Taxes are going up.

Two weeks ago, the Clearwater City Council approved a 4.58% increase in the city’s 2017 prelimnary tax levy.

 

Last week, the Wright County Board of Commissioners last week approved the 2017 preliminary tax levy in the amount of $58,191,277.

 

That represents a 4.99% increase over the 2016 levy of $55,426,154.

 

There are slight increases proposed in each fund. The general fund will see an increase from $35,504,645 to $37,530,670. Road and bridges will get $10,054,764 compared to $9,888,138 this year. Health & Human Services increases from $10,024,766 to $10,147,979. Debt service will increase from $5,226,547 to $5,607,166 and funding for Lake Improvement Districts will go from $102,000 to $128,525.

 

The proposed 2017 budget is also higher, increasing almost $3.5 million from $110,285,712 to $113,868,869.

 

The biggest departmental jump in expenditures is in the general fund, which is increasing  about $2.6 million.

 

“This is the culmination of  the first step  of our budget process,” said County Coordinator Lee Kelly. “We’ve had several weeks of meetings here working through the budget and have arrived at this draft budget and levy.”

 

Commissioner Pat Sawatzke asked if insurance payments and claims had an impact on the numbers.

 

“I don’t expect this number to be changed here today, but have we ever gone back and evaluated the impact of short term disability on those line items?” he asked.

 

“We’ve done some calculation and it’s not as big of an impact as we thought it would be,” said Kelly. “It’s only about $3,000.”

 

Kelly said  more adjustments could be forthcoming.

 

“We’re going through and proofing to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We’ll have more information prior to adopting the final levy in December,” he said. “I anticipate we can make some further adjustments later in the year.”

 

Sawatzke said the process to reach the preliminary levy seemed to go more smoothly this year.

 

“The departments probably came in more lean than historically,” he said. “Quite honestly, we usually start out with over 10% (increase). This time I think it was 7.9%.”

 

Last year, the county’s preliminary levy started at $55,432,065 before being reduced slightly to $55,426,154 by December. The preliminary budget was also reduced from $110,309,723 to $110,285,712.