I got an email from a reporter who reads my blog much to my satisfaction. My comments about the threat of the legislature imposing on Duluth taxpayers the burden for paying off the vast financial hole of our local Duluth Teacher’s Retirement pension caught this journalist’s attention because they seemed at variance with Jay Stoffel’s comments. Jay for twenty years was the Duluth fund’s manager but a few weeks ago he took over the much larger statewide TRA fund. (which sends my Mother a monthly check thanks to my Dad’s long service teaching at Mankato State College the name of which seems to change every fifteen years or so.)
Our SB Chairman Mike Miernicki has little fear that such a burden will fall on local taxpayer’s shoulders. Art Johnston, ever vigilant, has been warning of this potential threat. Because its imposition by the legislature would dwarf the recently passed levies I’m looking at it like a caged tiger behind a door with a faulty lock.
Our greatest protection should be State Senator Tom Bakk. The ambitious Bakk has a huge district that contains a portion of Duluth. He has been chair of the tax committee and is the current boss of the state senate. No such bill should get passed him but I have no interest in signing off on a teacher’s contract until I know for certain that this terrible calamity is forestalled. How could such a calamity come about?
Here’s a worst case scenario:
The Democrats were quite bold after the Republicans were routed in the last election and fixed things with significant tax increases. Taxes are of course red meat for Republicans. The GOP has already started pointing accusing fingers at the DFL to woo voters back. We are long past the halcyon days of bipartisan support for things like the Minnesota Miracle.
Imagine that a newly invigorated, tax fighting Republican party emerges in Minnesota in this year’s election when Barack Obama faces a national backlash. At the moment pollsters are telling us it looks like the Democrats nationally are under threat of losing the Senate to the GOP when that looked unlikely but a year ago. In Minnesota much hangs on the Democrats reelecting the fairly bright but rather odd Mark Dayton Governor. At the moment there is no well known Republican on the horizon to challenge him. There are a lot of lesser lights in the hunt for a nomination but its too early to know whether any of these candidates will take off.
It doesn’t bode well for Dayton or the DFL that Duluth’s own Yvonne Prettner Solon is abandoning ship as Lt. Governor. No one can be sure that any public explanations for her departure is truly accurate because she will not want to undermine Dayton. Nonetheless she may smell Dayton’s blood and she may wish to escape the ignominy of losing an election.
If the Democrats start to panic I’m not certain that they would risk the public’s ire by pouring sixty million state tax dollars into the teacher’s pensions to cover Duluth’s shortfall. Already one Republican legislator on the pension board is making a stink about it. For years Republicans, with good reason, pointed to excesses in DFL spending for Northern Minnesota. I can imagine them playing that card again to a receptive public and I can imagine the DFL legislators cowering and deciding to hold off on shoring up the pension fund for Duluth teachers until after the election. But if this should happen and the GOP takes over one house of the legislature after the election what are the chances that Duluth could get a pension fund fix? I wouldn’t be sanguine about our prospects.
It appears to me that our salvation is, as in that old Elvis song, Now or Never. Tom Bakk can save his constituents in Duluth from a massive tax hike unless he finds it inconvenient for his future political ambitions. Someone better start sending him letters and email.
