By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
Editors Note: KYMN will have a story next week covering the budget details and numbers in-depth.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the estimated increase on a home valued at $350,000. The correction has been made below.
On Tuesday night, the Northfield City Council approved the 2025 Budget and Tax Levy, an overall increase of 15.8%. The average home in Northfield, valued at $350,000, will see an increase of $166 in their city portion of property taxes. This does not include the property taxes for the school district or county portion. Furthermore, part of the increase is fueled by the market value of homes. Home values on average, saw a value increase of 3.8% in the Rice County portion of Northfield, and in the Dakota County portion of Northfield, the increase was 5%.
Tax assessments are conducted at the county level of government (so either Rice or Dakota County, depending on where you live in Northfield). In the spring when assessments are conducted, property owners are allowed to challenge the tax assessment at that time.
After the presentation, the council heard public comments expressing concern about the overall increase. The debate section of the meeting showed the difficulty of the position many councilors were in deciding how to vote. Councilor Kathleen Holmes who supported the budget, still expressed concern with the increase, stating that “this was a hard number to swallow.”
“When we look at the budget, there is a lot of good in here and there’s a lot of things that we need to fund and that are important for us to fund just to be able to maintain the city and to keep the level of service and to keep the type of city that people have moved here for and that live here and and that does come. At a cost. And I think what makes it.” – Councilor Kathleen Holmes at the 12/3/2024 Northfield City Council Meeting
Councilors Davin Sokup, George Zuccolotto, and Brad Ness all expressed concerns about the budget Ness stated that the budget had a lot of good but was also torn about it overall.
“This item I’ve been inundated with our citizens concerned about 15.8%. And I’m still torn. There’s a lot of good in this budget, a lot of good 15.8 just scares people and.” – Councilor Brad Ness at the 12/3/2024 Northfield City Council Meeting
Sokup expressed concerns about the cost of living in Northfield:
“You know we have nothing to do with the county’s assessment of property values. That’s absolutely true. But we also, as a city I think have a responsibility to be more sensitive to the increase in cost to a typical household. And and with the increases, not just the city but the school district and the county. And then our future five year plan. I am really concerned about the cost to live in Northfield.” – Councilor Davin Sokup at the 12/3/2024 Northfield City Council Meeting
After a long discussion about what to adjust in the budget, it passed 4 to 2, with Sokup and Zuccolotto voting against and Councilor Jessica Peterson White being absent.
