Greetings,
Congratulations to Jason Blum for being offered the job a Chief of Police in Cold Spring/Richmond. I look forward to seeing Chief Blum do a good job of not only protecting local citizens, but also fostering a positive relationship between law enforcement and our communities. On a related note, I am pleased that Gov. Mark Dayton has enacted legislation I authored to allow police departments and cities to raise and spend money for National Night Out events. This will be helpful in bridging gaps that sometimes exist between communities and law enforcement officials.
I also want to congratulate EV-W junior Maggie Schmaltz for winning a state Class A title in speech. Along with Maggie, EV-W’s Shelby Kuechle and Nathan Uteht also deserve credit for their respective seventh-place finishes.
At the Capitol, the House and Senate are still ahead of the typical time line for bringing budget bills through the process. This has been done in order to help us avoid avoiding the last-minute crunch. But the governor needs to come to the table and work toward honest compromise on a global budget plan if we are going to take advantage of this extra negotiating time the Legislature has provided.
We have found common ground between the House and Senate with budget bills. Some highlights include $1.15 billion in tax relief, $372 million in new, ongoing funding for road and bridge infrastructure, and more than $1.1 billion in increased funding for K-12 schools compared with the previous two-year budget.
Roads and bridges throughout the state are the main focus of the transportation plan the Legislature agreed on. In my opinion, maintaining that road/bridge infrastructure used by all of us in one way, shape or form, is a much better use of tax dollars than continuing to expand light rail as some propose. I read a recent report indicating that by 2022, between state and county obligations, we will be spending upwards of $100 million per year simply to maintain operation of the four lines that are already either running or are in the planning stages. That is on top of the billions of dollars it costs to build each line.
Fare boxes only cover roughly 30 percent of the operating costs (to say nothing of construction costs), leaving taxpayers to subsidize the rest. That begs the question: Why is it OK for general taxes to subsidize light rail costs, but roads and bridges are overwhelmingly limited to support from taxes specific to them?
I am optimistic we will get a transportation plan in place now that the governor has publicly acknowledged the lack of support for his gas-tax increase and stated he is opening up to our proposal. I look forward to working with him to find an agreeable plan so we can finish our work and complete our state’s next two-year budget.
I will pass along more as things develop in St. Paul. We are only two weeks from adjournment, so things could happen in a hurry.
Good luck,
Jeff