Agenda - Council - 02/08/2021 - Laserfiche WebLink

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forfeited land are distributed to cities, counties, and school districts, Minn. Stat. § 282.08(4)(i) and (ii) give counties the right to take up to half of those proceeds for county forest development and county park and recreation areas. The League also supports the elimination of these separate statutory apportionments while allowing counties to use their designated 40 percent share of the remaining proceeds for these uses. FF-30. State Hazard Mitigation and Response Support Issue: Cities in Minnesota are exposed to extreme weather events such as winds, flooding, fires, and drought and are facing the severe financial consequences of the clean-up, repairs, and community social and economic recovery, even though damages may be deemed "not of such severity and magnitude" as to qualify for federal assistance. Response: The League of Minnesota Cities calls on our legislators and state executive agencies charged with hazard mitigation planning to address not only a response to extreme weather events but to also put into place a proactive strategy to minimize or mitigate the financial consequences. At a minimum, this effort should offer a reasonable loan funding program that is easily accessible by cities, businesses and homeowners to financially recover and rebuild, with the ultimate goal of preserving jobs, industries, and communities. The state response should allow for the use of new technology and best management practices for any reconstruction of infrastructure to lessen the impact of future disasters and to mitigate the effects of disasters resulting from future extreme weather events. 148 FF- 31. Library Funding Issue: State law requires that local governments maintain a minimum level of funding for public library services. This is collectively known as "state -certified levels of library support," or more commonly known as, "maintenance of effort (MOE)" and is described in Minn. Stat. § 134.34. A majority of public libraries in Minnesota belong a regional library system, which is the entity that receives library funding from the Minnesota Department of Education. Six of the 12 regional library systems are structured as a federated system where the individual libraries or library systems operate autonomously from the regional library system but they can utilize certain services such as inter -library loan distribution, digital card cataloging, which capitalize on economies of effort from partnering with the other libraries in the regional system. The MOE for any city that taxes separately for library services is now set at 90% of the amount established in 2011 (see Minn. Stat. § 275.761). In 2011, it was calculated using a formula that included payments made in the form of the library employee salaries, payments toward operating the facility, purchasing materials from the library, and other operating costs, adjusted net tax capacity, and several other factors. The other half of the state's public library systems are consolidated systems, where the regional library system runs the libraries through a joint powers agreement with counties and participating cities. The regional library system has a board and hires the director. A city that participates in the regional system will have an MOE (calculated as described above). The city MOE may include dollars provided directly to the regional library system or operating dollars provided to support building costs (i.e. city -provided maintenance services).