Some unraveling needed on county tax story

A story in last week’s Pine Knot, “County explains 3% tax increase,” raised the eyebrows of Carlton County assessor Kyle Holmes.

“Market values are independent from taxes and vice versa,” he said, correcting a passage in the Pine Knot report that suggested the factors were intertwined.

“Rising property values and rising taxes are not intertwined, and should be kept separate,” he said.

Levy increases are a function of spending, he said.

Holmes attended the Dec. 11 Truth in Taxation hearing, at which the county heard from audience members and presented its 3-percent levy increase for 2025.

The Pine Knot asked Holmes to share more about his thoughts on the relationship, or lack thereof, between property valuations and taxes.

“It’s frustrating,” he said, “because we have many parts of the county where values went up and taxes went down. It really is dependent upon the spending levels of the local tax authorities.”

School, fire and ambulance districts, townships and cities and, yes, the county all play a role in taxing properties. Of course, the county hears about taxes more than most, since all of those jurisdictional taxes are collected by the county and dispersed to the individual taxing entities by the county. The county’s portion of property tax is still the largest, roughly 42 percent for those living in the city of Cloquet.

But, to Holmes’ point: “Rising valuations are not causing the taxes to rise; spending at the local levels is doing that,” he said. “Market values and tax levies are set independent of each other and, other than when a property value is first established on a property, actually have very little to do with the change in taxes.

“It is when one property’s value changes more in relationship to another’s, or a certain class of properties change at a greater rate than those of another, is when tax shifts can be caused due to valuation changes.

“This year was a good example. Yes, residential values have risen faster than commercial values, causing a slight shift as most commercial properties saw a small decrease in tax burden. But, in the overall picture, because of new construction value added and rising utility/pipeline and railroad values … increasing changes in taxes due to valuation changes were negligible at best.”

To Holmes’ point: the city of Kettle River’s levy is down 10.1 percent; Barnum Public Schools’ levy is down 1.6 percent; Cloquet schools, down 1.4 percent; and Carlton schools, down 3.9 percent. The city of Scanlon’s levy is 0.2 percent lower than in 2023. The city of Wright’s levy stayed at no increase, and the city of Esko’s levy went up only 0.5 percent.

If you have questions on your value, contact the assessor’s office at 218-384-9149 for the 2025 assessment that is being completed now.