By Ken Francis

Staff Writer

 

Minnesota could be facing  financial trouble next year.

That was one of the messages presented by Minnesota Inter-County Association (MICA) Executive Director Keith Carlson in his report to the Sherburne County Board Tuesday.

In his end-of-session overview, Carlson said the legislature had three major goals on its list for 2018: a tax bill, supplemental budget bill and bonding bill.

“Unfortunately, the legislature was only one for three. Both the supplemental budgeted bill and tax bill were vetoed. In fact, the tax bill was vetoed twice,” he said. “The only bill that passed was the bonding bill.”

Carlson said that bill provided some necessary funding, but it fell short of expectations, especially in transportation needs.

The total for transportation was $543,980, but $400 million of that is delayed until fiscal years 2022 to 2024.

Appropriations for trunk highways was $416 million.

But much of the remainder is dedicated to specific projects.

“What remains for the traditional local road improvement programs is $35 million,” he said.

The local bridge replacement program was allocated $5 million.

Carlson said the legislature did manage to pass bills to help in Health & Human Services. They allocated $28.1 million for health crisis centers and $30 million for housing infrastructure for persons with behavioral health needs.

But counties may be facing a financial crisis in the near future when funding for medical assistance runs out.

The two percent medical provider tax that is used to fund medical assistance expires in 2019. Carlson said that fund, which was implemented over 20 years ago to fund MnCare, will be gone, since legislation to eliminate the sunset date for the tax did not pass.

“We’re facing a challenging fiscal situation that will fall back on counties that administer programs on behalf of the state,” he said.

 Carlson said for the big picture, what appears to be good news really isn’t.

 “Because of the failure to enact the supplemental budget bill, it left a healthy balance of $419 million. Add to that the most recent projections of second quarter revenue that shows $348 million in excess of prior forecasts,” he said, “and three-quarters of a billion dollars appears to be available to the legislature when it comes into town next January.”

“That’s great, but the fact of the matter is they’re going to need it. The projections for inflation on the expenditure side of the ledger, which is not included in the forecast, is that it will cost $1.22 billion to just basically sustain spending programs at current levels.”