WINTHROP — Winthrop is among a group of similar-size cities that are in a particular pinch when it comes to looming cuts in state aid to cities.

The Sibley County town of 1,315 people is just big enough that it wasn’t protected from cuts in Local Government Aid — a fate towns under 1,000 escaped. Yet Winthrop is small enough that it

doesn’t have the flexibility of large cities with multi-million-dollar budgets and a massive property tax base.

“We’ve increased our taxes and cut our future,” Mayor Dave Trebelhorn said of the response to previous LGA cuts.

With a general fund budget of about $1 million, Winthrop saw close to $90,000 in aid cuts between legislative reductions and cutbacks authorized by Gov. Tim Pawlenty using special unallotment powers last year, said Winthrop City Clerk-Treasurer Jenny Hazelton. The city is facing another reduction in state aid of $81,000 under Pawlenty’s proposal to fix a $1 billion shortfall in the current state budget.

City property taxes were raised 5 percent for this year. Plans to replace certain pieces of equipment were set aside. In recent years, staff has been reduced by one police officer, one parks worker and one economic development director.

Pawlenty has defended the LGA cuts both as a necessary reduction in the face of large state budget shortfalls and as an opportunity for cities to eliminate unnecessary frills. He and others who support the aid reductions have pointed to expenditures on frills and salary increases in some larger cities.

Winthrop City Administrator Mark Erickson is clearly tired of the suggestion that the place to find waste is in city governments.

“We’re very accountable to the people,” Erickson said. “We’re very efficient down here. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

Erickson said LGA makes up 2.9 percent of the state budget but has borne 17 percent of the cuts made to address red ink at the state level. He sees many more opportunities for reduction in spending by state agencies than he sees in small towns.

“I don’t feel the state’s done their fair share yet,” he said. “I really don’t believe they have.”

 And he thinks it’s disingenuous for Pawlenty to take credit for holding the line on tax increases and then cutting LGA in a way that forces property taxes higher.

Small cities will have little choice but to raise taxes even higher if LGA continues to shrink — or is  eliminated completely — in coming years. For Winthrop, nearly half of its budget is paid for through state aid, meaning taxes would have to double to maintain service levels if LGA ceases to exist.

That sort of a tax increase is impossible, Erickson said.

“We’re talking a new city council, a new city administrator,” he said. “You’d be running people out of town on a rail.”

At the same time, the city couldn’t cut its budget in half, Trebelhorn said.

“Then you don’t have a city left,” the mayor said. “The quality of life in Winthrop would just disappear.”

If state aid shrinks substantially or ceases to exist in coming years, Trebelhorn has one remaining brainstorm to save Winthrop.

“We’ll have to start buying lottery tickets with city money,” Trebelhorn said.

“Winning lottery tickets,” Erickson quickly clarified.