3 things to know about taxes this week in St. Louis County

DULUTH — Here are three things you need to know this week about tax-related issues in St. Louis County.

If you'd like to find out more information about St. Louis County's budget and tax levy for 2023, residents will have two opportunities to do so. Both meetings will include a presentation on the budget and levy and an opportunity for residents to address the board with questions or comments.

The first meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 21, in the lower-level conference room of the St. Louis County Courthouse in Virginia. The second is at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, at the St. Louis County Courthouse in Duluth. Both meetings are open to the public to attend in person and the Duluth meeting will include a livestream option for people to watch and provide comments virtually. A link to join the meeting virtually will be posted at stlouiscountymn.gov .

At a public hearing during its regular meeting Tuesday, the St. Louis County Board approved a request to expand the borders of Ely's 3% lodging tax to several unorganized territories in the area. Ely's joint powers agreement with the county to collect the tax was first approved in 1986 in order to raise funds to promote tourism to the area. It includes Ely, Fall Lake, Morse Township, Stony River Township and now 16 unorganized townships. The reason for the expansion given by the Ely Area Lodging Tax Board of Directors was to prevent short-term rentals, such as AirbnB and VRBO, from "slipping through the geographical cracks in these organization's areas of responsibility." The approval of the expansion was approved unanimously.

The County Board will discuss sending a resolution of support to the state legislature to support the extension of the nickel per ton dedicated to the Iron Range School Consolidation and Cooperative Operated School account, IRSCCOS, as part of the taconite production tax for an additional 20 years. The resolution came up during the board's committee-of-the-whole meeting and was moved without support and with one dissenting vote from Commissioner Frank Jewell.

In case you haven't been keeping up to date with the taconite production tax nickel, back in 2014 the state Legislature ordered the creation of the IRSCCOS to help Iron Range schools fund consolidation projects. The production tax is paid in lieu of property taxes on the mining and production of taconite. The move resulted in a nickel per ton being reallocated from St. Louis County, among other counties, to the fund to pay for these projects. The reallocation is set to expire in 2023 and be returned to the counties and there were efforts during the 2022 Minnesota legislative session to extend the allocation in the bipartisan tax agreement. But the tax bill didn't pass before the Legislature adjourned so the status of the extension remains up in the air.

Commissioner Keith Nelson requested the resolution in support of extending that nickel allocation for another 20 years. He brought up several area school projects that benefited from the fund.

"When you look at Northwoods and at Southridge, just as classic examples of new schools that were built to really get out of antiquated buildings and safety and all the other pieces," Nelson said. "This is now aimed at a number of schools that weren't originally contemplated at the time it was created such as Hibbing, Chisholm, Rock Ridge and Ely."

Commissioner Jewell raised objections in supporting the resolution citing that the county lost out on around $1-2 million annually due to the reallocation.

"And I just want to make it clear that this is a transfer. It takes money from us and all the citizens of St. Louis County to pay for Range schools, that's how this works," Jewell said. "I have always fully supported schools on the range but the issues is that the people across the county are the ones paying for this with their taxes because we have to adjust for the loss of that nickel."

The resolution will be discussed again at the next County Board meeting Tuesday at Chisholm City Hall.

This story was updated at 8:14 a.m. Nov. 21 to correct the date and location of St. Louis County's two public tax levy meetings. The News Tribune regrets the errors.