BP drops tax levy hike under 10%

Blooming Prairie City Administrator Tony Martens hoped the city would be able to cut its proposed 2026 tax levy increase in half, but council members didn’t quite get there.

Councilors approved a preliminary levy hike of 14.7% in September, with the goal of looking deeper into the budget for things to cut.

“There is some padding in the capital fund,” Martens said at the time. Dropping the fund to $200,000 would have dropped the levy to 7.23%, he said.

A work session discussing other potential cuts – and some additions – brought the number to 9.89%.

Among the budget additions were:

• Covering three-quarters of the cost of the 12.24% increase in employee health care coverage, which the council had previously said would be absorbed by the employees.
• Increasing the street repair budget by $30,000 for a total of $80,000.
• Adding Minnesota Paid Leave to all salary budgets, the result of a state mandate that will go into effect Jan. 1, forcing every employer in the state to offer up to 20 weeks paid leave. The mandate is paid for by a 0.88% payroll tax on employee wages, split between the employee and the employer.
• Adding nearly $4,500 for elections; there was no local election in 2025.

The council also agreed to pay down $79,000 of anticipated capital purchases out of the current capital reserves. Another $7,400 will come off the expenses due to the recent sale of the Senior Center building.

The city council approved the sale at its Oct. 13 meeting, agreeing to sell the building to Steve and Tony Lamotte for $52,000.

“I don’t see a lot of spots to cut,” Martens said of more budget pruning, “and I’m worried that if you take anything, it’s going to have to come from that street repair fund – and we found out last month that $50,000 doesn’t get us much of anything… I don’t think we’re doing our citizens justice to cut any money from that.”

Increasing the street repair budget to $100,000 would send the levy hike back up again, to 11.77%.

Growing it by the $30,000 “is definitely going in the right direction,” said Mayor Mike Ressler. “I don’t think we could get nearly enough to get the streets right now, honestly, even with $100,000.”

He wanted assurance that the city is “fixing these things the way they should be fixed; like, are we putting Band Aids on things?”

The city is doing its due diligence, Martens said, doing repairs for maximum life expectancy of the work.

“I know we were going to try to get to eight (percent levy increase), but I understand,” said council member Greg Johnson.

The impact of the health insurance was noticeable, Martens said.

“Exactly,” Johnson said, “but we had to take that bite, because of the cost that would have been relayed to all the employees of the city, and I understand that. I just hope every budget that was out there dug deep and looked inside, and tried to shorten as much as they could.”

Council members approved using the numbers as presented to calculate the final budget levy, which must be passed by Dec. 31.