Daily Herald editorial

Faced with the need for a double-digit tax levy increase, Austin City Council members also must make some tough choices about how the city spends its money. It’s a difficult job to do well, as the council demonstrated during a work session Monday night. Cutting the city’s contribution to KSMQ public television by $5,500 — the only spending cut the council approved — might be necessary during these hard times, but it raises a cascade of questions about what council members were thinking.

For starters, a $5,500 expense cut is a drop in the budget bucket, but it was apparently the only one the council could agree on. Not a very productive night’s work, unless council members actually like the idea of a double-digit tax levy hike.

Of greater concern: The only expense cut the council made will take money away from a local employer and important community institution. Meanwhile, a slim majority of council members decided to keep on giving $46,000 to the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, a lobbying organization. It may be that the city gains from the Coalition’s lobbying efforts, but as we have pointed out before, there are many ways Austin could lobby lawmakers without sending all that money out of town.

Of greatest concern: The one cut the council made will not actually reduce taxes in any way, because the council decided that the money withheld from KSMQ will instead sit in a city contingency fund. It makes no sense for the city to sit on a pot of extra money at the same time it is raising taxes and cutting services. Here’s a better idea: Leave the money in the taxpayers’ wallets (or their interest-earning bank accounts) until needed. Better yet, if a true contingency arises, maybe the city could just delay or reduce its extravagant Coalition of Cities dues.

Decisions that state lawmakers made are rolling downhill onto Austin, forcing tough choices on the city council. Fortunately, there are still weeks ahead for the council to figure out how it will balance taxes and spending. We hope the next set of decisions follow a clearer path than did this week’s.