UNFUNDED MANDATES SOICK THE CITY BUDGET, BUT RELIEF IS COMING

When Congress talks about unfunded mandates, the interest of most taxpayers is modest, at best. But when the city of Cape Girardeau calculates that unfunded mandates will cost more than $16.5 million this year, the message hits home.

Congress, pushed by the Contract With America that was successfully executed by House Republicans, has passed some relief from unfunded mandates. But programs already in place will continue to impose spending requirements on states, counties and cities for some time to come.

For example, of the $16.5 million Cape Girardeau is spending on unfunded mandates, most of it is to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act. Some $12.5 million will be spent on sewer construction this year to meet that mandate.

In the future, Congress will be required to make a cost analysis of legislation that requires states, counties and cities to comply with federal policies and rules. The aim will be to see if the cost is outweighed by the benefit of the requirement.

One sad example of how mandates can go awry is the city's incinerator at the wastewater treatment plant. The incinerator cost the city $1 million and was intended to burn the sludge left over from sewage treatment. The incinerator "just doesn't work," says City Manger J. Ronald Fischer. Instead the sludge, which is full of nutrients, is given to farmers to put on fields.

The money spent on unfunded mandates amounts to approximately 35 percent of the city's total budget. To city residents, that represents a significant part of the fees they pay every year for such services as trash collection and sewers. The unfunded mandates have contributed significantly to the doubling of total city expenditures to nearly $47 million in the past four years.

Another thrust that could, in the long run, have some impact on federally mandated programs is a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act. This act, passed in response to the skyrocketing of juvenile crime in America, made it a federal crime to carry a firearm with 1,000 feet of a school.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, said the act violated the so-called commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. For most of the nation's history up to 1937, that clause was narrowly interpreted to limit congressional power to impose federal requirements on states. But Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal era changed that, and the Supreme Court began allowing more and more federal involvement in state programs by claiming these local activities in some way affected interstate commerce. This concept grew like Topsy and provided the basis for civil rights laws, for example.

Now legal experts are looking at the gun-free school zone decision and wondering how far the pendulum might swing back as states' rights issues become the focus of attention.

In the end, Congress' ability to impose its will on states, counties and cities, especially without providing the money to pay for them, could be called into question more and more by similar Supreme Court rulings.

But, as City Manager Fischer, observes, someone will have to pay the bills for future spending needs. The difference, however, would be the ability for cities to choose what needs are highest on the priority list without having those priorities set in Washington.