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Biggest county faces huge budget ax
by Art Hughes, Minnesota Public Radio
September 21, 2003

Hennepin County, the state's largest, is facing up to a $100 million cut in its budget for next year. Social services programs would absorb the bulk of the cuts. (Image courtesy of Hennepin County)

Counties across the state are preparing their budget plans for the coming year, and many of them face deep spending cuts. Hennepin County, the state's largest county, may need to cut as much as $100 million. The cuts will likely lead to the first layoffs in recent memory, and a dramatic change in the way social programs, probation, and other county-funded services work.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Already this year, Hennepin County has left vacant jobs unfilled. Retirement incentives cleared out more than twice the number of county employees who typically leave their jobs. Still, faced with the shock of cutting 7 percent of the budget, Hennepin County is not likely to escape layoffs at the end of this year.

"I sympathize with somebody who's looking at losing their job," says Mike Opat, who chairs the Hennepin County Board. "But this is our lot in life right now. This is 'no new taxes Minnesota.' So I think we're going to have to learn to live with it."

Opat says learning to live with it likely means an almost 10 percent cut in the county's $500 million human service spending. That will affect things like support for developmentally disabled adults, care for people with severe mental illness and treatment for substance abusers who can't afford treatment.

	Mike Opat

In addition to the cuts handed down by the state, the county board voted two weeks ago to lock in a property tax levy rate substantially lower than what the state allows. Opat unsuccessfully opposed the effort, saying no one knows what additional costs the county could incur by the time the budget is adopted in December.

"There's a desire for increased patrols on Lake Minnetonka. There was a terrible boating accident there, and there's been demand," says Opat. "That is a property tax expenditure. It doesn't come from anywhere else. I was thinking we'd have more flexibility to deal with things like that."

A majority of the board is more in line with Commissioner Penny Steele, who opposes any increases in taxes to make up for the state cuts. She views the lean times as an opportunity to perform much-needed trimming in a bloated workforce.

"If you're more effective with some of the programming you do, you can reduce a lot of those dollars and get better outcomes for people," says Steele. "I won't give up on that notion, because I've been in government eight years and I see many, many places where we can do a much better job, and you try to move the bureaucracy in that direction."

If you're more effective with some of the programming you do, you can reduce a lot of those dollars and get better outcomes for people. I won't give up on that notion. - Penny Steele, Hennepin County commissioner

Steele says her constituents are less reliant on government and more concerned about property taxes. She believes government support should be temporary.

"(There's) a big difference in the cost of that person who comes to the county for assistance, if you move them along, and they become productive and they become self-sufficient," Steele says.

One area outside Human Services that also faces cuts is the Community Corrections Department. It runs juvenile detention, the workhouse in Plymouth and probation for some 33,000 people. This year, state cuts forced the department to eliminate 20 vacant positions.

The department is preparing for a worst-case scenario next year, in which it would have to cut another 77 jobs. Director Fred LaFleur says that will probably mean an increase in caseloads and a rise in probation violations.

"We will have to redirect a significant portion of our resources to the people we feel are most likely to re-offend, or somehow be a threat to public safety," says LaFleur. "The implication of that is -- you begin to neglect the early and front-end stuff that you should be doing, that would divert or discourage or deter people from being a part of the criminal justice system."

If commissioners restore the money for corrections, there's even less money for Human Services or some other county department.

After the administration's budget is unveiled on Tuesday, commissioners begin a series of hearings with other county officials, agencies that use county funds and members of the public, before adopting the plan in December.

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