2022-23 Budget Public Hearing Information
A public hearing on the proposed 2022-2023 county budget was held virtually and in person on Monday, Nov. 29.
View a recording of the hearing
Hearing summary
Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes § § 13D.021 and 13D.04, subd. 3, commissioners attended the meeting via Zoom. Due to guidelines and restrictions following the COVID-19 pandemic, public participation was available through virtual Zoom attendance and in person at Union Depot - Red Cap Room.
- A video introduction was shared virtually and in person including the Aug. 24 county manager budget presentation and information about understanding your property tax statement.
- 72 members of the community and 39 staff members attended the hearing virtually.
- 26 members of the community and seven staff members attended the hearing in person.
- Eight spoken public comments were made in person and six spoken public comments were made via Zoom.
- County Assessor staff were available by phone and in person during the hearing to address individual questions about property valuations. Fifteen members of the public spoke with an appraiser by phone and 13 in person.
- 11 written comments from the Zoom chat were entered to the public record. Zero additional written comments were submitted in person.
If you were unable to attend the public hearing you may still submit comments on the budget to the board of commissioners.
Commissioner remarks
Commissioner Toni Carter, Board Chair, offered opening remarks and instructions for participating in the meeting. Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo, Vice Budget Chair presented information about the proposed budget.
Chair Carter remarks
On behalf of my colleagues on the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners and Ramsey County staff here this evening, I’d like to welcome you to the 2022-2023 Ramsey County Budget and Tax Public Hearing. We are joined by interpreters of Hmong, Spanish and Somali as well as American Sign Language.
We’re going to begin with introductions of our multi-lingual interpreters in order for them to explain how to access the language channels within Zoom for those wishing to engage this evening in Hmong, Spanish or Somali.
Thank you all for joining us this evening. We are recording this public hearing tonight and will be posting the video of this Zoom recording at our web site ramseycounty.us.
Now I’d like to introduce your Ramsey County commissioners and our County Manager. Commissioners, as I call your district, please introduce yourself and let our audience know which cities and neighborhoods you represent.
[Commissioner introductions]
Now please join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I’ll ask everyone to please mute microphones at this time in order that our sound is clear.
I’d now like to share a few words and explain tonight’s proceedings before inviting Commissioner MatasCastillo, who is the vice chair of our Budget Committee, to present the budget.
As evidenced by our needing to gather virtually tonight, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring unprecedented challenges and trials to our communities. So many families have suffered mournful losses.
I would ask that we take a moment of silence to recognize those who have lost their lives to COVID-19 in this past year and thousands and thousands of families in our communities that have been affected by this pandemic.
[Moment of Silence]
Last November, in this budget meeting, I announced that the board and county leadership adjusted a planned 2021 property tax levy increase of 4.5% that had been approved before the pandemic to 0%. We did this in response to the difficulties our families and businesses were experiencing then and have continued to experience throughout 2021.
Please know that every hour of every day of this pandemic we have been working to provide county services to those that need them while maintaining responsible fiscal stewardship of your hard-earned tax dollars. In 2021, we leveraged federal COVID funding and our own rainy-day fund to meet our obligations to our 550,000 residents, tens of thousands of businesses, and our 4,000 employees. As we consider the budget for 2022, we are again balancing services with the ability to pay for them – we are leveraging federal dollars and proposing a property tax levy increase of 1.55% for the county.
The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners is responsible for approving a budget and property tax levy for Ramsey County only. Your tax statements do show line-by-line proposed amounts for each separate taxing jurisdiction, however. Any proposed increases or adjustments shown on your property tax statements from our cities, school districts or other taxing jurisdictions are set by officials in those jurisdictions. The details for public hearings for each of those jurisdictions are also shown on your property tax statement.
Although the focus of our hearing tonight is the proposed budget and property tax levy for Ramsey County, this hearing is recorded. So your comments will be shared with communities though – county, city, school districts and other jurisdictions.
