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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

County levy to rise 2.9 percent

Keith Vandervort
Posted 12/17/14

ELY –St. Louis County Commissioner Keith Nelson’s wish for a first-ever unanimous approval vote on the county budget came close, but no cigar.

The board voted 6-1 Tuesday at their meeting in …

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County levy to rise 2.9 percent

Posted

ELY –St. Louis County Commissioner Keith Nelson’s wish for a first-ever unanimous approval vote on the county budget came close, but no cigar.

The board voted 6-1 Tuesday at their meeting in Morse Township to accept the proposed budget of $338,112,831, with a 2.9 increase in the property tax levy.

Third District Commissioner Chris Dahlberg, who represents western Duluth, voted against the measure.

Dahlberg thanked Nelson for the work he did on the budget as chairman of the budget and finance committee.

“Where I am troubled is with the situation with (the reallocation of) the taconite money,” Dahlberg said. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done with this.”

The county took a major blow from the Minnesota Legislature last March when it decided to reallocate how the state’s per-ton tax on taconite is issued, giving more money to the Iron Range Resources and Rehabili-tation Board.

The IRRRB will use the additional funds for Iron Range school construction projects.

Much of the $1.7 million in lost taconite aid had been earmarked for county roadwork. Earlier this month, county commissioners voted to establish a half-percent sales tax to help fund transportation needs.

“This was money in lieu of (the county’s portion) property taxes,” said Dahlberg. “This pains me. There are so many positives in this budget process, but that’s the one sticking point.”

Spending is increasing $18,562,494 from last year, largely to fund renovations to the Government Services Center and upgrades to the Northeast Regional Corrections Center.

In presenting a summary of the budget proposal, County Administrator Kevin Gray noted that there were many large levy increases from 2006 to 2009, ranging from 4.27 to 8.42 percent.

“Over the last five-plus years, the levy increases have been significantly less,” Gray said. “We’ve had a rolling average over the past 10 years of 3.2 percent. We’ve had some unusual challenges this year and we’re hopeful we can drive that percentage down again in the coming years.”

For every tax dollar collected in St. Louis County, 15 cents goes to general government, including administration, planning and development, Veterans Office assessing and purchasing; 32 cents goes to public safety including law enforcement corrections, security, prosecution, and jail and 911 operations; 18 cents goes to public works such as road and bridge construction and maintenance; 28 cents goes to health and human services; and seven cents goes to debt service.

In making the motion to approve the budget, Commissioner Nelson criticized the Duluth media’s coverage of the county’s proposed budget increase of 2.9 percent. He noted that the same media had reported that the city of Duluth supposedly “held the line” with a 3.3 percent bump in its levy. “There’s a double standard in some of these comparisons,” he said.

In highlighting the public safety portion of the budget, he said, “Our county board started making investments in courthouse safety before it was popular. It was twelve years ago when we started. We have come so far, in comparison to our neighboring counties.”

“We are very, very close to putting all of our employees in publicly-owned buildings,” Nelson said. “It is absolutely imperative that we provide a working environment where all of our employees feel safe and secure within that environment.”

He said the seven cents of every dollar spent on debt service is coming to a peak in the next couple of years. “We’re at the high end and as we fall off of that, taxpayers are going to start to see savings because we are no longer paying rent,” he said.

“As I look at this budget and what we are trying to accomplish here, I can tell people that these are decisions that are going to make a government and environment that they can be proud of. I certainly hope, for the first time ever, that we can have a unanimous decision.”

In supporting the budget motion, First District Commissioner Frank Jewell said he remains worried about the impact of rising property taxes on residents.

“I will say that there is really some concern about the increases in property taxes by our citizens and that includes increases in the school districts and towns and we have to keep this in mind as we move forward,” he said. “The taconite money did leave a hole in our budget. I’m looking forward to continuing the good government we have but we do need to keep in mind how much some taxpayers in particular are really hit by these increases.”