The Pope County Board of Commissioners adopted its preliminary budget and property tax levy for 2025 at its regular Board meeting on September 17.

After a careful review of requested expenditures by county departments and offices, as well as from outside entities, the county board adopted a preliminary property tax levy for 2025 of $11,097,902, an increase of 4.9% over 2024’s levy of $10,579,506. The preliminary budget was set with expenditures of $20,944,535; County program aid revenue from the State of Minnesota of $815,077; other non-levy revenues of $8,940,747; and planned fund balance use of $90,089 to reduce the budget’s reliance on the property tax levy.

Historically, Pope County’s property tax levy has increased far less than inflation since 2017. From 2017 to 2021, the Pope County property tax levy remained the same or decreased, with no adjustments in 2018 and 2019, and decreases of 0.75% and 3.0% respectively in 2020 and 2021. In the midst of severe inflation, the property tax levy was raised by 3.9%, 4.9%, and 6.9% in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively, but forecasts for 2025 have allowed commissioners to return to smaller property tax levy increases in response to the more recent reduction of inflation rates.

Conservative budgeting and the planned, limited use of County fund balances to lessen reliance on levied property tax funding during this period has allowed the county to reduce proportional reliance on property tax levies to fund County services, according to Pope County Administrator Kersten Kappmeyer.  These same approaches will be used in the coming months to find opportunities for lessening the preliminary property tax levy before the county’s final budget for 2025 is adopted in December, he said.