"Minnesota’s counties are renewing their commitment to Minnesotans," said AMC President and Clay County Commissioner Jon Evert. "For decades, state and county government have been performing the same tasks while expecting the same results. Today’s system is in disrepair and Minnesotans expect better results from their government, at every level."

One key element of the plan is redesigning public safety. Counties and cities would acquire the road patrol responsibilities from the state highway patrol. The state highway patrol would be charged with accident reconstruction services, investigation of major crimes and management of the state weight standards. This shift would result in cutting the state highway patrol in half and saving the state an estimated $75 million in the next biennium.

Another component to the plan is redefining responsibilities for highway maintenance. Under AMC’s P.A.C.T., counties would take over the responsibility of maintaining all state highways, except freeways. In exchange, counties are asking the legislature for some flexibility in using part-time works for conducting summer maintenance and snowplowing. This change would save the state at least $200 million in the next biennium.

The savings from redesigning highway maintenance and the state highway patrol would restore at least $275 million in the state highway trunk fund in the next biennium, or approximately the cost of the reconstruction of I-35W/Highway 62 Crosstown project or a 5 cent per gallon gas tax increase.

AMC also called for replacing County Program Aid and other funding to counties with a statewide county sales tax of a half (.5) percent. Under this proposal, county governments would retain a vast majority of the revenue generated in their county, with a percentage going into a disparities fund to help smaller counties. If a county chose not to participate in the sales tax, the county board could vote to ‘opt-out’ and not receive any funds from the state or sales tax. The cost savings from this proposal would save the state an estimated $600 million per biennium.

"Replacing County Program Aid with a county sales tax restores local control to county governments," continued Evert. "Counties could decide to reject the tax and operate with little to no state funding, or they could choose to lower property taxes or restore essential services. Most importantly, counties become more accountable to taxpayers for the services they provide and the decisions they make."

Other items in the plan include:

• Allowing a new, expedited process for counties to adopt Home Rule Charters at the discretion of each county. This would allow counties to share, merge or consolidate services more easily. It also would give counties the authority to choose to merge.
• Consolidating the three state probation systems into a single, statewide Community Corrections and Probations Services program that allows counties to share services. This would save the state $20 million in the next biennium.
• Enacting a moratorium on new state mandates, suspend all county maintenance of efforts for three years and implement a five-year sunset review on all existing mandates. This would save the state $5 million.
• Placing a five-year moratorium on implementing new state rules or commissioner order unless they are subject to federal rulemaking and federal law conformity. This would save the state another $5 million.
• Redesigning the state’s court system.
• Adopting a uniform statewide planning and zone law.
• Allowing counties to start redesigning their chemical dependency programs based upon the success for the existing Chemical Dependency Response pilot programs already in place.

AMC’s P.A.C.T. will receive its first legislative hearing on Wednesday, February 24 in the House Tax Committee’s Property and Sales Tax Division.

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