Four years ago, few people took Rep. Judith Foss, R-Yarmouth, seriously when she submitted legislation requiring the state to fund new programs that it mandated for Maine counties and communities.

This year, functioning under the lean and steely gaze of nearly 500 municipal and county jurisdictions that have been bloodied by proposals to meet the $210 million shortfall in state tax revenue, lawmakers are giving the 1990 edition of the Foss bill careful scrutiny.

L.D. 2453, submitted with the support of Gov. John McKernan, is unambiguously titled, “An Act to Require the State to Provide Full Funding for all Mandates Having an Impact on the Expense of County and Municipal Government.”

If the bill passes, as is, it would apply to new mandates requiring additional funding enacted under laws passed after July 1. Rep. Foss is not satisfied even with this. She wants to amend her own bill to include laws passed during the current legislative session.

Although the acid debate on state finances and the growing tension between state and local lawmakers is likely to inhibit the passage of new mandates, Foss points out that there are bills under consideration that might have a significant impact on local treasuries. One of them would create a state insurance fund to help indemnify private owners of rusted or corroded fuel tanks that could cause damage from spills and leakage. The venture would be financed with a 1-cent tax on fuel oil, gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products.

How much, Foss asks, would this cost Maine towns and cities? Right now, nobody knows, because no one in Augusta really cares. Even though municipal agencies ordinarily are exempt from taxes, the method of taxation in this case might not be without cost to some cities and towns which purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of heating oil, gasoline and diesel fuel each year.

Rep. Foss’ bill is sound in principle. It demands two things:

That the Legislature consider the financial implications of its actions for municipal and county government

If there is a cost in a new law to these jurisdictions, the state must pick up the tab.

The Legislature historically has had the best of all worlds. It could conceive of programs that it believed were well-intentioned and desirable, pass legislation making these ideas law and then return to its Augusta think tank while the locals paid the piper. No more.

The events of this winter have awakened even the most isolated backwoods community to the expensive phenomenon of state mandates. Not only are towns and cities trying to find the money to pay for old state requirements, but Augusta has dumped on municipalities a $70-million burden to ease the Legislature out of its own budget problems.

Rep. Foss was not wrong four years ago, just ahead of her time. In 1990, no one should be laughing.