As the 2011 Minnesota Legislative session opened, Dakota County elected officials invited members of the local delegation to a meeting and put forth a plea: Call us. Talk to us. Let us explain.

Midway through the session, Dakota County Commissioners are wondering if anyone heard them.

"There's a lot of bills still out there that can have a negative impact on the county budget," Commissioner Nancy Schouweiler said during a angst-filled discussion with her colleagues at a recent meeting, where they examined a spreadsheet that estimated the worst-case scenario: nearly a $20 million hit to the county budget.

The frustration reached a peak last week when the House Transportation Policy and Finance Committee passed a bill that would take money from the fund set up by five metro counties to pay for light rail and other transit improvements and use it instead to pay for existing Metro Transit bus service.

The provision was later removed from the bill by another committee, but it could resurface on the House floor.

Commissioner Paul Krause, who testified against the proposal, said, "They listened, but it just went right over their heads." He said taking the transit money would be "stealing."

"The thing that's really going to hurt us is that our constituents voted for this [transit sales tax] and they expected us to go out and do our transit job, which we did," he said.

Rep. Michael Beard, R-Shakopee, author of the transportation bill, said that given the budget trouble, it would be better to invest in existing transit than spend money adding trains or tracks. "It seemed to me to be a reasonable request. Unusual? Certainly," he said.

The counties' money would be used to replace about $69 million for Metro Transit that the Republicans want to cut from the general fund.

Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said, "I can understand why they would be concerned. But it is also a long process. Things have a way of kind of working out in the long run."

Although legislators are cutting the budget, she said they also are trying to find mandate relief for counties. "When all is said and done, it's probably going to be a little of both."

County commissioners have long groused about unfunded mandates and other bumps in their fiscal relationship with the state.

But this year, as the Legislature tries to fill a projected $5 billion budget hole, the hand-wringing over trickle-down financial woes has been particularly pronounced.

Cuts were made earlier

Dakota County built its 2011 budget around the assumption that it would lose some state aid. The county commissioners raised the levy 0.8 percent, but cut operating expenses by 5 percent, including a reduction in staff through attrition and an early retirement offer.

But if the state budget includes the millions of dollars of cost shifts that have been floated amid Republican budget proposals, commissioners warned that next year property taxes could go up or more services could be cut -- or both.

"For counties, with so many of these programs, whether it's in health and human services or any of the other areas we deal with, those dollars can add up to much, much more than the county program aid dollars they are talking about," Commissioner Kathleen Gaylord said. "These are very serious and substantial cuts that will cut service or have an effect on taxpayers."

Among the proposals that concern Dakota County officials are a push to make counties pick up a larger share of the tab for sex offender treatment. The county currently pays about $500,000 a year, but could face a bill three times that large going forward.

The effects of other criminal justice proposals, such as increasing county payment for public defenders, have county analysts scrambling to figure out how much they would cost.

Implementing a voter identification law, should it pass, would cost Dakota County about $50,000. Nearly $1 million in emergency assistance grants that help residents in need and block grants that pay for community facilities and programs also are on the line.

"It's a significant change in philosophy this year," County Administrator Brandt Richardson said. "Should property tax stand in for statewide programs and public defense and chemical dependency treatment and on and on and on?"

Katie Humphrey • 952-882-9056