Pawlenty has a propensity to squeeze city aid hard when state money gets tight, and to accuse the mayors of profligacy and political playacting when they protest. Which, of course, makes mayoral protests grow louder -- and more sophisticated. For proof of the latter, check out www.thankLGA.org.

Last week's flareup involved the reserve funds most cities maintain. You'd want a reserve fund, too, if you were paid twice a year, as cities are. State aid and property-tax checks both flow into city coffers just twice a year. City reserves, which seem always to get measured at their high-water mark, function as cash-flow accounts.

Wolden, 46, has been mayor of Wadena for 10 years, and has sturdy enough local support that he was reelected last fall with 72 percent of the vote. He's a personable 6-foot-6 college administrator and lifelong northern Minnesotan who is paid a paltry $5,600 a year as mayor and who claims no desire for higher office. He's not easily intimidated by a gubernatorial snipe. "Looks like we've gotten his attention," Wolden chuckled.

Hizzoner Wolden is this year's president of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, a group that might more accurately be named "Coalition of LGA Recipients." It's a vigorous force at the Capitol, so much so that the dues it charges its member cities have been criticized as excessive spending by politicians who've been on the uncomfortable receiving end of their lobbying blitzes.

The group's member cities evidently don't share the view that they are being overcharged. Not when the LGA that they've relied on for almost 40 years is under persistent Pawlenty attack. They see attacking LGA as akin to threatening their communities' quality of life.

"We are fighting for the basics," Wolden said. "Our residents demand services -- police, fire, parks and libraries. Small towns need to fund these things to keep their young taxpaying families. LGA is the best system we have now to ensure that services are provided statewide."

Wolden was alluding to one of the two purposes of LGA. It's the offspring of the heady late 1960s-early 1970s era, when policymakers took bold steps to narrow the government-service gaps that were emerging -- gaps between rich and poor, urban and rural, growing and stagnating. Their work is still called the Minnesota Miracle.

Using state tax dollars to give every Minnesotan affordable access to decent municipal services was one aim of LGA. It's why affluent communities are "off the formula" and receive none, while struggling cities like Wadena look to LGA to cover 55 percent of their operations.

The other LGA mission is property-tax relief. Cuts in LGA (see chart) are a prime culprit in the surge in property taxes around the state in this decade. City levies are up 65 percent since 2002, which is nearly twice the rate of inflation.

Those twin LGA missions are still valid -- even though they seldom get any gubernatorial lip service these days. But a $4.5 billion state deficit brings to the fore questions that are just as valid. Are there better, cheaper ways to make sure city services stay up to Minnesota standards? Are there more targeted ways to ease property tax burdens?

There are thoughtful people in both parties who would answer both of those questions in the affirmative. Ideas have been around for a long time for targeting property tax help to people who most need it, and for using state money as a carrot-and-stick incentive for streamlining city and county law enforcement and other services. It's nearly the midpoint of the 2009 legislative session. Those ideas ought to come to the fore any minute now.

Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.