Agenda - Council - 03/12/1979 - Laserfiche WebLink

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TO: Mayor and City Council FROM: City Administrator RE: Staff Report 1) !,egJs]ation: Tbe following has been accomplished regarding State Local Aid: a) The Council's Legislative Committee attended the League Conference on March 1, 1979 in St. Paul (which was approved by the City Council for 'the Legislative Committee to attend). The morning session at this confer- ence was directed at the State Local Aids Law and the inequities in it. However, the inequities in this law are not recognized by many public officials, many because they never understood it. Secondly, inequities really affect the outer tier suburbs. b) The Council Legislative Committee met with Senator Anderson on Tuesday, Ma~ch 6, 1979 in the afternoon at his office at the State Capitol regarding the State Local Aid Law. Senator Anderson said he would intro- duce a bill to change the method of computing the Local Aid Formula. Also in attendance at this meeting were officials from Andover and St. Francis which was the bright side of the meeting. c) Our representative John Clawson,..is introducing a bill which will allow for the recomputation of population and do away with the averaging of our popu]~ation. This would allow us to recoup at least 3117 people that we lose in the present method of the computation State Local Aid formula. If this gets through, it would meah an additional (3117 citizens times $20.71) $64,553 more in State Aid to the City of Ramsey. I spoke to John C]awson March 8, 1979 and said he would be sending us a copy of his bill. d) League of Minnesota Cities bill regarding the changing of the law governing the distribution of State Local Aid will probably never get --through 'the League Board of Directors because it is too controversial on issues within the League members. Everybody in the League recognizes that the outer tier suburbs really get taken to the wood shed on the present State Local Aid formula for distribution of it. Summary: As far as I'm concerned ever since the inception of this basic State Aid law the outer fringe suburbs have lost their shirts in getting their tax dollars back. However, the outer suburbs have never really taken the time or expense to get this legislation changed around to where you have quality in it. If you want to get this law changed, you are going to have to spend some money in having some one bird dog this change through the legislative system. Your legislators are not going to do it for you as they don't have the enthusiasm to change it as it reaches too many pocket books and its going to be a tough job to accomplish.