Austin Mayor Tom Stiehm was dead serious.

“It is important for the citizens of Austin to contact our state legislators and Governor and tell them that correcting the state deficit should not come at the cost of higher taxes and fewer services in cities like Austin,” the mayor told a crowd of citizens assembled to hear his address Wednesday, Jan. 28, at Austin Municipal Building.

And Stiehm said speaking up could make a difference.

“I have seen Austin city policies changed because just one person has spoken up,” the mayor said.

“If we are to survive these budget cuts fairly, it will be because people speak up,” he said.

The mayor, now in his second term in office after surviving a recount of the Nov. 4, 2008, municipal election, has a laundry list of concerns, since he heard how the state hopes to balance the budget deficit on the backs of local government units.

Following Governor Tim Pawlenty’s budget address to Minnesotans last week, so does every local government official and taxpayers.

The governor said there would be steep cuts to County Program Aid monies to counties and the invaluable Local Government Aid cities depend so greatly upon to provide services to citizens.

According to the mayor, “LGA is a long-standing, major state policy which equalizes city tax rates and helps level the economic disparities across the state.

“It is not simply a state program or budget line

item to be cut,” he said of the governor’s announced plan.

Reducing LGA carries with it risks to cities such as Austin.

“Outstate cities suffer as LGA is decreased,” Stiehm said. “With high taxes and poor services, rural communities will be much less attractive places to live, to work and to create jobs than property-rich, urban cities.”

“Minnesota will be like so many other states with rich, urban cities and poor, rural communities,” Stiehm warned.

Stiehm’s points for Austinites to ponder included the basic premise: “Austin needs LGA to keep taxes down.”

“We do not have the tax base of the urban area,” he said and then listed reasons why.

They included:

Austin’s average home value is now just more than $100,000. In the urban area, many cities’ average home values are $300,000 to $500,000. They have a much greater commercial tax base.

In 2006, 18.2 percent of Austin’s population was 65 years of age and older (12.1 percent in Minnesota).

48.7 percent of total Austin School District enrollment receives free or reduced lunch.

Nearly 27 percent of Austin’s housing was built before 1940.

Over the last several decades, Austin has worked hard to reduce costs and

improve efficiency of operations. The number of city employees has been reduced from 185 to 141.

That’s the argument the mayor wants citizens to make to the governor and state legislators.

Despite the case made by the mayor for protecting LGA from being slashed, precedence stands in the way.

The percent of the state’s general fund budget that goes to LGA has gone from 4.4 percent in 2002 to 2.8 percent in 2008.

Austin lost $1.3-million in LGA in 2003, when a $4-billion state budget deficit caused the reductions. The mayor said Austin has done “what the State asked” in other tough economic times and not raised its levy during much of the 1990s. However, the city has had to raise local property taxes since the 2003-2004 LGA cuts and now the possibility lingers that it will happen again … this time with double-digit increases.

More information about the LGA cuts, and the city’s response is available on the city’s web site.

The mayor went on the record during his State of the City address that he wants citizens to contact the governor and their legislators immediately.