City puts its budget opposition on paper

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Expressing their opposition against the budget numbers used by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in making proposed cuts in Albert Lea’s Local Government Aid (LGA), the Albert Lea City Council Monday passed a resolution to send to the offices of the governor, the state auditor, Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin, and Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea.

The governor’s proposal for LGA cuts is based on the amount of revenue a city made during the most recent year of state audit information on the city. For Albert Lea that was 2000. The proposed cuts for 2003 are around $750,000 and the cuts for 2004 are nearly $2.5 million. The proposed 2004 cut is $1 million more than city officials think it should be.

City Manager Paul Sparks said that the revenue for 2000 was atypical because of the state giving the city more than $10 million for overpayments in police and fire pension funds. Sparks also said the city differs from other cities in the way it pays off debt and works as a Port Authority that makes it appear it has more revenue than it does in comparison with other cities.

Email newsletter signup

Each house of the legislature will craft its own budget bill and eventually present one to the governor, and the final version may or may not resemble Pawlenty’s proposal.

Other action at Monday night’s city council meeting:

&045; A shortfall in tax-increment financing bond issues because of 2001 property tax changes forced the city council to use $40,000 from their unappropriated fund balance toward that shortfall.

Next year, the city will raise that amount through property taxes. Sparks said this is a result of the elimination of funding for these sorts of shortfalls by the governor in his unallotment budget cuts earlier this month.