The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce’s top 2016 legislative priority of business property tax relief is a piece to solving the area’s workforce shortage, according to the executive director of the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce.

“If we want businesses to grow, we need to give them some relief,” Randy Kehr said.

He said other pieces to solving Albert Lea’s workforce shortage include more affordable workforce housing and transportation improvements.

The Chamber of Commerce is looking to phase out the statewide property tax levy and removing the annual tax inflation index.

Businesses and cabins are required to pay the tax in addition to their local property taxes.

Kehr said extra income from the tax cut is an indirect way of saving the average resident money, and the money saved for business will be spent in the community and reinvested.

Investment adviser Brian Hensley, owner of Intego Financial Group, said the tax cut will allow business owners to invest in business and increase wages.

“It’s not their money,” Hensley said. “It’s the taxpayers’ money.”

Trails Travel Center Manager Dustin Trail said the tax cut is important to Albert Lea’s economic viability.

“We just want to stay competitive,” Trail said.

In a visit at the Tribune Thursday with city business leaders, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Director of Communications Jim Pumarlo said business tax relief is needed with the state’s $1.2 billion surplus.

Pumarlo cited several reasons why the organization believes the statewide property tax levy needs to be phased out:

Businesses have 12.4 percent of the total property market value but pay 32 percent of the total property tax.

Businesses have an effective tax rate of 3.88 percent, the highest among property types.

Businesses have the highest class rate at 2 percent.

Pumarlo urged legislators and the governor to pass tax relief in the 2016 session that supports job creators and reduces what he cited as an uncompetitive regressive tax.

Pumarlo said the Chamber of Commerce wants to encourage investment and growth by reducing the burden of uncompetitive taxes for all businesses.

The chamber wants the state to enact meaningful business property tax relief, enhance the research-and-develoment tax credit, conform the state estate tax with the federal threshold and reduce the tax burden for owners who report business income on their personal income tax return.

Former District 27A Rep. Robin Brown, a DFLer, said while taking care of businesses is important, it is also important to realize that some services will have to be cut if you cut taxes on one group and don’t raise them on another.

Brown expressed reservation on spending the surplus when future economic conditions are unknown, and said infrastructure improvements are possible with the surplus.

The chamber wants the state to pass a long-term transportation plan that provides for strategic and sustained funding of roads, bridges and transit. The organization wants the state to use transportation-related revenue from its general fund to pay for additional investments and for the Legislature to pass a long-term plan that provides for strategic and sustained funding of roads, bridges and transit.

Another priority is for the state to invest in transit, linking any new funding to efficiency and reforms.

Pumarlo’s visit was part of the chamber’s statewide tour prior to the 2016 legislative session to discuss the organization’s priorities and the effects they will have on communities.

The chamber has expressed its opposition to new health care mandates at the state level that they said increase employer and employee costs. The organization wants to increase coverage options, like self-insuring for employers.

The chamber is also advocating for the use of federal waivers to lessen the burden on employers of providing coverage and to reform public health care programs.