Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park, Newport to set preliminary property tax levies this week

Talk about it

City councils in Cottage Grove, Newport and St. Paul Park are scheduled to set preliminary property tax levies in meetings this week.

City and county governments are required by state law to set a preliminary levy before a deadline next week. The property tax levy can then be lowered, but not raised, before final budgets are adopted by elected officials in December.

Here is a glance at the proposed municipal budgets and tax levies in south Washington County. The St. Paul Park City Council was scheduled to set a preliminary levy at a meeting Tuesday night, after this edition of the Bulletin went to press. The Cottage Grove and Newport city councils are set to adopt a preliminary levy Wednesday and Thursday night, respectively.

Cottage Grove

Cottage Grove’s proposed $13.5 million 2013 general fund budget represents a roughly $450,000, or 3 percent, increase in spending. The city’s property tax levy, however, is proposed to remain at $12.2 million, the same amount as in 2012 and ’11.

City administration had originally proposed a roughly $13.8 million budget and nearly $300,000 increase in the property tax levy last month before City Council members asked to leave property taxes flat in 2013.

St. Paul Park

In St. Paul Park, the city’s proposed $2.5 million budget reduces spending by roughly seven-tenths of 1 percent from 2012 levels and projects revenue to decrease the same. The city’s proposed $1.8 million property tax levy represents around a 3 percent increase over 2012.

City Administrator Kevin Walsh said that increase is attributed to an increase in the city’s debt payments past road projects and work that fixed a leaky City Hall roof. St. Paul Park’s operating expenditures are proposed to decrease slightly.

The proposed levy would leave the property tax bill for the average St. Paul Park home largely flat, Walsh said.

Newport

A $2.4 million proposed 2013 budget in Newport includes a $600,000 surplus that City Administrator Brian Anderson said would be directed toward the city’s Economic Development fund. The proposed $2.3 million property tax levy would be a $10,000 increase over 2012. Budgeted revenues are projected to surpass $3 million.

Anderson said the small levy increase would not raise property taxes on the average Newport home.

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