Editorial: Lawmakers made valiant efforts for LGA

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, May 28, 2003

It appears as if the state is close to wrapping up the state’s budget deficit for now, and with it, the session. They will do it partly by cutting into the amount of aid distributed to cities.

With Albert Lea standing to lose big if local-government aid (LGA) was cut, the two men who represent our area in St. Paul did everything they could think of to protect as much funding as possible. Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, and Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin, know that LGA keeps local property taxes down while allowing cities to offer services that residents have come to expect.

They did it in different ways, but both can be said to have represented the best interests of our area.

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Sparks supported the doomed DFL plan to raise certain taxes and lessen funding cuts to programs including LGA. In a year dominated by the no-new-tax sentiment of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the House Republican majority, it was a plan that had little chance from the start. But it was an alternative, one that would have been a better deal for most residents of Sparks’s district, which includes Albert Lea and Austin.

Dorman was even more courageous, going against the leaders of his own party to make a stand for rural cities. He led a bipartisan coalition behind a bill that would have cut into other kinds of aid &045; ones that flow to suburban areas, unlike LGA, which is mainly relied upon by rural areas and the urban core. When that coalition fell apart under pressure from GOP leaders, Dorman tried to tack a Canterbury Park racino proposal onto the tax bill, hoping proceeds from slot machines at the racetrack could be used to offset some of the cuts to LGA. But that, too, failed, opposed by the House majority.

Through it all, Dorman was frank about the fact that he wasn’t making many friends within his own party, but Albert Lea can be grateful that he stood up for his district’s interests instead of obeying the party leaders who would rather have seen him fall in line behind their proposals.

In the end, the state is going to enact deep cuts to LGA, and local governments are going to have to live with it. But that’s not the fault of either of our local legislators, who tried their best but were simply outnumbered.