The Crookston City Council voted to set the Preliminary Levy at 3% for 2020, while using $241,000 from reserves. A meeting to look closer at the budget and to decide if they want to cut items or keep items in the budget has been set for September 23.
The levy increase doesn’t mean that taxes will go up 3%. “It means last year we had a levy amount and it will be increased by three percent. It does not mean that everybody’s taxes go up by three percent,” said City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner. “The property tax system in the state of Minnesota is based on the value of your home and then the amounts that all entities accumulate through the tax levies.” How much a three percent levy increase will affect the residents of Crookston is tough to calculate until Polk County released the property value information to the City of Crookston. “When they give us our tax capacity it will give us a clear picture of how this will affect all taxpayers,” said Weasner.
The council was given several options for setting the levy from Weasner and the council elected to take the three percent increase while using $241,000 in reserves to keep the levy around three percent. While taking the money from reserves that will leave $2.8 million dollars and if they keep the Eickhof Boulevard extension in the budget, it will leave $2 million left in reserves. Crookston City Administrator Shannon Stassen mentioned that taking from reserves several years in a row can cause problems down the road and could lead to double-digit levy increases in the future. “We don’t want to keep taking out of reserves, we have been doing that for a few years and they felt it was a priority this year,” said Weasner. “We will still have reserves, it won’t deplete us completely. It is taking a significant amount because of another street project they approved this year.”
The councilmen starting the discussion of what to cut from the budget and at the beginning of the meeting, Councilman Dale Stainbrook asked what was wrong with a five percent levy increase and Councilman Jake Fee said it was higher than three which got a chuckle from several other council members.
Councilman Bobby Baird said the Fire Department’s request for a watercraft for the river could be cut. Councilman Clayton Briggs agreed, saying it wouldn’t be used very often.
The main topic of discussion for cuts was the Small Business Development Center (SBDC). Fee said they have already given the SBDC money for two years with the hope it would be self-sustainable after that. Now the SBDC is asking for $150,000 from the City (combined with the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority – CHEDA) over five years. Services will continue even if the City of Crookston doesn’t help them financially. When asked who Christine Anderson (of the SBDC) works for, Stassen said she is an employee of the University of Minnesota Crookston. Councilman Dale Stainbrook asked about the $15,000 stipend to CHEDA and Fee said we could take that out and that would pretty much put the nail in the funding for SBDC. Nothing was decided at the meeting and it will be discussed at the meeting on September 23.
Councilman Tom Vedbraaten asked about the cost of the pool going from $66,000 in 2019 to over $230,000 in 2020 and why that was a big jump when they were told the pool wouldn’t cost much. Weasner said they don’t have the money from the Crookston School District pool referendum in the budget because they have to wait for their audit and after that is complete they will send the money to the City.
Councilman Stainbrook asked if the Stephens Drive project was still in the budget and he was told it was along with the 5th Avenue South project.
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