by Dennis Dalman
The St. Joseph City Council has set a Truth-in-Taxation hearing for Dec. 2 to take input from residents before voting to finalize a proposed 2025 city budget of about $15 million.
The hearing will take place during the 6 p.m. council meeting on Monday, Dec. 2. The final 2025 budget, levy and fee schedule must be approved by Dec. 28, as mandated by state law.
A preliminary 2025 budget and tax levy was approved by the council at its Sept. 16 meeting. Next year, property taxes may increase by an overall 1.5 percent tax-rate hike compared to this year. Some homeowners can expect a slight decrease in taxes due to a change in the homestead market-value exclusion law change passed by the State of Minnesota.
Annexed commercial/industrial properties will pay 6.59 percent higher (up to the city’s urban tax rate), according to a previous agreement.
The following are some of the key aspects of the preliminary budget and tax levy for 2025. The city expects $5.4 million in revenue next year, an increase of 4.6 percent from this year. And budgeted expenditures are projected to increase 7.3 percent to $5.54 million (an increase of $375,430 over this year.)
The total preliminary tax-levy amount is $4,658,289. That total includes money for the city’s general obligations and money to make payments on bonded indebtedness.
For next year, the city decided to put a bit more of local government state-aid funds into the Debt Relief Fund so money will be available for unpredictable smaller projects that might be needed in 2025. Because of that, a bit more property taxes will be needed to support the General Fund.
The “General Fund” is the chief operating fund for St. Joseph. The fund provides for the needs of general government such as police services, building inspections, emergency management, public works, and parks and recreation. The General Fund is supported mainly by tax levies and local government state aid. Other sources of revenue include franchise fees, licenses and permits, charges for services, fines and forfeitures, utility charges, investment revenues, utility charges and special assessments.
Personnel and capital costs are the biggest increases to the General Fund expenses. Employee wages and benefits will increase by 3 percent plus step increases, depending on performance reviews. Personnel costs comprise about 69 percent of budgeted expenditures, and 12 percent of those are due to city contracts for services such as information technology, legal advice, engineering and building inspections. St. Joseph is not large enough to support full-time departments for those types of services, so they must be realized through contracts.
The all-important General Fund is made up mostly of property taxes as well as local government state-aid money.
In the General Fund preliminary budget for 2025, the following are the four largest expenses by percentage: Personnel (68.8 percent), Contracted Services (11.5 percent), Capital Expenditures (9.8 percent) and Supplies and Equipment (3.4 percent). The other categories are Repair and Maintenance (2.6 percent), Utilities (1.9 percent), Other Expenses (1.7 percent) and Other Financing (0.2 percent).
The City of St. Joseph has a large sector of non-taxed properties in the city limits. The St. Joseph Monastery and the College of St. Benedict make up a large portion of the tax-exempt properties (along with government properties and churches). Those tax-exempt properties do bring visitors and spending to the city that help support the area while not being burdened by property taxes. The city provides services for all citizens and property owners regardless of tax status.
For a highly detailed summary of the proposed budget, levy and fee schedule, go to the following website: https://city-saint-joseph-mn-budget-book.cleargov.com/18352.
