Governor’s Budget: Shifting Costs on Counties Should Not Be an Option
By Senator Jeff Howe

The Governor released his budget and bonding proposals a few weeks ago, and both are bad deals all around. A big part of his budget proposal relies on shifting costs to counties as a way to balance the $5.1 billion deficit his administration has been spending us into. His proposal to solve the budget crisis is shifting $460 million in costs to counties through the Department of Human Services (DHS) budget. County leaders recently came to the Capitol and they all said the same thing: the financial burden of these shifts is far too much for our counties to take on.

The main issue at play is the services that are being shifted are critical to our most vulnerable populations. We’re talking about the costs of things like long-term care facilities, ambulances, nursing homes, and disability services – these were Governor Walz’s first “cuts” and these are what he expects our counties to fund. If counties are going to cover costs and continue to provide these services to folks, property taxes are going to go up. That means homeowners are going to suffer after years of constant increases to property taxes. It’s going to price people out of their homes and in some cases, it may even force them to move out of the state.

Commissioners from across the state came to testify in committee and speak at a press conference, and they were loud and clear in sounding the alarm – this is such a massive shift, that it will amount to increased property taxes between at least 7% and 9%. Frankly, taxpayers cannot afford this. I’m not the only elected official who has been hearing this, but every week, it seems like someone is reaching out questioning the massive increase in property taxes that many families have been subjected to. The Governor’s proposal will worsen that issue.

One important thing I want to point out is that this massive shift does not even include other costly items such as the African American Family Preservation Act, which might be a bill with good intent, but it’s coming at an impossibly high ADDITIONAL cost for our counties. According to Stearns County Human Services, the estimate is that they will need a 100% increase in staff time, totaling a $22 million increase over the next 5 years, and that’s just for Stearns County! When this issue has been raised with the bill author, he seemed to not mind at all. I find that incredibly troubling. We are shifting so many costs onto our counties, and this is all going to cost our taxpayers. In my eyes, this is unacceptable.

So how do we tackle this? It’s easy – we go back and look at the legislation that has passed over the last few years and we need to determine what things are necessities, and what things are just “nice-to-have.” We need to focus on the former and reduce funding for the latter. We can’t shift costs on our counties. They are already feeling financial stress due to the numerous state-sponsored mandates that have been passed in the last few years. We shouldn’t pile onto them further. In fact, there has been over $500 million in fraud through Minnesota, so why don’t we look at waste there, and instead cut costs to the areas ridden with waste? That makes much more sense than doing something so drastic that will hurt counties and our most vulnerable folks.