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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Hennepin County faces even tougher budget decisions in 2004
Wednesday 26 November @ 13:28:31 |
 by Peter McLaughlin
For good reason, the Hennepin County budget hearings over the past several weeks have had unprecedented turnout. Hundreds of community members have attended the hearings to tell us how important various community programs are, how short-sighted the proposed budget cuts are and how much damage we will do to our social fabric if we allow the Administrator’s proposed cuts to stand. The speakers have been passionate and compelling. And they are right!
During the testimony, community members told us about both the success of our current programs and the terrible consequences if the programs are cut. We heard from working parents whose childcare costs were rising so drastically that they may need to stop working. We heard from participants and family members of persons with disabilities about the importance of opportunities to go to work or participate in athletic activities because of services now slated to be cut. We heard from courageous, productive citizens who struggle with mental illness and believe they would not be here today, let alone holding a job, without the services they were able to utilize. And we were warned, time and time again, that cutting prevention programs will lead to expensive hospitalizations, out of home placements, community disturbances and more.
The sad reality of this situation was clear to me during the Legislative session. Led by Governor Pawlenty, too many legislators, lured by the dogma of “no new taxes,” were willing to sacrifice essential local government services in their budget “solution.”
Hennepin County began 2003 with a fair and balanced budget. In mid-2003 by cutting aid to local governments and severely limiting our ability to levy property taxes, the Governor and Legislature left us no option but service cuts. And the choices we now face in preparing our 2004 budget are even worse, resulting from, for example, state cuts of $50 million to human services and $10 million to criminal justice aid. The bottom line for 2004 is, if Hennepin County raises taxes 2 percent, average homes in Minneapolis will see a 9 percent increase in their County property taxes . . . AND the County will have $9 million less to invest in services than it did in 2003. On top of that come tens of millions in cuts in state categorical aids to individuals and families for things like child care (suffering a $14 million state cut in Hennepin County alone). In the end, Hennepin County will be forced to cut $100 million from our base budget over 18 months.
No amount of redesign, efficiency or creativity can prevent a reduction that large from doing serious damage to our community and its residents. As the budget process continues, I will be working with my colleagues on the Board to try to restore a small portion of the cuts we have been forced to make.
Southside Services, the Sexual Violence Center and services for the developmentally disabled and mentally ill are all priorities for me to try to protect.
I sincerely regret that choices we are being forced to make at the County level and the loss of services that will result from the short-sighted decisions by the Governor and the Legislature. I know that these cuts are doing damage to the social fabric that has helped make our community a good place to live and work. We are being forced to dismantle a generation of community support programs, each of which has made a difference in hundreds of lives. And far from being able to tell you that the end is in sight, the painful truth is that more damage may be coming. I will continue the fight and ask that you join with me in resisting the retreat by both the state and federal governments from their longtime partnership with local governments and urban communities. We risk returning to the mean-spirited days of, not Herbert Hoover, but William McKinley. This is a fight that must be won.
That’s a long-term fight. In the short run we need to get our suburban friends to put pressure on the County Board to fix through budget amendments as many of the State’s wrong-headed priorities as possible.
Peter McLaughlin
Hennepin County Commissioner
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