The candidates for House District 27A showcased differences in support for taxes, spending and priorities Tuesday in a debate at Riverland Community College.

Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, and incumbent District 27A Rep. Shannon Savick, DFL-Wells, faced off in a public forum hosted by the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce.

At least 50 people attended.

Opponent Tom Price, IP-Alden was invited but did not attend.

Bennett, 56, said she never thought she’d run for politics and has worked as an elementary school teacher for 33 years. She said she was asked to run for office last spring by a member of her Republican Party.

“I believe that people come first,” she said. “People come before politics.”

She called for prioritizing state spending and focusing on things such as long-term care, education, roads and bridges.

Savick, 74, was originally elected to the House of Representatives two years ago.

She has also previously served as the Wells mayor and on the Wells City Council.

She said she saw how cuts in local government aid can impact a community.

“I feel that we needed a strong voice in the Legislature who understood the needs of the small communities,” Savick said.

She highlighted some of the successes in her last term, including getting funding to dredge Fountain Lake, to install a fish barrier on the Albert Lea Lake dam and to extend the Blazing Star Trail.

She said she has also received two awards, including one for her work with firefighters in the last session.

The following are some of the issues talked about during the forum:

Top priorities in the House

Savick said her top priority is helping small communities recruit volunteer firefighters and emergency responders. This last session, she authored a bill that will give emergency responders in Freeborn County an annual $500 stipend to help in the cause. Freeborn County is one of more than a dozen counties in the pilot program.

She said her second priority is long-term care.

Bennett said her first priority is helping the state better prioritize its spending and seeing state money be spent on needs and not wants.

Her second priority is to help bring up the economics of the area to bring in more employers, as well as increasing education and housing opportunities for more workers.

Long-term care

Savick said she supports a one-payer system to support long-term care and talked about how expensive it is after seeing her husband go through living in a nursing gnome.

“Medicare only pays for so much and not the whole expense for one day,” she said.

Bennett said when she hears about a one-payer system she thinks about taxes.

She said she doesn’t think the state needs to tax to provide better long-term care but instead it needs to prioritize state spending.

She noted nursing homes are having a difficult time retaining employees, and the state needs to look at long-term care as a priority, before putting money toward things that aren’t priorities such as a Senate office building or a snow-making machine for the snow capital of Minnesota.

Minimum wage

Savick said she supports future minimum wage increases and told a story of where she saw firsthand the impact an increased wage can have on an economy.

She said her mother owned a restaurant, and every time the minimum wage increased her mother would worry that she was going to go out of business. But what she found, Savick said, was that she actually took more money in. She said people with a lower income tend to spend more if they have it.

“I believe that people should have a living wage,” she said. “If you’re working 40 hours a week, you should be able to support your family.”

Bennett said she supports a higher minimum wage in the community, but she does not believe it should be artificially raised by the government. This would bring up in inflation and negatively impact the people it was supposed to help.

She said she thinks the wage instead should be raised by increasing the economy of the area, through jobs and other resources.

Education

Bennett said she thinks there are many unfunded mandates passed by the state on schools, and she doesn’t think the state should require many of the things it does unless there is a way to fund them.

Regarding higher education, Savick said she thinks there need to be more internship opportunities with local businesses to teach students skills. The state is also looking at helping students refinance their bills they owe for education.

Bennett also supported partnering with the schools and educating students on options available after high school. She said 40 percent of students who start college but don’t finish.

Savick highlighted the tuition freezes approved by the Legislature this session for higher education institutions.

Ethanol

Both Savick and Bennett said they supported ethanol because of the boost it provides to area farmers.

Bennett said she thinks the state needs to keep the present mandates it has for ethanol, but said she thinks it should be brought down to the pump where the people can decide how much they want to use it.

“Our farmers deserve that chance,” she said.

Savick noted that more cars are being manufactured to burn ethanol more efficiently.

Business growth

When asked what could be done to improve the workforce climate in the state, Savick talked about the need for additional work skills training and getting more people into the area to start a business.

Bennett said she thinks the state should review the Jobs Opportunity Building Zones program and find out what parts of that worked well.

“The bottom line is we need to be competitive with Iowa,” Bennett said. “We need to bring those jobs here.”

Transportation

Both candidates addressed the need to raise money to cover transportation needs.

Bennett said she does not think an increase in the fuel tax will be enough to cover the needs, and she asked about things such as light rail. She said she thinks the money toward those projects needs to be put into roads and bridges in Greater Minnesota.

Savick acknowledged that the fuel tax is not raising enough to cover road concerns.