Minnesotans Are Anticipating Increased Property Tax Bills; Comes As A Surprise To Some

The Duluth News Tribune is reporting:

A state Revenue Department report earlier this month indicated that property tax levies statewide could rise nearly 2 percent statewide. Cities expect to raise tax levies by 2.1 percent; counties, 1.5 percent; townships, 2.1 percent; schools, 2.6 percent and other taxing districts, 2.3 percent.

Gov. Mark Dayton and others are concerned that the preliminary numbers show 63 percent of cities and 77 percent of counties plan higher property-tax levies.

Democrats did not think that would happen.

They thought that millions of dollars in additional state aid they sent to local governments would result in property tax cuts.

“There will be a number of legislators who seize on any increase as evidence that local governments are (big) spenders and they will take every dollar and spend it and get more and more and they will take every dollar they can get,” Dayton said. “So they are going to undermine the case we have been making.”

With Dayton, a Democrat, saying that increases will “seriously undermine our case,” Revenue Commissioner Myron Frans plans to talk to local government leaders who propose raising tax levies in the hope that they will trim their tax levies.

The latest Revenue Department numbers come from preliminary property-tax levy decisions local officials have made. Each governing body needs to make a levy final decision by mid-December. State law does not permit preliminary levies to go up, only stay the same or shrink.

Statewide, preliminary levies always are higher than the final ones. They usually fall a percentage point or less, which if it happens this year means tax levies would rise.

Earlier it was reported that Fargo and Grand Forks join Midland and Odessa among the five fastest growing metro areas in the United States. Midland and Odessa are in the middle of the resurgent Permian oil basin. Fargo and Grand Fargo are about 300 miles from the Bakken, nowhere near the oil patch compared to Midland and Odessa. Grand Forks and Fargo may be participating in the Bakken but only indirectly. Both Grand Forks and Fargo are located on the other side of the Red River from Minnesota.