The Mayor Blog

Today Governor Pawlenty made his choices about how to cut the state budget. I deeply disagree with the governor because his choices will hurt many people. The governor has offered no plan for putting people to work, only for cutting jobs during a tough economy, and has offered no strategy for fixing a broken state budget that continues to lurch from deficit to deficit.

Earlier this year, we revised our 2009 city budget based on the cuts we anticipated the Governor would make. Because we did that, the City of Minneapolis will not need to make any more cuts to our budget in 2009. This is exactly how we have faced budget challenges before. Over the past several years while the state has been lurching from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, Minneapolis has eliminated nearly $90 million in debt, controlled our spending much better than the state, and made city services more efficient. As a result, we have balanced our budget every year and for years to come.

I deeply disagree with Governor Pawlenty’s choices, but as Mayor I have a job to do and that job is to preserve and create jobs and keep my city safe. People are looking for solutions and we are going to find solutions. It won’t be easy, but we have made tough decisions before and we will do it again:

• These cuts mean the loss of thousands of jobs in healthcare, our largest job sector, so my job will be to work with our employers and training facilities to grow and preserve jobs. The city budget we adopted left every job program in tact and we are delivering even more jobs for youth this summer.
• These cuts mean fewer funds for police officers, so my job will be to keep our city safe and maintain the gains we’ve made in reducing crime for more than two years in a row. Public safety will remain our top budget priority.
• These cuts mean the state budget will still be in deep structural deficit for years to come, so my job will be to continue to keep Minneapolis fiscally sound with less debt and a healthy budget reserve. We will not follow the state’s fiscal example of short-term fixes that create long-term problems. We will continue long-term planning that pays down debt and controls spending.

Because of the economic growth strategy we have in place, the City of Minneapolis is positioned to create jobs, grow locally-based industries and compete in a global marketplace. Although Governor Pawlenty has made it more difficult for us to create jobs and turn the economy around. It means we will work even harder to look beyond these cuts to build a stronger economy and a safer region.

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The following letter was submitted to and published in today’s Star Tribune:

A June 12 Star Tribune article “Federal police aid less than Minneapolis expected” paints an inaccurate and incomplete picture about my commitment to public safety, especially as we respond to the significant funding cuts coming as a result of the state’s budget deficit. My record of commitment to making public safety our No. 1 budget priority is clear, as are the results of these investments. We are spending more on public safety in Minneapolis than at any time since I was elected, and crime is down for the third year in a row by double-digit percentages.

Decisions about the size of our police force are being determined by the amount of state funding we receive, an amount that has not yet been determined. Because of the state deficit, we will likely receive millions of dollars less than we currently receive and tens of millions less than we used to receive before the state got into its fiscal mess. No one can expect that the effects of gigantic state budget deficits as far as the eye can see would not affect the state’s largest city.

In February when I revised the city’s 2009 budget to respond to the latest round of state budget cuts, we were weighing many unknown variables: a troubled economy, state budget cuts and pending federal economic recovery funds. We developed the best budget possible under those conditions and kept our commitment to public safety. The budget I proposed in fact cut the Police Department by a smaller percentage than other departments and maintained our current levels of sworn police on the street.

Federal economic recovery dollars have helped us keep officers on the street, both in Minneapolis and Hennepin County, during state budget cuts. The Star Tribune mischaracterized the agreement we made with Hennepin County about how to share public safety resources from the federal economic recovery, which was an agreement I supported. Not only did the stimulus funding help keep Minneapolis police on the street, it will also help boost public safety in the suburbs that surround Minneapolis.

There is no doubt that, until the state gets its fiscal house in order and stops the deficit spending that is crippling our cities, we will continue to see deep financial challenges, which federal stimulus dollars can only meet for so long. Through this difficult period, I will do everything in my power to maintain our commitment to keeping public safety our top priority.

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