The Polk County Commissioners voted to set the preliminary tax levy for 2021 at 4.938 percent at their meeting on Tuesday. The preliminary levy represents $3.8 million in cuts from the proposed budgets the commissioners received last week.
Polk County Administrator Chuck Whiting said the goal is to reduce the levy further before budgets are final in December. “The preliminary levy is the upper limit of what the final levy will be, which we’ll determine by December as we finish off the budget,” said Whiting. “It will be put on the Truth-in-Taxation notices that go out to all property taxpayers in the county. You will also see on that notice the time and place for the budget hearing. That will be on Tuesday, December 15, at 6 p.m. at the Transfer Station in Crookston on Ingersoll Dr. The final objective for the levy is to maintain what we’ve been doing in the past, which is about a 3 percent increase.”
Last year the Polk County Commissioners set a preliminary levy at 5.5 percent with a final levy at 3.269 percent. Whiting said the desire is to have less than a $1 million increase in property tax collections. “The preliminary levy as its set right now gets the county about another $1.2 million in property taxes, but we want to get that number down well under $1 million,” said Whiting. “I think we can do that. I’ve got a ways to go on the budget still, but we’re about where we usually are on getting it together.”
Cuts will be made to the levy through various methods, including the possible use of fund balances for some capital projects. Whiting explained where how the county approaches cutting the budget. “A lot of that is capital,” said Whiting. “There may be some operating things we have to look at different, some things that may have to be delayed, and some things we just have to say no to. We also tend to use fund balance to keep the levy down. That’s a practice we’ve had that generally works pretty well. We’re still fiscally very healthy, so I think we can do that. I don’t really like to rely on it out of what we normally do. The board likes to use it for one-time expenditures, capital-type projects. But with the virus right now, nothing is normal, so this is going to be a low-key conservative approach to the budget.”
CARES ACT
The County Commissioners also approved a resolution authorizing the distribution of CARES Act funds to various entities within the county. The resolution specified the amount to be distributed to each organization (below).
Whiting said some of those distribution agreements are already being processed while the three largest cities are working to facilitate grants for businesses outside their communities on behalf of the county. “We have a couple of different categories for the use of the CARES money the state gave us,” said Whiting. “We’re processing agreements with several organizations that the county works with that assist our populations. And, I’ve had some very productive meetings with the three cities – Crookston, East Grand Forks, and Fosston – about using their staff to do business grants (for businesses outside those three cities). I’m hoping to have something out on our webpage before the end of this week.”
Whiting said additional information on those grants would be made available in the coming days. “If you are a business owner in need right now, watch that space,” said Whiting. “You’re going to be hearing about this and have a couple of weeks to get applications to those three entities. You don’t have to be in those three cities. You can be out in the rural area, but we’re going to have those three cities facilitate the process because they do economic development. We don’t typically do that at the county level. They’ll be some news in the next couple of days.”
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