It’s all hands on deck to fix the budget crisis and stave off tax increases.

County officials met with Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, Sen. Dan Sparks, DFL-Austin, and Rep. Rich Murray, Republican-Albert Lea, Friday afternoon to discuss issues facing the county. As in the past, the chief focus was money, money, money.

“We need to get some relief from both the state and federal government because the people of Mower County cannot afford what’s coming down the trail for us,” Mower County Board Chairman Tim Gabrielson said.

An already pinched budget promises to get tighter this year, as the county faces looming funding reductions after the state Senate and House both passed bills to cut the state budget by about $1 billion. County Program Aid would face reductions if the state finalizes the cuts.

County Coordinator Craig Oscarson said about 70 percent of such cuts to local aid falls on the taxpayers’ shoulders.

Gabrielson said the board tries to balance economically responsibility with providing key services to public, but that’s becoming increasingly difficult with cuts to county aid and with the burden of mandates.

“That money does not grow on trees,” Gabrielson said. “We’re in tough economic times. We need to put our heads together and come up with some relief.”

While the funding cuts are a big problem, the real hurdle comes when counties have to grapple with mandates, or services the state and federal governments require counties to offer. More and more mandates are becoming unfunded.

About $3 million in unfunded Human Services mandates — about a third of the $9 million budget — fell on county taxpayers after both the state and federal government previously cut the funding, according to Oscarson. The county is still required to provide the services.

One solution is to pair funding cuts with mandate cuts.

“If you’re going to cut our funding, we should see a dollar for dollar ability to reduce the mandates,” Oscarson said.

Tackling all the mandates is not feasible and Oscarson noted the board and state will have work together on a “Top 10 List” of the most important mandates to address.

While she supported reforming certain mandates, Rep. Jeanne Poppe noted mandates are not likely to ever entirely go away. She cautioned mandates play a key role in ensuring citizens receive equal services from one county to the next.

“That’s not such an awful, evil, horrible thing, because you want to have some equalization of service,” Poppe said.

However, County Attorney Kristen Nelsen cautioned that doesn’t necessarily mean unfunded mandates should fall on local governments or taxpayers.

“If they are such an equalization of service and they are so important, then why can’t the state pay for them?” she asked. “Why does it have to be on us? … It’s our taxpayers that are having to pay that equalization.”

Poppe said reductions to mandates will be something the state will look at when trying to reduce spending.

Prospects for improvement aren’t positive as the state grapples with a budget deficit of about $6.2 billion.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Murray said. “We basically need to look at everything. It will be painful.”

Murray said it’s important to hear from people like county officials who every day face the challenges of dealing with state mandates.

Sen. Dan Sparks said it’s important to have ongoing conversations between county officials and representatives to continue working together to find solutions.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding budget cuts, both county officials and the representatives noted that no one is alone in the quest to turn things around.

“We all know you have a huge job to do,” Gabrielson said. “You didn’t build this mess. We would like to work with you to fix part of this mess.”