Posted by
Peter MacInnes on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:00:00 AM
this article was sent to me from the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota. It helps to make the point that Duluth's spending priorities are out of wack. We need common sense spending in Duluth again. Things like, selling Spirit Mountain, the zoo, the aquarium, the golf courses. these are all good things to have in town, but it is not the city's job to provide them, we need to get rid of useless spending and wastefull programs, and that won't happen if we keep electing the same Dflers to run the city. It is time to elect a conservative majority to the city council and the county board, and this year would be a great place to start.
Peter MacInnes
Duluth leaders furious with Governor Pawlenty for pointing out the obvious
Duluth city leaders are outraged with Governor Pawlenty for having the temerity to question their tax and budget policies. According to the Duluth News Tribune, Pawlenty "singled out Duluth" for planning a 14-percent levy increase "even though the economy is in recession and is not expected to grow by more than 1 percent before the end of 2009." Pawlenty made the remarks during a news conference last Thursday, and the angry responses came quickly.
City Council member Sharla Gardner said Pawlenty has been "starving us, not providing the local governments with the aid that we've been needing, which is why we have to do this."
Presumably Gardner is referring to LGA, the program that provides direct payments to cities from state coffers. In 2003, facing a then-unprecedented $4.5 billion deficit, the Governor and Legislature adopted some long overdue reforms to the bloated LGA program. That year, total LGA payments were reduced about 25% to about $470 million. And starting in 2004, the LGA formula no longer included built-in inflationary increases, thereby restoring some control to a program that encouraged irresponsible spending at the local level.
Duluth received LGA payments totaling $25.65 million in 2005. In 2009, according to the Minnesota House Research Department, they're scheduled to receive $30.73 million. Considering Duluth has a stagnant, or even declining population, that increase is significant. In fact, on a per capita basis, the city's LGA increased from $298 in 2005 to approximately $340 this year. If this is the Governor's way of "starving" Duluth, he's doing a remarkably ineffective job of it.
Duluth mayor Don Ness echoed councilmember Gardner's remarks: "I'm not sure if the governor is aware of the steps the city has taken to cut our costs and, unfortunately, cut our services to our citizens, and in doing so not passing burdens along to taxpayers."
It's worth noting that Duluth's tax levy is about to jump 14% in a single year, during a recession. By most people's standards, that's rather burdensome. But it's also important to recognize how Duluth got into this situation. The city's spending (excluding debt service, interest, and capital outlay) increased from $74.2 million in 2004 to $94.4 million in 2007, a 27-percent jump. During that same time period, city spending on "culture and recreation" increased by 70 percent.
Meanwhile, while they've taken some steps toward balancing their current budget, many of those steps are one-time gimmicks. In an act of desperation, the city even tried to fix their budget by auctioning off a Tiffany stained glass window and an historic lighthouse. And yet they shamelessly blame the state for their predicament. Note to Duluth policymakers: People who live in stained glass lighthouses shouldn't throw stones.