The Crookston City Council met on Monday night approving the final tax levy for 2021, the 2021 budget, and the five-year capital improvement plan. The final levy was set at four percent.
The total budget for the city of Crookston is $11,597,370, with $4,931,465 paid from revenues. For the past several years, the City of Crookston has used reserves to balance the budget but will not do so in 2021. Crookston received a 2.36 percent increase in Local Government Aid (LGA) funding to $3,943,905 from the State of Minnesota. The tax levy will balance the remainder of the budget, said City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner. “The City of Crookston is going to be levying $2,322,000, which is a four percent change in the 2020 levy that was approved,” said Weasner. “LGA did increase by $90,747. This brings our current LGA certified amount for 2021 to $3,943,905. That is split between the general fund and our street project fund.”
The tax levy provides revenue to the Parks and Recreation Fund, General Fund, Library Fund, and Airport Fund. The majority of tax dollars collected by the city go towards the Park and Recreation Fund. “Park and Recreation is the largest fund,” said Weasner. “They receive $1,431,188 of our levy. The General Fund receives $507,028. The Airport receives $101,879, and the Library receives $281,905. The Park and Rec (portion) of the levy is 62 percent, the General Fund is 22 percent, the Library is 12 percent, and the airport is 4 percent.”
LGA funds are split into the General Fund and the Street Improvement Fund. In 2021, the vast majority of those funds will go to the general fund as the federal government is set to issue turnbacks, which are federal taxes collected and turned back over to state and local government for projects such as street improvements, explained Weasner. “It is split with $3,805,180 applied to the general fund, and $138,725 being applied to the improvement fund,” said Weasner. “Normally, it’s a little bit larger in the improvement fund, but next year is our year for federal turnback dollars, so we reduced it this year.”
The total market value for all the properties in Crookston is $359,577,700. Weasner said that if a home was valued at $150,000 for 2020 and again for 2021, the city’s portion of property taxes decreased. “That is a possibility,” said Weasner. “The city’s portion (of property taxes) based on the value, if the same as last year, if you had a $150,000 house it would be about a $20 decrease. If the value of your house increased, that may equate to an increase in your taxes.”
But many properties in Crookston saw an increase in property value from last year this fall. If the property tax were split evenly among the estimated 3,246 households in Crookston, the tax rate would increase from $57.37 per month in 2020 to $60.19 per month in 2021.
CROOKSTON VISITOR’S BUREAU
On the consent agenda, the City Council approved an agreement between the City of Crookston and the Crookston Visitor’s Bureau (CVB). Also, on the consent agenda under the bills and disbursements was a check for the lodging tax from May to October 2020.
CVB Chair Nell DeBoer said they were very excited to have the agreement in place and start marketing Crookston. “We got the agreement ended with the Chamber, we got the new money,” said DeBoer. “We call it old money and new money. The old money is going to be tied up with the reconciliation. But the new money is here, and we’ve got $23,766.15. We will spend that wisely. We are in the middle of doing the visitor’s guides right now, and we’ll work on a website next, so this will help us a lot. We also got the crisis grant from Explore Tourism Minnesota, so we’re super excited about that too. We’ll take good care of this, make sure it goes to the Crookston businesses and marketing the heck out of Crookston.”
Official appointments to the CVB including Cory Dallager, Laurie Stahlecker, Dean Adams, Brent Melsa, Brooke Panzer, Nell DeBoer, Greg Garmen, Jess Bengston, Kristi Swanson, Nathan Lubarski, and Bob Magsam.
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