The council is voting on their legislative priorities Tuesday (Item #31). We only have to pay the council’s legislative advisor $80K a year to come up with these seven bullet points. Sweet deal? Huh? But you know we are ‘saving money’ by replacing former city clerk Debra Owen with three full-time people. Who appear to be getting a raise.
Once again, the city and council prefer to act like they are a dictatorship within the State of South Dakota, that can impose their own damn rules when they feel like it, and tell the state what to do;
1) That the Sioux Falls City Council, in conjunction with the South Dakota Municipal League, opposes any legislation that would inhibit municipalities from providing services requested by citizens in whatever form the citizens approve and opposes any legislation that restricts local control over taxation and spending.
This one is so poorly written, one wonders what the heck it means. The city already has control over fees and several other taxes. They just can’t raise the sales tax over a certain percentage, and I think that should stay within the power of the state legislature. If we start letting cities in SD determining sales taxes we would be paying a heckuva a lot more in Sioux Falls. I recommend the legislature kill this in committee.
2)Â The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation allowing municipalities alternative publication options.
IÂ agree with this one, the city pays almost $70K a year to a newspaper that is by subscription only for legal notices, and I think it’s daily paper only reaches about 20% of the total population of Sioux Falls (according to their last audit). It would make more sense to put the legal notices in a FREE weekly shopper and ONLINE. Heck, you would reach more citizens online, and it wouldn’t cost us a red cent.
3) The Sioux Falls City Council opposes any legislation that would reduce, remove, repeal, or reallocate the municipal sales tax, liquor tax reversion, or any other municipal revenues to any other unit of government or that would expand the power to impose a sales and use tax to any other unit of government.
I disagree with this one, and hope the legislature kills this in committee. Basically this is an anti-county funding. It amazes me that a city that depends on the county to prosecute the criminals THEY arrest would deny them another funding source. Wait, maybe it doesn’t surprise me.
4)Â The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation that expands affordable housing opportunities in South Dakota.
While I support these efforts, it is still a vague proposal, and probably won’t carry much water in Pierre without some more details on how the city plans to expand it.
5) The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation to raise the threshold for requiring a performance bond to $50,000.
I agree with this proposal and encourage the legislature to act on this.
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6) The Sioux Falls City Council strongly encourages the legislature to direct that any available water development funds be used to support completion of the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System in South Dakota.
7) The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation appropriating funds from the state Omnibus Water Fund for the purpose of providing advance of federal funds on a zero interest reimbursable basis for construction for Lewis & Clark Rural Water System facilities in South Dakota.
I encourage this also, but am baffled by our continuing love affair with Lewis & Clark. We already doled out $80 million for a pipeline that was expanded to Sioux Falls for emergency backup. We put in our fair share (and much more) and as far as I am concerned, it is L & C’s problem to secure more funding.
Not all of the priorities are bad, but pitting local governments against each other when it comes to funding isn’t wise, or prudent for that matter, especially when the city depends on the county for social services and prosecuting our criminals.
Number 3 surprises me. Doesn’t MMM want the state to raise the sales tax to give a penny to counties?
#1 sounds good except (per Home Rule Charter) citizens have little control over spending. Council checks and balances are sidestepped when the mayor has to much power. Citizens didn’t decide to build or name indoor tennis and swimming. We didn’t decide to make First Premier the only city bank, displacing 4 other impartial financial institutions. We didn’t decide to paint snowplows. Anywhere but Sioux Falls you can exercise free speech or raise your hands symbolically.
There are two observations I think are worthy of note.
1. I would read item #1 to mean we want the power to raise taxes if we want and don’t want to be handcuffed by state law. We’re at the maximum sales tax levy allowed by state law in Sioux Falls. As a general rule I’m for local control, but I’m adamantly opposed to giving municipalities, particularly this particular city and the current council the power to levy more taxes. The end result would be obvious. We’d end up with more sales tax to explicitly pay for sporting venues or other leisure items. Or, more insidiously, we’d commit more of our core sales tax dollars to pay for these leisure items (instead of infrastructure), and then say we have to raise taxes or we will be forced to cut funding for roads or paratransit service. It was stated last night when Councilor Staggers asked about the wording of this that it was meant to preserve the current funding and sales tax formulas. However, that isn’t what this language says. It says we don’t want to be restricted. This would be an open invitation to higher taxes.
3. Look at #1 and #3 together. Its pretty amazing actually when you look at both and think about the double standard. In #1, they state that they:
“opposes any legislation that restricts local control over taxation and spending.” So they are saying they don’t think the state should limit or restrict the cities ability to raise taxes, earmark what the taxes go to, etc.
But then in #3, regarding counties they say they oppose anything that:
” would expand the power to impose a sales and use tax to any other unit of government.”
So they are saying they oppose any other unit of government (like the county) from having the power to impose a sales or use tax. So, they are for local control and the unfettered power to levy taxes and allocate them when it benefits them, but they are opposed to someone like the county from having the same power? You really can’t have it both ways. Either you are for ‘local’ control or you are not. I don’t support a sales or use tax imposed by the county either, but I also don’t try to have it both ways and say the city should have unlimited power to impose and allocate sales tax however we wish. The other thing I would say is that with stated positions like this, I’d be concerned about the relationship between the city and the county. Seems pretty hostile at least from the council end. Something is wrong when the city is rolling in revenue and expending it on all sorts of leisure items, but the county can barely pay for many of the ills that happen in its largest city (like jailing, substance abuse, etc). Seems like there is an allocation problem. I don’t think there is a revenue problem, its probably a misallocation problem.
I agree 100% Greg. Kermit brought this up last night, and confused the f’ck out of $80K a year council employee.