We agree with council member Paul Tuerler that unfunded mandates are already having impacts on our city and school boards.
As was outlined at the city council discussion at Monday, March 4, the rates increasing for sewer for Mount Vernon are due to a required means test for the next phase of wastewater treatment plant improvements, with an estimated cost on the project of around $2 million.
Mount Vernon, as Nosbisch said, is lucky that the amount for improvements for our wastewater treatment’s next phase is low. There are other communities whose burden will be higher.
On the school side, the state legislature opting to keep funding for state supplemental aid below the ask for school boards while pursuing changes to Area Education Agencies and increasing teacher pay will hit the budgets of all school districts, too. And unlike city budgets, there are certain thresholds on how much schools can be saving for rainy days in their budgets and remain solvent.
As Tuerler also noted, this is a lot like “Wizard of Oz” accounting. Yes, the state is giving many property owners a break with their work on property taxes, but at the same time, they’re also reducing the amount of money to local governments that pay for these essential services with those reductions. And when those cuts hit, city governments must find funding to help pay for these mandates somehow, which means increased rates or local taxes on the services we expect our cities to provide. In the end, we as citizens end up paying the same or maybe even more, but our dollars are going to the city or local school board as opposed to the state.
There’s only so much stretch in a budget for many government entities, and we may just be witnessing the point before more significant and impactful cuts are made. Because like Nosbisch said, these communities are already at a lean staff for the size of community we are, and the only other changes to potentially be made are to either reduce or eliminate services or increase fees to make up the difference.