Seifert: ‘Inching’ toward a session outcome

By Dana Yost
Taking small steps at a time when major decisions are needed is probably not the best way to solve the state’s critical budget issues, and the approach certainly isn’t sitting well with one of the state’s top lawmakers.

As the 2008 legislative session nears its mandatory ending this weekend, state Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, the House Republican leader, said Friday that he’s “cautiously optimistic, but it’s frustrating,” to see time being squandered.

“We’re inching ahead,” toward a deal on long-term and short-term budget fixes, Seifert said.

But there has been opportunity to do more than crawl: The DFL-led Legislature didn’t have a floor session at all on Wednesday, and spent time later in the week on such non-critical issues as debating whether hockey should be the state’s official sport and whether dogs should be allowed in restaurants.

All that while the state faces a possible billion-dollar deficit for the next biennium.

“The (budget), the fact that we’re bleeding jobs — where are our priorities?” Seifert said. “We’ve got to focus like a laser beam, instead we’ve been talking about a lot of silly things.”

Seifert can be toughly partisan at times, but he’s got a point when he says the DFL-led Senate — where senators are not up for re-election in 2008 — has been dragging its feet on a budget deal. He said talk around the Capitol has frequently included comments from senators that they’re willing to wait until today or Sunday, the last day allowed to act on bills, to finalize the budget.

It is frustrating, indeed. We’ve seen year after year of last-gasp decision-making by lawmakers in recent years, and it keeps leaving our state financial situation in rotten shape. Lawmakers had vowed to do better this year, but they aren’t.

One possible victim of yet another drawn-out session could be small city governments and their budgets.

Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes worries that the budget result will be a lose-lose-lose outcome for cities — they’ll get less in local government aid, face a cap on property taxes that won’t let them off-set LGA cuts, and have to cut the services they provide to citizens.

Seifert said he also doesn’t expect much for LGA. The Senate is pushing for a $75 million increase in LGA — often the bulk of many small cities’ general budgets — and Seifert doesn’t think there’s enough money in a budget deficit to pay for that kind of increase.

Yet, he is a little more optimistic about cities’ fate than Byrnes: Seifert said there will be a property tax cap, but a loosening of restrictions on mandates will give cities more freedom in how they spend what state money they receive.

He said the levy cap is something lawmakers have heard steady support for from citizens.

“We’re hearing from more and more people that local property tax increases are out of control,” Seifert said. “We’ve had a property tax cap 26 of the last 35 years. While everybody understands local governments have to have some flexibility, we’re hearing so many complaints now we have to put in the cap.”

An Associated Press story on the end-of-session countdown cited mounting "pressure," on lawmakers to get a budget solution, and that pressure was evident in Seifert's voice and workweek: He got to bed at 1:30 a.m. Friday and was on his way back to the Capitol before 9 a.m.

When he hasn't been on the floor, he's been in leadership meetings in the governor's office, trying to negotiate deals.

"There's been a lot of late nights," Seifert said.

But the stakes are real. The state unemployment rate rose to 4.8 percent in April, or a loss of 10,100 jobs in a month in which unemployment usually declines. The overall jobless total, the Associated Press reported, was the highest since March 2004.

The budget outcome affects the fate of many key state programs, education and health care. Seifert said he's actually gotten positive support from one of his long-time nemeses — the Star Tribune of Minneapolis — over his proposal to tap into the health care access fund for nursing home finances.

At times in the past, the health-care fund has been used to fix non-health-related budget areas. Seifert said he thinks his plan at least is close enough to the health-care arena to be justified.

Still, he's not even sure that will be in whatever budget comes out of this weekend.

"It's inching closer," he said again about budget talks. "The biggest priority is getting the budget balanced. After that, we may not get anything else into place."