By Shannon Fiecke

Correspondent

 

Although Mike Beard and Doug Zila are concerned about many of the same topics, the men often reach different conclusions.

Beard, a two-term Republican incumbent from Shakopee, is being challenged by Zila, a first-time DFL candidate from Prior Lake, for the House District 35A seat.Beard

Beard is running on a platform of limited government and preventing another budget deficit. He believes invoking government is rarely the best way to handle an issue and that “maximum liberty” rests with the people, not the government.

“I’m afraid we’ve drifted from that,” he said.

 Zila’s campaign is focused on increasing transportation funding, lowering college tuition and ensuring children are ready for kindergarten.

“We all do better when we all do better” is his mantra.

State budget

Beard said surpluses and deficits are cyclical in Minnesota, and the Zilagrowth of government must be restrained to prevent a deficit in 2010.

For these reasons, he believes surplus dollars should be spent on one-time expenditures, not programs with “tails.” He would direct additional funds to building roads and bridges and cleaning up the state’s polluted waterways.

Meanwhile, Zila said he couldn’t speculate where the surplus should go until he was elected and studied the proposals.

Zila said the state government didn’t honestly handle the recent budget deficit, and although the governor pledged to not raise taxes, the state raised fees and also cut aid to local governments, which caused property taxes to rise.

He said the state government shirked its responsibility onto municipalities.

When asked how he would have solved the deficit, Zila said he doesn’t know.

Beard said the state made the best of a bad situation in how it solved the deficit and the governor was right to not raise general taxes.

“There was no way we were going to tax our way out of it,” he said.

Local government aid cuts represented just a small portion of property-tax increases, Beard added.

Transportation

Both Beard, a former religious newspaper publisher who now operates a small aircraft renovation company, and Zila, a business representative for unionized heavy equipment operators and mechanics and serves the board of the Minnesota Transportation Alliance, believe the state should invest more in roads.

Traffic congestion is costing businesses and commuters, Zila said, and it is bad for the environment.

While he’d like to find existing money to fund road improvements, Zila said he’s open to all funding options. He said he’d rather the state save money down the road by funding projects now, when they’re cheaper.

Although he supports a small amount of bonding for roads, Zila said he prefers a pay-as-you go approach so the state doesn’t have to pay interest.

Beard said the state has recently done some major projects with bonding money, which he said made sense when comparing escalating construction and right-of-way costs to interest, but now it is time to look at increasing the gas tax.

“We’ve kind of played with everything we can to jump start things,” he said.

Beard said he’d support a 2-cent-per-year gas-tax increase over three years, and he also favors dedicating the motor vehicle sales tax fully to transportation projects.

 Education

Zila applies the same investment philosophy to education, which he believes is essential to providing a good workforce.

He opposes unfunded mandates and believes the property-tax component of K-12 education funding is unfair because it creates inequities and inadequate funding levels.

“Lots of school districts have had to cut important programs,” he said.

Zila said the state must address skyrocketing tuition rates that saddle graduates with excessive debt and will push students out of the state.

“We need to sit down with parents and the administrators and the business community and the legislators at the state Capitol and figure out a way to bring these down,” he said.

Beard said the state has done a reasonable job of funding K-12 education, but before putting additional dollars into the system, it should consider better and more innovative ways of providing education.

He feels the state has been generous with higher-education institutions, and that while college education is a privilege, it’s not a right.

Beard is cautious about funding state colleges and universities because of the lack of control on how that money is spent, especially in the University of Minnesota system.

In regard to a campaign to better prepare children for kindergarten, Beard said he’s leery of a push to start educating children at age 3.

“Be very careful when you step in and ask the government to ensure anything for your kids,” he said at a recent forum on early childhood education.

While research shows early childhood education for at-risk kids pays off, Beard said research also shows the home is the best place for small children to develop.

Beard wants whatever funding the state directs for a new initiative to follow kids to the childcare venue their parents choose.

Zila wants to see greater efforts made in early childhood education. He said he doesn’t know what should be done in this area, but he knows it’s important because of how loudly the business community is speaking out.

Every one dollar spent on early childcare education will have a $7 return, he said.

“We have to invest in these kids so they’re 100-percent ready to start kindergarten,” he said. “We have to find a way to make sure every parent has the opportunity to get their kids into a program.”

 

Shannon Fiecke can be reached at (952) 345-6679 or sfiecke@swpub.com.