State Representative
Robert Westfall

The House of Representatives gave final approval to a second permanent tax cut and rebate Tuesday, along with a flurry of other important bills. The legislation makes up some of the final House activities as they prepare to wrap up the 2000 session.

"Now that the details have been finalized," Rep. Bob Westfall (R-Rothsay) said, "I think it's fair to say that Minnesotans will each benefit from a good balance of tax cuts, rebates and spending targeted to some very important areas."

On May 9, Rep. Westfall joined House members in passing a huge tax relief bill, which included $160 million in permanent income tax cuts and $150 million in cuts to automobile license tab fees. He also voted for a $650 million tax rebate, which will return hundreds of dollars to the average Minnesota taxpayer in a check to be mailed late this summer.

Farmers will also benefit from some specifically targeted tax relief. Part of the tax bill included provisions to decrease property taxes by increasing the farm education tax credit by $11.5 million. Local farmers will also benefit from a $4 per acre agriculture tax rebate available to those in counties under national disaster declaration in 1999, including Becker, Clay, Ottertail and Wilkin counties. Rep. Westfall co-authored this provision and was pleased that it was included in the final tax relief package.

"Farmers in our area are still recovering from several years of poor weather conditions," Westfall said. "This bill puts a little extra cash in their pockets while we wait for Mother Nature to cooperate."

Two smaller, but important provisions in the tax bill exempt nurseries from paying sales tax on trucks and equipment in the same way that farmers are exempt. Also, the state has pulled out of regulating local tax levies, allowing city and county governments to make decisions on tax levy increases and allowing local citizens to hold them accountable.

"All of these tax cuts have started to add up," Westfall said. "The overall tax burden on Minnesota families has dropped 15 percent since 1998, and we're pretty proud of that. At the same time we also recognized the need to make some investments in our state and we took care of that as well."

The House passed a $172 million education bill that increases the per-pupil funding for schools across the state and targets additional aid directly to rural school districts. High School vocational programs got some emergency funding as did small rural schools which face budget cuts from declining enrollment.

"Even though we passed the largest education funding increase in a decade last year, there were still some needs in many of our small rural schools," Westfall said, "I sponsored legislation to keep the vocation education funding, and I supported other provisions that were obviously very important to the quality of our public education."

The Pelican Rapids Public Library was included in the capitol bonding bill for $500,000 of funding for a much-needed expansion for a multi-cultural learning center. "Pelican Rapids has done a wonderful job of providing for these newcomers to the community," Westfall said, "and this money will help them continue this work."

The House also approved a health and human services bill that included funding to aid nursing homes and raise their state reimbursement rates and provided an additional 3% cost of living increase for the staff.

State bonding is usually the focus of an even-year legislative session and that was definitely the case again this year. The Housed passed a final bonding bill that included projects from a cross-section of the state. One of the larger local debates on bonding was whether or not the state should invest $5 million in a new DNR building in Fergus Falls, or spend $750,000 on an existing building in Pelican Rapids.

"I fought hard to get the DNR to use the Pelican Rapids site and save tax payers millions," Westfall said, "but the Governor and his allies outnumbered us in their fight for the new building."

In the end, the DNR won out and secured funding for the Fergus Falls site. They only received $3 million of the $5 million they originally requested, however, so according to Westfall, it's a mixed victory for the taxpayers.

"If non of us had come forward and fought for the Pelican Rapids site, the DNR would probably have gotten the full $5 million," Westfall said. "At least this way, we saved the taxpayers $2 million."

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