At their Committee of the Whole meeting on March 11th the Board heard from a consultant to the “Property Tax Study Group” which is made up of counties, cities and school districts in the Minneapolis/St Paul and Duluth area. The presentation clearly articulated how the State of MN has increasingly taken a greater share of taxes with counties and other local governments getting a lesser share. At the same time, they are mandated to increasingly provide more and more services to residents.
The Board struggled with how to get this information out to taxpayers/residents in a way that they could understand. They were frustrated that the press did not stick around for this meeting where the presentation occurred. (note to the Board: this presentation was on the agenda for 11am so if you had figured out how to actually have it at that time maybe the press would have reported on it!)
Commissioner Fink suggested that this presentation be timed to coincide with when people pay their property taxes in the hopes that folks will pay attention then. He indicated, “When the public is interested we ought to tell them what they need to know”.
Commissioner Kron suggested they send out a newsletter with the headline, “State raises your property taxes”.
The Auditor indicated that property tax statements are going out right now so if they wanted to draw attention to this issue now might be the time.
Commissioners asked appropriate questions and participated in a respectful discussion about this issue.
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