The Polk County Commissioners held a Budget Presentation this eveing for the county’s levy for 2023 and to hear from the public on it with a Public Hearing.
After opening the Public Hearing, County Administrator Chuck Whiting presented a review of the budget for 2023, where he reported they had budgeted expenditures of $69,881,941 with a Net Levy of CPA of $26,897,712. They also had reserves applied against the levy at $2,987,670 with $1,382.824 from the County Program Aid, which was $11,579 down from 2022, and they had used $2,511,114 of their American Rescue Plan Act funds.
This gave them a total levy increase over 2022’s by $1,022,712 or 3.95251% for a total of $26,780,625, with a non-debt levy increase over 2022 by $899,205 or 3.751%. Some of the notable budget items included in the $2,511,114 they used their ARPA funds for included the Highway Department (which used $1,800,000) for county road project contracts and Social Services (which used $418,317) for various programs’ assistance for mental health, childcare, and development of Resource Center being budgeted as an expense and revenue for their departments. Other departments that received the American Rescue Plan Act funds include the Sheriff’s Department for a new mobile dispatch station unit for $192,797, the Public Health Department for COIVD response measures and associated payroll costs for $90,000, and the Finance Department for the Federal Single Audit costs associated with the audit of ARPA expenditures for $10,000.
Whiting then went into some of the notable budget items that were major factors in preparing the budget. He noted they had set a preliminary levy in September with a 5.5% increase, with a final levy proposed at a 3.95251% increase over 2022. They had nearly $3 million of various fund balances to address capital expenses, offset debt, service payments, and use available funds. In addition, they had $2.7 million of CIP bonds funds remaining to be budgeted for Justice Center projects in 2023. They also found the tax rate would decrease much in part due to Enbridge Line 93 valuation coming online and generating approximately $600,000 in new property taxes from Enbridge. Whiting noted there were some unanticipated factors for 2023 that caused the levy to rise as much as it did. “We always try to keep it in that 3 to 3.5%, we’re a little higher than that at 3.9%, but probably the biggest difference in this one is the amount of fund balance we’re using to keep the levy down. We also had a couple of things we didn’t have control over. The way costs broke out, jail costs and wages, we had to make some big adjustments for that like a lot of places.” Some of the wage adjustments for 2023 included 2% COLAs for the first half of the year and another 1.25% for the second and are included in the market wage study results.
Whiting then broke down the expenditures for the budget, with Social Services using the most with $19,181,713 (27% of the total expenditures), the Roads & Bridges costing $17,812,891 (26% of the total expenditures), and General Fund Department had used $13,897,161 (20% of the total expenditures). The Tri-County Corrections Center cost $5,916,136 (9% of the total expenditures), and the Polk County Public Safety Department cost $6,315,291 (9%). Polk County Public Health cost $3,721,808 (5%), Polk County Planning & Zoning cost $721,544 (1%), and the library cost $290,870. They also had $2,024,527 they paid in debt. He then did a quick breakdown of the budget revenues, with the Property Tax Levy bringing in $26,897,712 (38% of the total revenues), with Road & Bridge work bringing in $14,793,011 (21% of the total revenues). The Polk County Social Services Department brought in $12,654,756 (18%), and the General Fund Department brought in $7,677,790 (11%). Public Safety brought in $750,369 (1%), the Tri-County Corrections Center brought in $1,139,598 (2%), Public Health brought in $2,602,785 (4%), Planning and Zoning brought in $378,250 (1%), and they saved $2,987,670 with the use of their reserves.
Whiting then showed a comparison of the Region Tax Rates History between Polk County and many other local counties like Red Lake, Beltrami, and Marshall County. He revealed that Polk County’s region had decreased from 46.453 in 2022 to 43.952, which was the third highest of the list (second to Mahnomen and Pennington) but near one of the lowest the county had seen in the last ten years. “Our evaluation growth actually went up a greater degree than what the levy is going up as a percent. So, the county’s tax rate is going down,” Whiting explained. “If you’re writing a check for your property taxes, that’s not a lot of solace, but what it really means from our perspective is that our growth is staying within the growth of the county.”
He then showed a comparison of the tax levy increases from 2008 to 2023, where he showed the Gross Levy for 2023 was $28,280,536 but had a net levy of $26,897,712 after they received $1,382,824 from the County Program Aid. He reported that for this year, the Gross Levy had increased to $1,011,133 and the net levy to $1,022,712. This gave them a Total annual increase for their gross levy at $9,089,601 for an average increase of $605,973 and $8,193,742 in the net levy for an average increase of $585,267.
The Polk County Commissioners will next meet on Tuesday, January 20, at 9:30 a.m. to make an official motion on the tax levy.
The presentation of the 2023 County Tax Levy can be seen below-
[embeddoc url=”https://kroxam.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Polk-County-Proposed-Budget.pdf”]
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