Agenda - Council - 12/20/1983 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I I ! i I I I I I ! ! I ! ! ! The rationale for the imposition of these maximum and minimum levels is easily illustrated. In order to provide local government aid to every city at the level of its.preliminary aid factor, the total appropriation necessary for the 1984 aid year would have been $375,669,063. Gardner Affidavit, para. 9. However, the legislature appropriated only $246,200,000 for local government aid to cities. 1983 Act § 15. Obviously, some adjustment in the amount of aid received by each city was necessitated by this difference of $129,469,063 between the total of the preliminary local government aid figures and the total appropriation the legislature made for such aid. One alternative would be a pro rata reduction of each city's preliminary aid figure in the same ratio as the difference between the total of the preliminary aid figures and the legislature's total appropriation. This method, however, would yield results that the legislature could rationally view as undesirable. Specifically, 467 cities, over half of the total of 855, would receive a reduction in their aid distribution from the previous year. Significantly, 258 cities would be subject to reductions of 20% or more; 60 would lose all of their local government aid. In contrast, 228 cities would receive increases of 20% or more, some in excess of 100%. Gardner Affidavit, Ex. 1o The legislature sensibly rejected this alternative. Rather, it chose to achieve its legitimate goal of limiting the expenditure of state funds for local government aid to cities by a -24-