Back to the Ramsey County perspective. We are the second most-populous of 87 counties in Minnesota. Our proposed 1.55% property tax levy increase compares with a statewide average increase of 3.7% for 2022. Per capita, that’s $613 per Ramsey County resident versus a statewide average of $634. Again, this is the county share only – the proposed levy changes from your cities, school districts and other taxing authorities are broken out separately on your proposed tax statements.
It’s important to remember, of course, that individual property owners will all experience different changes in valuations and property taxes. These are based on a number of factors including the type of property and changes in market value.
If you missed the video that helps explain property taxes and property values that we shared right before we called this public hearing, it’s available at ramseycounty.us/PublicHearings in five different languages.
We know that you may be attending this meeting with questions about changes of valuations to your individual properties. If you are joining us tonight with these types of questions, our County Assessor and his staff are available right now in Union Depot and by phone at 651-266-2131 to provide assistance. This public hearing is an opportunity for you to share your thoughts on the budget and property taxes with commissioners.
In a hearing format, you are providing public testimony for the record. If you haven’t attended a hearing before, it is a unique format. Your comments are for the record as public testimony on the budget. As elected officials - we listen closely to your comments but do not respond directly to questions.
If you are here with questions about your property’s valuation, I would encourage you to call our Assessor’s Office at 651-266-2131 or visit with them at Union Depot. They are available at that that number during normal business hours also.
General questions and themes that arise from tonight’s commentary, will be answered following this hearing on our web site at ramseycounty.us/Budget. Your feedback tonight and following this meeting is very important to us as we move towards final budget approval on Dec. 21.
Here’s how we’ll proceed this evening. We thank you for your patience as we settle into conducting this hearing virtually. Each person who would like will have three minutes to address board members. We will go in order of those who are joining in person in the Red Cap Room, followed by those who are joining us by phone, and then we will proceed to those joining virtually. We will ask all who wish to speak to state their name and their city of residence before beginning to provide testimony.
We want to allow everyone who wishes to an opportunity to speak. Again - this is a public hearing format so we won’t be answering questions directly. We will provide a FAQ in response to any themes on our web site as I mentioned.
Now I’ll hand this over to Budget Vice Chair MatasCastillo to present the budget.
Budget Vice Chair MatasCastillo remarks
Tonight, I respectfully submit the proposed Ramsey County 2022-2023 budget for public comment.
On September 21, 2021, the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners approved a maximum property tax levy of $338,743,612 to finance the proposed 2022 budget which calls for total spending of $772,845,689. As Chair Carter referenced, this represents a property tax levy increase of 1.55% over the 2021 property tax levy to fund the proposed budget.
For the sake of comparison, the average proposed increase for Minnesota’s 87 counties is 3.7% for 2022. Ramsey County’s proposed 2022 budget also calls for $29,598,065 in funding for Ramsey County’s Regional Railroad Authority and $11.1 million in funding for Ramsey County’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority.
Similar to proposed property taxes for cities and school districts, the Regional Railroad Authority and the Housing and Redevelopment Authority are shown as separate line items on your proposed tax statement.
The $11.1 million for the Housing and Redevelopment Authority is new this year in Ramsey County. Until now, we have been the only metro-area county in Minnesota not to utilize this authority. The proposed $11.1 million in 2022 will be used to fund affordable housing efforts and the priorities of our Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion Plan. You can read about those priorities in detail at ramseycounty.us/EconomicInclusion.
To better understand these adjustments and the overall budget picture, please visit ramseycounty.us/budget. The documents and videos that are linked there contain many levels of information whether you are looking for just a general overview or line-item detail. Thank you for your feedback and your interest in participating in this hearing. Your input is essential.
Please know that make every effort to provide Ramsey County taxpayers with essential services at an affordable cost. Looking ahead to next year, we know that the effects and hardships caused by this pandemic will continue and we are working hard to squeeze every nickel to continue providing essential services to the community efficiently, equitably and cost-consciously.
