Governor’s Budget Released This Week. Environment Community Carefully Watching Out for Raids.
John Tuma’s Capitol Update – February 19, 2010
“There is Governor Ames himself.”
These were the words whispered in a low husky voice from one of four horse riders wearing long white cattle dusters as they rode across the bridge into Northfield, Minnesota, on what would become a fateful day in September of 1876. Unfortunately for the would-be bank robbers, the words were overheard by Adelbert Ames as he walked past the riders on well-bred horses as he was leaving town from a meeting at the First National Bank.
Ames had recently returned from the south to help manage the family mill in Northfield. While in the South, he served as governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction. Only a year earlier he was run out of Mississippi by the flames of racial prejudice and hatred for Northern carpetbaggers like Ames. It was the beginning of an ugly era of Southern politics which was dominated by the KKK and their like.
When Ames heard these words whispered between the riders, he immediately knew something dreadful was in the wind that crisp fall day. He said to the companions walking with him, “those men are from the south and are here for no good purpose, no one here calls me governor.” When the riders had sufficiently passed Ames he turned to quickly head back into town; he soon heard cries explode from downtown that the bank was being robbed. The Civil War veteran Ames sprang into action, helping lead the townspeople in their successful effort to repel the raiders.
Cole Younger later reported while a prisoner in Stillwater that one of the reasons they chose the bank in Northfield was their belief that there were ill-gotten gains from carpetbaggers like Ames who helped in the Reconstruction in the South. Ames was astonished that the Southern anger at the Reconstruction would visit him so far north from his days in Mississippi. Some 134 years later, those Minnesota environmental and conservation leaders who have worked hard to establish funding for environment and conservation purposes are a little worried there could be raids on their resources this legislative session.
Their concerns were not alleviated when Governor Pawlenty released his budget this Monday. It is important to note that the Governor did not disproportionately cut the overall budgets in the major agencies responsible for protecting our lakes, rivers and wild places. Therefore, it is probably not fair to compare it to the great Northfield bank raid by the James and Younger Gang. Nonetheless, there are concerns of coming problems in light of the Governor’s treatment of several of our special environmental funds.
The Governor and Legislature face a daunting task this session, needing to close a $1.2 billion gap between our present revenue collections and the anticipated expenditures for the rest of this legislative biennium. We are almost halfway through the budget that was established last legislative session with no reserves, minimal possible budget shifts and no real promise for increased revenue in the near future. Therefore, the only place this no new tax governor has to go is deep budget cuts in state programs. One budget balancing gimmick left is to take dedicated funding sources and redirect them to the general fund to be cut to cover the deficit. Unfortunately, there are several of those opportunities in our major agencies like the PCA and DNR.
The Governor strove to have 3% cuts in operation budgets with 6% cuts in grant programs across all state agencies except for public safety, education and veteran services. It appears that our agencies received cuts which are proportional to other agencies, but this was accomplished by shifting several dollars from areas such as the Environment Fund and the Game and Fish Fund. These funds were created using revenue from permit fees and license fees and these fees were meant to be specifically dedicated to activities directly related to the items for which they were levied. For example, fishing license fees should go towards fishing programs and improved fishing habitat, not to balance the state’s budget. It would be hard to justify running through the streets screaming that the bank is being robbed like the citizens of Northfield back in 1876 given the fact that we have been treated proportionately when you look at the overall budgets of our agencies. In the past, that has not been true as our main agencies had suffered disproportionate cuts.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of small things that make many in the conservation community concerned about deeper raids in the future. The Governor proposed a $2 million appropriation from the new constitutional Clean Water Legacy Fund to sewer infiltration in the metropolitan area. Though this is an important clean water activity, it is not supported by any regional plan and is an item that has been supported by other funds in the past. Also, a couple of positions supported in the past by the general fund were “cut” by the DNR, but then reconstituted with creative accounting by simply designating their new funding source out of dedicated accounts. These efforts look like a clandestine way to backfill in general fund budget cuts with the constitutional Legacy Funds and our other designated accounts. This clearly is not keeping faith with the voters’ intention to have new ongoing investments protecting our great outdoors.
Fortunately the Legislature will get to weigh in on the budget and hopefully they will react as successfully as the Northfield townsfolk did in turning back any raid. The MEP team will continue to assess the concerns with the budget and communicate those to the policymakers. What is obvious is the dynamic has changed since the voters sent a clear message in the last election. In the past, when we’ve faced similar daunting budget deficits, we have experienced deeply disproportional cuts in our agencies. I guess it’s true, elections do matter.
Other MEP priorities are also starting to see action. We will be keeping our eyes on the final bonding bill due to come out early next week. Hopefully we will see passage of the Complete Streets legislation out of the House committee next week. In two weeks expect a hearing in the Senate for an immediate repeal of the state’s moratorium on nuclear power plants which is opposed by the state’s environmental groups. Also promised – a hearing soon on financial assurance for sulfide mining in the Senate. The legislative session is picking up momentum.
