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Winona County recently reported that it could face a nearly $1.5 million shortfall. Normally, when the county falls short of money, it has the option of raising taxes to fill the gap.
Not so this time because of a legislative edict that hamstrings counties like Winona.
If you’re looking to send a thank-you card for this decision to someone, try the Minnesota House and Senate leadership, like Speaker Margaret Kelliher or Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, who seemed too busy patting themselves on the back for just finishing on time, rather than being concerned with any potential harm they were doing for Minnesota’s cities and counties.
Or, try Rep. Steve Drazkowksi, R-Wabasha, who seems preoccupied with griping about taxes, while letting education in the state lag, roads crumble and more services being cut. Or try Rep. Ken Tschumper, DFL-La Crescent, who voted for the tax bill that limited how much a county could levy, clearly happy to tell counties what to do, but reticent to apply the same sort of discipline to the Legislature.
Legislators glad-handed each other and momentarily placated constituents when the session mercifully ended earlier this summer. Many legislators touted the fact that not only did they make necessary cuts to balance the state budget, but they also capped local property taxes thereby limiting — to some degree — the amount of tax burden on Minnesota families.
Yet, what the Legislature did was lie by half truth.
The Legislature did indeed cap the amount of money a county could levy. What they didn’t say is the dramatic cuts to the state budget left counties with the same number of mandates and same number of needs, but with fewer dollars.
The Legislature cut state aid, then turned around to tell the counties they couldn’t raise more money, but were getting less of it from the state.
And then in its last great act, the Legislature promptly recessed, seemingly before anyone caught wind of what it had done.
Now, we’ve begun to discover.
It was precisely this reason that Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, voted against the two key measures that created this mess, House Files 1812 and 2362.
Let’s be clear: We’re not for raising taxes. More taxes doesn’t mean better services. Yet, it’s hard to even maintain a budget when the costs of goods and services rise and a county receives less state aid. More importantly, there’s something more than a little disingenuous about the shift the Legislature approved: It passed along the burden of providing service and limited how the county could do its state-mandated job. It’s pretty bad when state lawmakers make a county do something they are unwilling to impose on themselves.
Winona County Commissioner Dwayne Voegeli was right to chastise the legislators because when it comes down to it, the services that will be cut won’t come from the state, they’ll come from the county. When health and human services get whacked, it will be at the county level. When fewer deputies patrol the county, it will be a county issue. When jail costs become too prohibitive, that will fall on the county, which will be left with few options.
When residents start to gripe and complain, they’re not likely to gripe to state representatives and senators about county services. It’s easy for people like Drazkowski to recommend prioritizing, to sermonize about fiscal responsibility. He’ll be one step removed from the voters’ wrath when local services they’ve come to expect simply aren’t there. It must be comforting for Tschumper and others who voted for such an outlandish solution to send concerned constituents to the county, telling them all along that it’s the county’s cross to bear, the Legislature has finished its work.
It’s Voegeli and other elected county officials who will bear the brunt of whatever political fallout there will be from a county that can’t even spend money if it wanted to.
Moreover, we haven’t even begun to talk about the implications of cutting services to people who need them most.
The state hasn’t merely passed the buck on this one, it passed the buck and then sent a bill.
By Darrell Ehrlick, editor, on behalf of the Winona Daily News editorial board, which also includes publisher Rusty Cunningham and online editor Jerome Christenson. To comment, call (507) 453-3507 or send e-mail to letters@winonadailynews.com.
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