On Monday night, the Northfield School Board gave its approval to placing a referendum on the November ballot, asking for a
renewal and a DeFacto expansion of the school district’s Capital Projects Levy.
The levy should not be confused with the bonding that would be necessary to renovate and refurbish the high school building.
“This can be used to purchase materials and equipment,” said Northfield Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann. “We can use this to buy textbooks, a snowplow, technology, new science equipment and other things of this nature.”
It can also be used to pay the salary of the five employees in the technology department, which would ease some of the burden as the district continues to make budget reductions over the next two school years.
Hillmann said by using the money to pay for the salaries and benefits of those five employees, it could free up $500,000 for the general fund. Hillmann said, that would help quite a bit.
“Like many schools across Minnesota and around the country, we’re dealing with declining enrollment, which precipitated some budget prioritization that we did last school year. This strategy would move about $500,000 of salary and benefits out of our general fund into this capital projects levy. Now, I can’t say it’s going to prevent future budget reductions, but it certainly would minimize those future budget reductions from our general fund.”
The Levy, which was originally passed in 2011, currently sits at $750,000 per year, which reflected the existing tax rate at the time. The referendum will be structured as two questions. The first will ask that the levy be renewed. The second question will ask that the levy be renewed at the current tax rate, which Hillmann estimated would grow the levy to $1.65 million.
“To put that into perspective,” he said, “if you have a home that is valued at $350,000, then passing the new levy would add about $81 to your annual taxes.”
Hillmann stressed that this is not about making major improvements to the high school. After months of discussion on what to do about the high school, the board has decided to pull back from making any immediate decisions and give the issue further study.
The referendum will be on the ballot for everyone within the district on Tuesday, November 8th.
Reilly working to support Viking Terrace
Jake Reilly, the Community Development Director in Northfield, has been determining how the city can support residents of
Viking Terrace during this turbulent time under new management.
Reilly became aware of residents’ concerns in Viking Terrace shortly after he was hired in June, when reports were made to the city that the new owner of the park, Lakeshore Management, claimed that it was the residents’ responsibility to maintain the park trees. Reilly was also informed there were concerns about a $60 rent hike and a new 35-page lease full of strict rules later found by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office to violate Minnesota law.
With the help of city attorney Alissa Harrington and attorney Margaret Kaplan, President of the Housing Justice Center, Reilly has ascertained several ways the city can support Viking Terrace residents.
First, because of the 2020 Northfield rental ordinance, Lakeshore must apply for a rental license and the city can inspect the three rental units in Viking Terrace for safety concerns. Northfield also has some leverage to ensure the environment around those homes is properly cared for.
In other areas of resident concern, the city has less authority to directly intervene. However, city officials have requested that Lakeshore translate documents for residents into Spanish and that they hire a Spanish-speaking Community Manager.
Reilly provided the company with resources for finding qualified bilingual Minnesota applicants.
Additionally, he hopes to provide voluntary manufactured home inspections to help residents identify any serious health and safety concerns.
Finally, he was advised that if Lakeshore does not properly maintain park trees, then Northfield could remove dangerous trees and branches itself and bill the management company.
He said the city’s goal is to provide all Northfield residents with necessary resources and support so they can continue living in the community as long as they’d like.
“If we can provide more resources, we’d love to do that. Our goal is to ensure that everybody who has a home in Northfield right now can keep their home in Northfield right now, through our, our nonprofit partners and working with the advocacy groups and the Residents’ Association.”
The community is invited to attend an event this Friday at 6:00 pm at Emmaus Church where Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison will express his support for Viking Terrace.
Council hears Age Friendly Northfield presentation
During their regular meeting on Tuesday night, the Northfield City Council heard a presentation from Age Friendly Northfield
that included their annual budget request.
The presentation was made by David DeLong, the chair of the Age-Friendly Northfield Steering Committee. At $25,000, DeLong said the budget had not changed very much. The majority of the money will go toward paying their Administrative Assistant, as well as the cost to print the Age Friendly Northfield Resource Guide, which is available in both English and Spanish.
He showed the council a prototype of a version of the resource guide that will be fixed in one place in different locations around the city, including FiftyNorth and the Northfield Library. As the guide has been very popular, a permanent fixture such as that, he said, will allow the organization to keep printing costs down.
DeLong touched on several of the initiatives his organization has taken in 2022, including the In-Home Services and Support Survey, a report on which will be posted to their website shortly, their work with the HRA to educate the community about the city’s Aging in Place Grants, and their continued work with the AARP Rural Livability workshops.
He also said the Red Chair Project will begin working in conjunction with the Parks and Recreation Department in order to streamline the use of the chairs.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnrado.net
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