The county remains in strong financial standing as evidenced by the fact that we are one of few counties nationwide holding a AAA bond rating by the top rating agencies and have held this rating since 2001. Essentially, this is like having a great credit score – it allows us to spend less when we need to borrow money.
After we hear from you this evening, final budget approval by the Board will occur on Dec. 21. The final approved property tax levy may not exceed the maximum levy set this past September, but may be lower. Changes to the budget may occur by actions taken by the board between now and Dec. 21, but there will be no increase in the levy as a result of those changes.
We’re here to listen to you tonight. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to your comments and suggestions. At this point, I would like to turn the hearing back to Chair Carter.
Questions from Nov. 29 budget hearing
During the 2022-23 budget process, questions in the following topic areas were raised by members of the public. Please see questions and responses below.
Tax and value information and questions
In August, Ramsey County Manager Ryan O’Connor proposed a biennial budget of $772.8 million for 2022 and $781.9 million for 2023 to the board of commissioners. This represents a 3.2% increase of $24 million in 2022 and a 1.2% increase of $9 million in 2023.
About 43% of the proposed 2022 budget is funded through property taxes. The 2022-2023 budget calls for an increase in the county’s property tax levy of 1.55% ($5.1 million) in 2022 and 4.54% ($15.1 million) in 2023. During last year’s 2021 supplemental budget process, commissioners voted to reduce a proposed property tax increase of 4.5% for 2021 to 0% as an adjustment to community impacts following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ramsey County is the second most-populous of 87 counties in Minnesota. The county’s proposed 1.55% property tax levy increase compares with a statewide average increase of 3.7% for 2022. Per capita, that’s $613 per Ramsey County resident versus a statewide average of $634.
View the County Manager and county leaders present proposed 2022-2023 budget to County Board
How is the valuation of my home appraised?
The property taxes for specific residential, commercial and apartment properties may have increased or decreased due to changes in property values. When market values increase in a neighborhood or for a property type – such as commercial – this can change how much a given property pays based on its share of the levy. Learn more in this video about understanding your property taxes and value:
- English - Understanding Your Property Taxes and Values
- Hmoob - Totaub Txog Cov Se Tsev thiab Lub Tsev Muaj Nqis Li Cas
- Karen - Understanding Your Property Taxes and Values
- Soomaali - Fahamka Cashuuraha iyo Qiimaha Hantidaada Maguurtada
- Español - Comprendiendo los Impuestos y Valores de Su Propiedad
If you have questions about changes in your property value, please contact the County Assessor’s Office at 651-266-2131.
Does Ramsey County’s public hearing cover levies from the cities and other agencies?
Comments made during the budget process will be shared with the appropriate agencies.
The specific taxing authorities and districts listed on your statement vary depending on your address. Your statement includes information about public hearings for each agency.
Learn more about taxing districts and taxing authorities in Ramsey County.
The state general tax is a statewide property tax levied by the State of Minnesota on commercial, industrial and seasonal properties. These taxes are paid to the State of Minnesota and go to the State General Fund with a portion used to fund school-related expenditures.
How did Ramsey County allocate state and federal resources over the past year?
Learn about how Ramsey County invested CARES and ARPA funds to support our community and organization.
What are the other revenue streams that influence the levy?
Generally speaking, other revenue sources include the federal and state government and charges for services. Please view slide six of the 2022-2023 County Manager proposed budget presentation for more information on where county funds come from or the 2021 Popular Annual Financial Report.
How does tax increment financing (TIF) offered to developers influence the levy?
Ramsey County does not provide tax increment financing to developers.
What tax relief programs are available for seniors?
The Minnesota Department of Revenue offers tax relief for qualifying residents age 65 or older.
- View details from the Department of Revenue
- View Pioneer Press article about refunds and unclaimed property tax credits
Other property tax refund programs are also available for qualifying property owners. Please see the reverse of your proposed tax statement or visit the Minnesota Department of Revenue’s web site for details.