Opinion: The great Minnesota funding burden — coming to a county near you

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In January, I wrote a commentary headlined “The nuts and bolts — and necessities — of county government levies.” As a member of the Kandiyohi County Board, I explained that county government’s primary function is to carry out the mandates of the state and federal government.

We — the county — provide and pay the staff and provide facilities to function, while the federal and state governments provide the funds for the programs.

This includes programs such as Medicaid, veterans’ services, child protection, supplemental nutrition, the courts, law enforcement and more. To pay the costs to administer these programs, counties use the only funding source available to them — property taxes.

A seismic shift is about to take place.

Gov. Tim Walz and both houses of the Minnesota Legislature are proposing “budget cuts” to deal with an upcoming shortfall.

These are not really cuts but budget shifts. Full costs will become the responsibility of counties and the property owners therein. To be clear: These costs will be passed down to you. They will affect homeowners, businesses, farmers and even renters, who will have higher rents once the property tax burdens are passed down.

If legislation is approved in its present forms, this cost-shifting could result in levy increases ranging from 5-9%. Ramsey, Beltrami, Anoka and Dakota counties estimate an average increase of 6.43%. Kandiyohi County estimates the increase for these cost shifts to be 8.1%. And that’s before we consider any labor, construction and inflationary costs.

These costs are in addition to the levy increases counties need to cover the cost of living increases, increased insurance costs, step changes, inflation, etc.

But wait — we are not done!

Paid Family and Medical Leave, scheduled to go into effect in 2026, will add another cost to the county budget in 2026.

And, the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act — MAAFPCWDA, referred to by those of us in county government as “The Act” — is scheduled to be implemented in 2027 and could add another 5% to 6% to county budgets.

Total costs of the budget shifts from the state to the property owners of the counties for the next several years are estimated to result in a 14-15% levy increase per year. And we have not even addressed threatened federal cuts.

How much can our property owners take?

Counties did not create this crisis. We should not be expected to provide the fix by putting this on the backs of property owners.

Roger Imdieke, of New London, Minn., is a member of the Kandiyohi County Board and serves on the board of directors of the Association of Minnesota Counties.