Rep. Brita Sailer, DFL-Park Rapids, got a rousing ovation on Sunday from Beltrami County DFL delegates at their convention when she said one of the early accomplishments of the quick-paced legislative session was the override of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto of a $6.6 billion, 10-year transportation funding package. Granted it was a partisan crowd, but those folks weren't celebrating the gas tax increase that helps fuel the funding package, but the fact that Minnesota finally came off dead center and committed itself to better -- and safer -- roads and bridges.
Doing so needed a few Republican House votes to override Pawlenty's veto, and six GOP members saw the merit of investing in Minnesota's infrastructure and crossed over party lines to oppose the governor and his "no new taxes" pledge. For that, in an almost unheard of move, the members were stripped of their party leadership posts and demoted in committee seniority for simply voting their conscience and on their constituents' behalf.
And now it seems the governor, still stung over having his pledge broken, wants to renew the old rural versus metro arguments that in the past have stymied efforts at new road and bridge funding. On his weekly radio show last Friday, Pawlenty declared that the new transportation funding package hurt rural counties under the formula that distributes aid, and said the bill forces taxpayers statewide to pay the subsidized operating costs for major light-rail transit lines in the Twin Cities instead of having those costs covered by the local communities. "I don't know how that's going to sit with people who don't use it" or who live outside the Twin Cities, he said.
As we say in rural Minnesota, that dog won't hunt.
The transportation package greatly increases funding for rural Minnesota transit projects, but also allows the metro area to pay for its own transit, through a new 0.25 percent sales tax imposed by counties in the metro area that is estimated to raise $68 million next year and $135.5 million in fiscal 2018. And the governor's claim is hypocritical at best when, as majority leader in the House in 2001, Pawlenty led efforts to remove mass transit programs in the Twin Cities from local property taxes and instead use the motor vehicle sales tax paid by all of us statewide. Fully phased in, the state spent $124 million from the statewide MVST collections for mass transit in the Twin Cities.
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And as to rural counties "on the short end of the stick," the new package gives Beltrami County $13.05 million in new money over 10 years for roads and bridges -- not a dime of it coming had the veto been sustained. A new formula that distributes new monies will be based 60 percent on needs and 40 percent on vehicle registrations, which officials assure us also shines favorably on Beltrami.
Minnesota has taken a positive step forward in at least starting to shore up a disintegrating transportation infrastructure, and it's time to move on.
