I'm not sure much would be different about the services I want from my city if we started from scratch. The basics (police, fire fighting, water sewer, etc.) and the other services (libraries, community centers, parks) make Minnesota a good place to live. Paying for it is a harder question. Property taxes make sense for me, but maybe not for seniors on fixed incomes or those who are unemployed. Sales taxes might make sense for bigger cities like St. Paul and St. Cloud, but not everywhere.

How about we let the local police departments keep more on a percentage basis - say 50% of the tickets they write? There is a very target rich environment out there of lawbreakers. If the departments actually got to keep more of the money - they could off set some more of their own expenses. As it is now, I think the county and the state take most of the proceeds. Also - could allow them to up the fines. Maybe if they were a little higher and the police were out writing more tickets... it may change the behavior on the roads to the benefit of everyone.

Property and sales taxes disproportionally affect low income families and seniors, but by expanding taxes to luxury goods such as clothing worth more than $100 or upper bracket housing the state could raise a significant amount of revenue to invest in LGA without hurting working families.

Police,fire depts, snow removal are all things we all need and want. Civic centers,art centers and libraries we can do without or at least reduced funds.

The whole "no new taxes' is bogus. All that has really happened is that tax burden has been shifted first from the feds to the states and now to cities and counties where it can't go no lower, since as one Minneapolis mayor once said it is the cities where the rubber meets the road.
Furthermore, the tax burden shift has had a decided class bias, with the burden being shifted from the upper levels to the lower levels. For the right wing ideologues who try to say the poor pay no taxes, think again!! There are sales taxes, excise taxes and users fees where the lower your income, the greater percentage of your earnings go the the aforementioned essentially regressive taxes.
On the federal level the removal of the Bush Two tax cuts would really just take the federal tax levels to the 1998 Bill Clinton levels. Still not very fair, but better than the present level and these somewhat minimal reforms would bring in revenue to the federal government.
The historian Tony Judt estimated that the Marshall Plan which revived Western Europe after World War Two cost about $208 billion in 2008 dollars. According the Judt, a domestic Marshall Plan for the US cities and counties would cost about the same. If cities and counties can't get their service levels up to par, the price of not being able to carry out basic functions will be paid for years to come.
For Minnesota as openers, how about going back to the 1998 Arne Carlson tax rates? While it wouldn't totally cure the state deficit , those rates would help cut into the state revenue shortfall.
Both on the state and federal level an improved economy would increase tax revenues. A second stimulis targeted to the lower economic levlels is more and more a priority!!

Drop the per city managers, police chiefs,etc. Share the resources within a region of the higher paid personnel. Drop the sheriff or put police under sheriff and have one law enforcement force- not elected. There are too many layers of governemnt providing the same service.

Personally, I don't really agree with the premise that it's any more expensive to pay for the functions of government than it was decades ago. If it's more "difficult" to do so, that is only because we have become, as a society, less willing to pay for the functions of government that we all need and use. I think that is the key.

What's worse, not only are we unwilling to pay for what we need from our government in recent decades, we don't even responsibly assume the role of taking care of what was paid for and left for us by previous generations. So much of our infrastructure is deteriorating because we have preferred to defer maintenance and replacement in order to cut our own taxes. The question isn't really how do we find ways to pay for society's needs. The question is: how do we re-educate American society on the responsibility we all share to maintain critical investments in ourselves, in our own society? How do we beat back the heresy that says we don't have to pay the common costs of living in a civil society. If we can get that far, perhaps it would be possible to have serious debates about which things to pay for, and when, and how. Right now, given the current state of our public discourse, we aren't even close to having serious conversations about such things. Rather, it's all hyperbole and political villification.

Local governments need to stop paying the unconstitutional "sales and use tax" imposed upon them! (Article X Section 1 of the MN Constitution) This alone would save cities 7.385% on all purchases. Schools DO NOT PAY THIS TAX! Wake up people! City government you've been! Imagine your taxes paying taxes. This is ridiculous! Taxing taxes. I say that is tax happy governing and it needs to stop. My State Representative agrees with me on this. Does yours? Why don't you ask them about this travesty upon our local cities?

Local government in Minnesota is highly fragmented and cries out for serious consolidation. Why do we need 87 counties? If, say, we combined 4 or 5 counties along the Iowa border, we still would not reach a combined population of 50,000. We have over 100 municipal governments in the metro region, each with its own city hall, council and planning commission, parks and public works departments and all competing with each other for property tax dollars. On top of all this, we pile on several counties and dozens of special service districts, metro and state agencies. No wonder it's so hard to reach the big decisions that would make the Twin Cities competitive with other large cities in America. We could take a lesson from Canada where cities have been amalgamation. Imagine. There is just one City of Winnipeg, one city government with a single council, staff and public works department. Need an approval for your project? Winnipeg City Hall is a one stop service center. The Twin Cities probably would not go as far as that, but wouldn't our local government be better if we got serious about simplifying it?

Bill Graham
Burnsville, MN
952-435-9724