FEDERAL, STATE MANDATES CARRY STIFF PRICE TAG

Unfunded mandates will cost Cape Girardeau more than $16.5 million this year. Most of that cost is tied to sewer improvements required by the federal Clean Water Act.

That figure amounts to about 35 percent of the city's $46 million budget. The budget for fiscal 1996, which begins July 1, hasn't been finalized.

An unfunded mandate is a state or federal government program imposed on the city without an appropriation of funding to pay for the program.

Assistant City Manager Doug Leslie said the city will spend more than $1 million in operational costs this calendar year and more than $15.5 million on one-time capital projects because of state and federal mandates.

The 1995 calendar year encompasses the last half of fiscal 1995 and the first half of fiscal 1996.

The bulk of the capital costs, $12.5 million, will be spent on construction of separate sanitary and storm sewers.

Clean Water Act requirements to separate storm and sanitary sewers already apply to larger cities. Cities the size of Cape Girardeau will be expected to comply with the requirements within the next two years, Leslie said.

The city annually spends more than $500,000 on recycling and other solid waste expenses, including costs associated with the closing of the municipal landfill.

Mandated sewer treatment regulations cost the city more than $100,000 annually.

Cape Girardeau will spend more than $300,000 over the next year to comply with a host of other federal laws and regulations. They include the Family Medical Leave Act, Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs working hours and overtime pay.

The costs don't include the numerous regulatory reports that must be filed and the staff time it takes to do the paperwork.

Once imposed, mandates seem to hang around forever, often in ever-more-restrictive forms, Leslie said.

Many of the mandates are contained in federal laws passed down through the states. Many of the federal laws date back to the 1970s.

Politicians have railed against unfunded mandates, generally federal regulations and programs whose cost ends up being borne by the states and cities.

Cutting back on unfunded mandates was a key part of the GOP's Contract with America.

But while unfunded mandates are costly, city officials aren't in the mood to blast Washington or Jefferson City.

"It is popular for us to say that people are mandating costs on us and everything is bad," City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said. "I don't buy it entirely because somebody is going to have to pay the bill."

Fischer said he isn't opposed to clean air, clean water and other environmental regulations.

But what is needed, he said, is common sense in how regulations are applied.

"You have to be sensible in what you require of people," Fischer said.

Years ago, the city spent $1 million for an incinerator at the wastewater plant that isn't used. "It is there and it just doesn't work."

The Republican-dominated Congress has passed legislation U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson said seeks to restore common sense to government regulations.

Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, presided over the House debate on the measure.

Under the new law, Congress must do a cost analysis on future legislation to determine if the benefit outweighs the cost.

If funding isn't provided in the bill, then lawmakers must have "a straight up or down vote" on whether to impose an unfunded mandate, Emerson said.

"This would clearly be an example of where we are trying to withdraw the heavy hand of the federal government and inject a higher level of common sense, and understanding better what the benefits are compared to the cost."

Many mandates are environmental ones, with the costs passed on to the public in the form of sewer, trash and water fees.

Fischer said the city has embraced recycling and other mandates rather than ignore or fight them.

He said cities can't win a tug of war with the state or federal governments, adding:

"Why fight the state and federal government? Why not try to find the most efficient way to do it?"