Appoint a Retrenchment Committee for Albert Lea

Open letter to Mayor-Elect Murtaugh:

Thank-you all for subscribing to my blog! I appreciate the opportunity to express my thoughts and comments in a format that is casual, yet publicly accountable. I believe it is important to be respectful, yet not be afraid to question generally accepted standards.

With that said, I have watched with interest the recent news coming from the State level. I respect the fact that the League of Minnesota Cities stepped up and issued their list of potential cuts to cities that MAY come forward. The numbers for Albert Lea are substantial!

http://www.lmnc.org/media/document/1/25_100million_cut_estimates.pdf

I happen to serve on the board of a state-wide legal aid organization that relies heavily upon funding from the State of Minnesota -- Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services. Without going into the great work that this organization does for those in need, I am most proud of this organization's ability to proactively respond to crisis. They strongly articulate their programs, but do not jump on the "poor us" bandwagon. At our most recent meeting, they appointed a "Retrenchment Committee." The goal of this committee is to carefully review our budget and recommend a series of scenarios of how we would respond to various levels of budget cuts. No-one wants to cut, but being prepared with responsible options seems beyond logical.

I suggest that you follow this lead and immediately appoint a citizen committee to carefully scrutinize the City budget and present a series of options for cuts. Use the Leagues' projected cut as the first tier, and a tier 5% greater than and a tier 5% less than that number. Most importantly, allow this committee to operate outside the sphere of influence of the staff and current council. This will not be a popular job and it is unfair to expect those with a vested interest in this year's budget to re-trench. The staff should be an available resource to this committee, as invited.

Set the expectations high and expect this committee to do a lot of heavy lifting to actually understand the complexities of the budget. Good luck!