Minnesota Farm Bureau hosted “Day on the Hill” at the MN State Capital in early April. I attended with several others from our area as we met with four government officials including Lyle Koenen, Dave Baker, Tim Miller and Paul Torkelson. Our main topic of conversation was the issue of rising property taxes. From 2001-2014 property taxes have risen 85.47% and the average payment for farmers jumped from $12.26 in 2005 to $31.02 in 2014, over a 150% increase. I know there are areas that have seen increases up to $70/acre. This continued rise is not sustainable, especially given the current commodity prices. Farm Bureau proposes that we need changes to our current system. Until structural changes are made to balance the lack of inequality of the current property tax system, they propose offsetting a portion of the school debt burden related to agricultural property. The current proposed tax conference committee report suggests using the state’s general fund to offset one-half the present school district bond debt load attributed to agricultural property taxpayers. Of course long term attention is necessary to change the requirements of agricultural property taxpayers to shoulder the tax burden that is presently placed on their land. Funding local government services should be better aligned to match the sources of tax revenue and expenses.
The conference committee will be taking this bill up soon.