FAIRMONT– The Martin County Economic Development Authority (EDA) on Monday heard from County Coordinator Scott Higgins, who went over the preliminary 2025 budget, which he said that the executive committee had put together and was coming in at $140,000. The board ultimately made a recommendation to approve it for a higher amount which includes funds for a new program.

“The overall increase we have is $13,200 from this year to next year,” Higgins said.

He said one of the biggest increase is with the CEDA contract, which comes with a 5 percent increase and promotions, which increased about $10,000 and include social media, website maintenance, events, etc.

Higgins said that the committee had some other ideas about the budget and chairman Wes Anderson agreed that they had some additional ideas concerning the budget.

Richard Koons, who sits on the EDA board and also serves as a county commissioner, spoke about the desire to financially support a Martin County Career Launch Program, which would be a new program for the county and was previously discussed at a past meeting.

The program will be modeled off of the highly successful Martin County/Minnesota Valley Action Council (MVAC) summer internship program, which is for area high school graduates who are attending a two or four year college, but will focus on graduated students from area high schools who don’t have the means to or are not planning on attending college.

“There’s a gap between here and here. We have talked to Tammie (Hested of MVAC) and brought the schools into it and they think it’s a great idea,” Koons said.

He said that the EDA’s boards thoughts on the program and approval of it were requested.

“Josh and Amber have identified some potential funding sources, grants basically, that would help alleviate some of the pressure off of the county,” Koons said.

The expected cost is $63,000 annually, which includes administrative costs and would allow for up to 10 students to participate. Their wages would be covered for about eight weeks.

Board Member Steve Fosness asked what the program would do for the kids. Koons said that MVAC would help them find employment within the county by working with teachers to help determine what identified students would be interested in going into for employment.

“This would help students have an avenue and have someone who would help them,” said EDA consultant Amber Patten.

Anderson added that hopefully the student would retain the knowledge in the field and stay in the area, which is much the same goal in the existing internship program.

“If we can get 10 kids gainfully employed in the county, they’re going to be more productive and hopefully not end up on one side of this building or the other,” said Koons, referring to the law enforcement center and human services building.

Patten added that many teachers in the county were open to the idea of the program, especially the CTE (careers in technical education) teachers.

“It sounds like a good effort in my mind,” Anderson said.

He suggested that the board bump up the 2025 budget to $150,000 to allow some funds for the program.

The board approved the pursuit of funds for the Martin County Career Launch Program and also made a recommendation to approve the budget for $150,000

Moving to other matters, Patten provided a brief update on the joint partnership between the county EDA Fairmont EDA and the Retail Coach.

“He recently went out to Las Vegas to a really large conference and met with some retailers and restaurants,” Patten said.

She said some discussions since then are moving forward and that a sandwich business is showing heavy interest in opening up a location in Martin County. Other interested businesses include a coffee shop and a burger shop, as well as a retailer.

Patten said that in addition to finding businesses interested in opening a location in the area, another area of focus the Retail Coach is looking into is finding people from the area who are interested in becoming a franchisee.

“We have this nice list of franchises that are interested… now we need to find those people,” Patten said.

As for other updates, Patten and fellow consultant Joshua Schuetz spoke of additional projects throughout the county that they have been working on.

Schuetz said that he has worked with the city of Ceylon on applying for a grant from the Martin County Area Foundation for a mural project.

“They’re looking at doing some beautification of their downtown and they have a site in mind,” Schuetz said.

Patten said that the city of Northrop has received a second grant worth $10,000 to go

toward a backup generator.

In other business, County Assessor Mike Sheplee went over some proposed changes to the county tax abatement policy for new construction of single and multi-family housing. Both the EDA board and board of commissioners have been discussing potential revisions over the past few months.

On Monday the changes Sheplee brought forth dealt with eligible uses, delinquent taxes and county taxes over $5,000.

Sheplee explained that eligible uses clarifies that the abatement could be granted to nw construction would would be for a primary residence, not for second homes, summer homes or cabins.

“The last one there is going to eliminate things like short-term rentals… it won’t give tax breaks to people who want to build a property where they rent it out nightly or weekly or something like a VRBO,” Sheplee said.

Regarding past-due taxes, Sheplee said that if taxes were unpaid there was a question on how much of the program was forfeited.

“The original language gave some leeway… and there was a desire to say, ‘any delinquencies , you’re done.'” Sheplee said.

The board approved of the revisions, which will go to the Martin County Board of Commissioners for consideration of approval at its meeting today.

The County EDA Board will take the month of July off and will next meet on Aug. 5