Minnesota / Budget proposal has fee hikes for drivers, campers, farmers

01/25/2007

Pawlenty says increases are low compared with past budgets


BY BRIAN BAKST
Associated Press


The beginning of life, and the end, would cost more. Extra effort would be made to get federal headcounters to count every Minnesota head. And $2 million would be set aside for a birthday bash.

In laying out his $34.4 billion proposal for the next two-year budget cycle Monday, Pawlenty put the spotlight on efforts to boost classroom spending, ease pressure on property taxes, promote renewable fuels and expand public health insurance programs.

The hundreds of budget pages reveal a much broader reach, such as added expenses for anyone who wants to get behind the wheel or pitch a tent in a state park.

After rising $3 in the last budget, driver's license fees would be bumped up another 75 cents to make a standard license cost $22.25. About 1.7 million licenses and ID cards are issued annually. There's another 75 cents in added vehicle title fees and $1.75 more to purchase a license plate, except for collector-car versions; they would jump $15.

"The fees are going up just to meet operational expenses," said Pat McCormack, who leads the Division of Driver and Vehicle Services. The increases will help the office maintain its two-week turnaround for mailing out driver documents, she said.

Enjoying the outdoors could cost a bit more, too. Campground fees at state parks — now used by 750,000 people a year — would climb an average of $2 in 2008.

Fishing tournament organizers would have to pay a new, undetermined fee to cover the $108,000 a year the Department of Natural Resources now spends to oversee them.

Birth and death also come with added expense. A fee for screening the estimated 72,000 newborns a year for health disorders would rise for the second time in four years, going from $61 to $81. Funeral homes, crematories and morticians would pay more to be licensed, and reports related to prepaid funerals would carry a higher fee.

Pawlenty's budget also would change the cost of doing business for other professions.

Temporary-employment agencies that help deliver social services would pay more for worker background checks, people who dispense hearing aids would pay higher certification fees, and health care providers would be charged $10 more to submit specimens to state labs for disease testing.

Minnesota farmers who want to use the "Minnesota Grown" logo on their produce would pay four times the current fee for the privilege. Administration officials said the new $20 annual fee is needed to help fund promotional campaigns and expand the program to livestock producers.

On the flip side, fees would fall for occupational therapists and aquatic pest-control applicators.

Pawlenty insisted Monday that the overall fee increases — an ongoing source of controversy given his resistance to general tax increases — were low compared with past budgets.

Pawlenty tackles other business matters in the budget, too. He seeks $315,000 to maintain a legal presence in the Northwest Airlines bankruptcy proceeding; the attorney would keep watch over a multimillion-dollar loan the state once gave the struggling carrier. He earmarks $850,000 for a study of minority- and female-owned businesses to determine whether they are getting an adequate share of state contracts.

Crimefighters get a lift with a Pawlenty plan to add 20 forensic scientists at the state crime lab, whom officials say are needed to deal with greater DNA demands and to cut waiting times for evidence analysis from three months or more to one.

For current inmates, the budget includes $2.5 million extra to cope with rapidly rising costs of prison health programs.

Visitors to the state Capitol could notice a heavier security presence if the governor's proposal to add 20 guards and more security equipment holds up. The neighboring Minnesota Judicial Center, currently free of metal detectors, would get unspecified fortification under a $500,000 boost in security funding.

Schools that need help planning for emergencies could turn to a new state school safety center. And the budget includes $138,000 to coordinate security for the 2008 Republican National Convention, the only dollars Pawlenty directly spends on his party's party.

When it comes to parties, there's another big one approaching in 2008: the state's 150th anniversary. Pawlenty devotes $2 million toward Minnesota sesquicentennial events.

Recognition of the state's past also is evident in his request for $308,000 to preserve 21 battle flags from the Civil War and the Spanish-American War that are now on display in the Capitol Rotunda.

But there's also a keen eye on Minnesota's future, with a plan to prep for the 2010 census.

The once-a-decade national population count determines how much representation Minnesota has in Congress and how federal highway dollars and Medicaid money are doled out.

Pawlenty asks for $300,000 to kickstart outreach and promotion campaigns to keep people from being missed — especially among minorities, immigrants and the elderly.

Much is on the line.

"Minnesota will be on the cusp of losing its eighth congressional seat by 3,600 people to Florida," the budget documents state. "This initiative will actively promote the full count that Minnesota will need to retain this congressional seat."