FAIRMONT– The Martin County Board of Commissioners on Monday held a 2026 preliminary budget work session. As it stands, the county is looking at a 9.87 percent levy increase. It needs to adopt a preliminary budget and levy next month but won’t set the official amount until December.

In 2024, the county ended up setting the preliminary levy increase at 15.66 percent and ultimately approved a 12.49 percent levy increase. However, at the time that the budget and levy was approved in December of 2024, the county also approved the purchase of land to build a new Justice Center on.

Back in March of this year, the board, which included three new commissioners, by majority vote approved discontinuing the project.

To start the workshop on Monday, Commissioner Billeye Rabbe asked Auditor/Treasurer Michael Forstner to explain the start of the budgeting process.

Forstner said he sends out a note to all department heads asking them to compile their own budgets and send it in. He then meets with County Coordinator Scott Higgins about it and they put together some initial numbers, as requested.

In addition to department heads, requests from other county-associated agencies like Martin County Historical Society, Red Rock Center for the Arts and Minnesota Valley Action Council are also submitted and considered.

“Then generally we’ll go through it. Some things need to be certified so sometimes we don’t know actuals yet,” Forstner explained.

Cuts are made to the proposed budget after actual numbers come in. All of that information is provided to the commissioners so they can see what the budget requests started at.

Forstner said the budget committee is also given all of the information and gives recommendations for cuts.

Figures from the year before are also provided for comparison purposes.

When starting to look at the budget requests, Rabbe asked about the Human Services request, and asked whether it was up or down.

Commissioner Richard Koons, who sits on the budget committee, said it was up 7.5 to 8 percent.

The initial request from the department was expected to be about a 15 percent increase from the year before. However, cuts have since been made.

Nonetheless, Forstner explained that the health and human service’s reserves are being depleted.

“A few years back, the commissioner that sat on the exec. board over there… said that we need to not levy for the reserves and let them use some of the reserves if needed. I think that happened two years in a row,” Koons said. “The wisdom of dropping it all the way down to what they gave us at exec. board a few weeks ago might not be the smartest thing. We don’t want to get where we were 14, 15 years ago where there were no reserves.”

Rabbe asked what happens when they run out of reserves.

“Do we still have have to give them money? Does it ever come back to us?” she asked.

Higgins said it can come back through levy or by a reimbursement back into the fund.

“In 2023 they paid some back,” Forstner said.

There was some chatter about changes in funding that are coming down from the state.

“There’s a lot of cuts that they’re making,” Loughmiller said. “They worked it pretty hard on paper.”

“Seven employees and a few other things,” Koons said.

County Commissioner Kevin Kristenson said that he understands the department should get state funding reimbursed in July or August and that they would know more following a health and human services advisory board meeting on Wednesday of this week.

The Human Services budget has a non-wage and non-benefit increase of $665,600 for 2026, which is one of the largest increases of any department.

Talking about changes in some other departments, Probation, under Public Safety, also sees a five percent levy increase and as Rabbe pointed out, it includes Sentence to Serve, which also saw cuts at the state level.

Commissioner Joe Loughmiller asked how they would find more money if needed and Koons said cuts would need to be made from the non-wage and non-benefit column and cut from items there.

Higgins said as it is the overall budget and levy is set for a 25 percent increase in health insurance renewals but that they will have actual figures later this week.

Koons and Commissioner Jaime Bleess, who also sits on the budget committee, said they were told to expect an increase in the teens, like 17 percent.

“So that will be a cut later on,” Forstner said of the overall levy increase.

“After we get our health insurance rate locked in, the two biggest things we have control over are wages and benefits negotiations and Capital Improvement Expenditures (CIP). That’s where we can really make a difference with how we use the levy and how we go long term,” Bleess said.

Looking more at the CIP plan, which has a 802 percent increase, because money set aside for the Justice Center project has been shifted to the CIP for future consideration of building projects, Loughmiller asked specifically about the courthouse mural restoration.

“We had $250,000. There’s some bonding money from 2022 that was bonded for the roof that included mural restoration. There’s currently about $650,00 left of that money that was bonded for that’s not spent yet,” Forstner said.

Higgins said a special group they’re working with has done an assessment and that it was $15,000 just to bring in scaffolding for an assessment. He said they have a quote to have the murals tacked up.

“That was near $30,000 to tack it up,” Higgins said. “The bigger issue is what’s behind the mural.”

Bleess said he would like to see them go forth with tacking it up if there’s a quote for it.

“I’m with Jaime, we can bring the tack up issue to the board right away,” Loughmiller said.

Loughmiller noted that last year when the board started at almost a a 16 percent increase, it got it down to 12. He asked what kind of cuts were made. Forstner said that last year the majority of the cuts came from the CIP.

Rabbe asked about money set aside for repairs to the security building roof. It was pointed out that money from a $1.1 million federal grant is planned to be used.

“We have to do that. We have to do air conditioning and make some changes,” Rabbe said.

To close, Higgins asked the board what it wanted to see done next. Loughmiller said he was happy to leave the budget and levy it as is for now, though he did say he would like to see more done for broadband.

The board discussed using money from the reserves or the CIP.

“I’d like to continue to build the infrastructure and make Martin County a destination place. Western Martin County is where the broadband gap is,” Loughmiller said. “If we can do it, I’d rather invest in that kind of stuff.”

Koons said there was money set aside. However, he said if the $1.8 million, set aside for the justice center, was taken out completely, it would be about a 2.47 percent increase to the levy.

As it is, in 2026, the board is looking to utilize $1.453 of the $1.8 million, originally levied for the justice center project, to put toward broadband.

“For me, the issue is how soon can we get things moving,” Loughmiller said.

The board discussed holding another work session at 11 a.m. on Sept. 8 but could not officially set it as no decisions can be made during a work session.