This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

State Shutdown Not Desirable, but Manageable, District 622, Oakdale officials say

Officials say they'll get by if the state government shuts down July 1 due to a lack of a budget agreement.

A state government shutdown wouldn’t cripple the City of Oakdale or School District 622, but it wouldn’t be without consequences either, said officials from both agencies.

Minnesota could face a state government shutdown if legislative leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton can’t reach a budget deal by July 1. The last state government shutdown was in 2005.

District 622 Director of Business Services Dale Sundstrom said the courts determine which payments school districts get in the event of a shutdown. If a court opinion were similar to what was decided in 2005—that the district still gets its standing appropriations—it would be OK financially for a while, Sundstrom said.

Find out what's happening in Oakdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“But if they didn’t, we’d be in a world of hurt,” he said.

In 2005, a judge ruled that districts would receive general education aid, special education aid, alternative teacher compensation aid and a number of other forms of state and federal aid (for the full list see the attached PDF).  The judge ruled that districts would not receive integration aid, early childhood family education aid, community education aid, and many other types of grants and aid monies.

Find out what's happening in Oakdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In the event of a shutdown, the district would likely have to get by with less money than usual for a while, but, "we should survive it," Sundstrom said.

The story is the same in the City of Oakdale.

A short-term shutdown wouldn’t have a major impact on the city, however the longer it would last, the more effects it would have, said City Administrator Craig Waldron.

For example if a state trail that runs through Oakdale buckles in the heat, the job of fixing it might fall on city employees, he said. City staff members might not be able to get needed help from the state building code administration, the state fire marshal’s office or the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, he said.

If the city needs to draw down grant money it was awarded by the Department of Employment and Economic Development for site improvements in connection with the Oakdale Mall redevelopment, or modify its use of the grant somehow, a long-term shutdown could cause problems, he said.

“If it shut down for six months, then we’d start to have some problems, but I think short term we’re fine,” Waldron said.

More important than the direct effects of a shutdown is how it might affect the state's image, and in turn, economic development, Waldron said.

“Just the specter of a state shutdown doesn’t really present the type of image of the sate that you’d want,” Waldron said. “You kind of have that overriding thing that concerns a lot of us that are involved in economic development and promoting us and the state.”

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Oakdale