Iron Range Resources budget showdown tonight

A story in yesterday’s Hibbing Daily Tribune explained that tonight’s Iron Range Resources board meeting will explore the proposed $31 million budget for this unique state agency funded by taconite mining taxes.

My friends Tony Sertich and Tom Anzelc explain the agency’s purpose in the Mike Jennings story:

Two other IRRB members, Reps. Tony Sertich and Tom Anzelc, stressed the linkage between the agency’s spending and the main ongoing source of the agency’s funding, taconite production taxes.

Given that mining companies pay the taconite tax in lieu of property taxes, and given that those companies require the same sewer, water and other services as the rest of the community, it’s appropriate that the IRRB use its funding to improve the region’s “crumbling and aging infrastructure,” said Sertich, DFL-Chisholm.

Anzelc, DFL-Balsam Township, said he frequently reminds his constituents “that this is their money — that this is money that our major industry contributes to the local economy.”

Wise use of the taconite taxes is “the reason why our infrastructure is adequate,” he said. “It can always be better. …. But we’re able to manage the future off these resources, off these dollars, paid by the mining companies.”

The big showdown tonight will probably come over IRR commissioner Sandy Layman’s budget proposals. In recent years the agency has come to adopt a model that makes it sort of like a giant chamber of commerce: highly business focused and quick to spend on marketing packets and consultants. Many on the board, and yours truly (who is probably banned for life from the board after starting this blog), would like to see the board take a more comprehensive approach to the spending of its resources. This is the people’s money, funds that in other regions would be spent on schools, streets and services, and the people need to see a tangible return on their investment.

We’ll see what happens.

UPDATE (6-19 at 12:18 p.m.): Iron Range Resources has contacted me (OMG, they read this blog!) with some updated figures on the agency’s public works spending over the past three years and what’s proposed for the 2009 budget. Essentially, about $13 million was spent on public infrastructure projects on the Iron Range over the past three years, including about $5 million this year. The agency proposes slightly more than $5 million more in public works projects for this upcoming year, roughly equal to the amount spent on business development projects.

I certainly was well aware of public works spending by the agency, but my original argument remains largely the same. Where are we going with this other spending? What’s the mission? Since even routine IRR board meetings that have no agenda items sometimes end in fisticuffs, I’m sure tonight might provide some sparks.

UPDATE 2: An abridged report from the meeting indicated that the final budget was not yet approved because of a hang-up on how to reword an amendment and because of a family emergency for a board member. Not too many fireworks, I heard, and we’ll be revisiting the budget once again in coming days.

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

  2. Hmm…4 million dollar loan for Magnetation, and yet the roads on most of the Range towns are crumbling. I spent four years living in Hibbing, and grew to love the area. What I did not grow to like was the IRRB’s constant waste of money on business developement that yields few jobs. (Magnetation will yield 5 full time positions and 36″seasonal” positions.

    My property taxes where I live now are used mostly for infrastructure as well as enticing major job growth, (100 or more jobs from a business). This is a much better use of the publics money in my opinion.

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