FAIRMONT — Minnesota State Representative Bjorn Olson addressed Martin County Commissioners at their recent meeting earlier this week. Specifically, Olson discussed road funds for counties, small cities, and townships, noting some recent work he has accomplished on procuring some short-term funds.

“I’m on the transportation committee and we just passed a transportation bill,” Olson said. “There were two different plans of action, one would have taken money away from the county and given it to small cities and townships. My plan, which was an allocation, I asked for $15 million from the general fund just to go straight to small cities, and then I asked for $4 million to go from the general fund to townships.

“Instead, they said, “Bjorn, we’re not going to give you $15 million, we’re going to give you $18 million.” So Martin County is going to get somewhere around $180,000 in small cities road aid. Obviously Fairmont’s not considered a small city, but all of the other communities within Martin County are considered small cities. So this district’s going to get $550,000 for small cities road aid, and Martin County’s at about $147,000 to $150,000, that’s what it’s going to get.

“Then townships are in a similar situation, there’s $450,000 worth of township road aid that this district is going to receive. That’s going to impact you guys. I don’t have the breakdown of townships per county, so I’m not quite sure what Martin County is going to get for their township roads, but you can look into that.”

Olson also shared that Sherburn will be getting $3 million for road aid as well. Commissioner Elliot Belgard noted that the board’s request to Olson would be to get funding secured every year.

“We’ve fallen way behind, our county road system depends on that money, and we’re trying to figure out a way to get it so it’s always there,” Belgard said.

“I understand,” Olson said. “With the two plans, one would have reallocated funds from the county straight to small cities because right now small cities don’t receive and guaranteed recurring state aid. I think there’s a better way we can do that and since we were inundated with cash from the federal government, I said the general fund has this money, let’s do it this way for this year and for the next few years see if we can figure out an actual fix-it.

“At the same time, we stopped the gas tax which was a huge deal for us,” he continued. “In rural Minnesota, gas taxes are not the answer for us. It’s a regressive tax.

“All of our small cities are a lot cheaper to live in, houses in Elmore are $50,000 cheaper to live in than a house in Blue Earth. That’s because you buy the house there and then drive to work.

“Well lower-income individuals live in lower-cost areas, and then they have to drive. So when you’re talking about a gas tax, that’s the most regressive tax you could possibly have, and we fought that pretty hard. So we’re still looking for a solution, but I’m not into the idea that we steal from the counties to give to small cities or townships.”

County Engineer Kevin Peyman also weighed in on the issue, stating that he believes Olson makes a good point concerning small cities and townships’ funding not coming from the county portion but also stating that he would like to see a concrete alternative to the gas tax.

“I would not argue the point that it’s regressive, but what I would say is that’s historically how we pay for our roads,” Peyman said. “So if we’re not going to pay for it with the gas tax we need to find a substitute rather than just saying we don’t support the gas tax.”

“We want to find a way to get it paid for and have it there every year,” Belgard said. “I wouldn’t say we supported a raise in the gas tax, but if that was part of the formula, we could live with that. Somehow we’ve got to get a formula out there so we don’t keep falling behind on all these roads because the roads in Martin County are very important to the Ag industry and we’ve got to keep them up.”

“Our plan was no to the gas tax, and then a change to the equation with regard to the sales tax on auto parts,” Olson said. “The other side was looking at the gas tax increase.”

Peyman noted that one-time funding is appreciated and reiterated Belgard’s notion the dedicated funding was important, and offered to meet with Olson to go over the county’s plans and how funding affects the county.