicament, including tax increases if necessary.

Other speakers encouraged legislators to allow more gambling, sell state-owned land, and make the state more business-friendly as ways of raising needed revenue.

Michael Kuchta is communications coordinator for AFSCME Council 5, www.afscmemn.org