This year’s state legislative session winds down this weekend and word broke Thursday, just at the Ely Echo was going to press, of a bipartisan budget agreement that appears to bring good news to the Ely area - and particularly the Ely School District.
Legislative leaders and Governor Walz announced a bipartisan agreement on a supplemental budget deal, which includes proposals authored by State Sen. Grant Hauschild (DFL – Hermantown) for $125 million in property tax relief, and a new seasonal recreation tax base replacement aid program to help homeowners and schools in the Northland.
After a couple of unsuccessful attempts over the last two years, Hauschild and State Rep. Roger Skraba (R-Ely) appear to have succeeded in making significant changes to how seasonal recreational properties are figured into school taxes.
That’s pivotal for rural districts such as Ely, which has a large concentration of seasonal recreational properties and cabins.
While details were sketchy as of press time, it appears those properties will now be included as part of the district’s tax base when calculating operating levies, which would be huge for Ely “For too long, school districts with large numbers of cabins and seasonal properties have been left behind,” said Hauschild. “Seasonal recreation aid being part of this budget deal will help address that imbalance to ensure communities in Northern Minnesota receive fairer support for their local schools and relieve some burden from our communities.
It’s not yet clear if the Ely district will directly benefit from new money, or if the bill would spread the tax burden, which would make it much easier for the district to go to voters and get badly-needed revenue.
If Ely’s levy is indeed now calculated to include seasonal-recreational properties, the district could get much more money by via an operating levy referendum with little to no impact on those already paying the bill.
The devil will indeed be in the details and those will shake out over the next few days, presuming lawmakers follow through and agree to the various components of the budget deal.
Hats off to our legislators for continuing to pursue the needed change when it comes to seasonal-recreational properties, and in the long run, our school district will be better off as a result.
That’s some good news that the Ely district badly needs as it continues to struggle to make ends meet.
