Mayor Rybak and cuts to the Fire Department

See the update at the foot of the post.

From Andy Mannix at City Pages:

Thirteen firefighters found out yesterday morning that they are being cut from the department, effective next month. Three will be forced into retirement, the other ten laid off.

Naturally, the department isn't happy. But the mayor more-or-less predicted fire department layoffs when I interviewed him this spring about proposed cuts in Local Government Aid.





Update: I have some more information about the size of the LGA cuts to Minneapolis in 2011 that you can read about at the link. The final LGA cut to Minneapolis in the session just ended was $23 million; the City received $64 million out of the $87.5 million that had earlier been "certified."

What is "certified," you ask? The best synonym in this context is "promised." The certified numbers are supposed to be relied upon by city budget officials in making projections and establishing a budget.

If this sounds a little like K-12 finance, you'd be right. Promise one thing and deliver another.

Further update: If you watched the mayor's videos on LGA, you know that Minneapolis collects and delivers to the state many times more in sales taxes and commercial and industrial property taxes than it receives in LGA.