Fire District: Fire and ambulance levies to increase

Property tax levies will increase in 2024 after the Cloquet Area Fire District board unanimously approved the tax and budget changes at Wednesday night’s meeting.

The fire levy and ambulance levy will increase 2.99 percent and 2.83 percent, respectively. The $3.6 million the combined levies will generate, not including the $118,000 to be collected for servicing ambulance debt, is meant to absorb some of the impact of inflation.

“As far as expenditures go, inflation has hit everything and everybody and every organization,” district fire chief Jesse Buhs said at the Truth in Taxation meeting on Dec. 7. He listed fuel, utilities, and staff costs among other budget items that inflation has impacted.

CAFD chair Linda Way commended the finance committee, Buhs and his staff for their work on the proposals after the levy and budget votes.

“The target was set at a 3-percent increase and you definitely met that and in some cases it was less so,” Way said.

The CAFD is planning for a 2.49-percent increase in total expenditures in 2024, according to documents presented Dec. 20. The newly approved budget is set at $6.1 million — a 19-percent increase from 2021 when inflation in the U.S. began to soar.

No one from the general public attended the Dec. 7 meeting, possibly due to miscommunication on the correct hearing date. However, despite holding a second tax hearing at the start of Wednesday’s meeting, the CAFD received no public comment.