09-23-1992 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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BOB LONG Councimcmber August 31, 1992 CITY OF SAINT PAUL OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL Dear Mayor: As a local elected official responsible for delivering essential services to your constituents, I am sure you are concerned about the continuing attacks on the property tax relief funds in the Local Government Trust Fund. These attacks threaten to force local governments to either drastically cut services or dramatically increase property taxes. If your constituents are anything like mine you will agree that neither of these options will be acceptable. We need to act now to protect the Local Government Trust Fund from the reductions or elimination that will be proposed in the 1993 legislative session. The most effective way to do this is through a constitutional amendment dedicating 2 cents of the sales tax to property tax relief. These funds would be used to create a new Property Taxpayers' Trust Fund which would guarantee that the property tax relief funds originally sent to the Local Government Trust Fund would be used for property tax relief as was originally promised by the Governor and the Legislature. With the 1992 legislative campaigns getting into full swing and candidates from both parties looking for support, this is the year to get legislative commitments for a Constitutional Amendment. I am enclosing a sample resolution similar to one passed recently by the Saint Paul City Council and several other city councils around the state. The resolution calls for a Constitutional Amendment dedicating funding to a new Property Taxpayers' Trust Fund and requesting the League of Minnesota Cities to make such an Amendment one of their priorities in 1993. I am asking that your City Council consider passing a similar Resolution during the next month so that we can begin talking with legislators. In addition to sending a copy of your Resolution to the League, please also send me a copy so we can keep track of which cities have acted. Cities need a stable source of revenue not dependent on the property tax and not subject to the political debate between the Governor and the Legislature that seems to go on every year. Now that the sales tax has been raised to 6 1/2 percent and that sales tax is now applied to local government purchases all in the name of saving property tax relief programs, we must act to ensure that such property tax relief does in fact come to property taxpayers from a new Property Taxpayers' Trust Fund. CITY HALL SEVENTH FLOOR Page 70 SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA 55102 se 66 Printed on Recycled Paper 612/298-4473