FAIRMONT–The Martin County Board of Commissioners held is Truth in Taxation (TNT) meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday night, at which point it discussed its proposed 2026 budget and levy, which is currently at a 5.89 percent increase, which is down from the 9.76 increase that the board set as its preliminary levy back in September.

Jessica Laue, the new County Assessor, shared a copy of what a person’s TNT notice, which were recently sent out, looks like. The notices show a parcel’s share of the proposed levies that are needed to fund local governments, including the county, a city or township and school district.

She also spent some time going over what can cause a property tax increase, including the change in estimated market value, change in homestead exclusion, change in classification, change in levy rates and change in tax shifts.

A little bit of extra time was spent talking about the tax shift. Laue explained that there are three main classifications that carry the tax burden for the county as a whole and any jurisdiction that one is in, which are commercial, residential and agricultural.

“If those shift at all, it can affect other classifications,” she said.

A few graphs were shown that showed actual pay 2025 numbers versus the estimate for all three classifications.

“For ag land changes, the estimated market value from 25 to 26 dropped by 2 percent. The net tax capacity went from 62 percent in 25 to 58 percent,” she said.

The taxes paid between 2025 and 2026 then is a 2 percent decrease.

“Remember, this is a big pie, so ag’s piece got smaller, so everyone else’s piece has to get bigger to fill in that pie,” Laue explained.

For residential, values increased by 1 percent and the net tax capacity increased by 2 percent by taking into consideration homestead exclusion.

“Values went up, the homestead exclusion decreases as those values increase, meaning there’s more tax value there,” Laue said.

Taxes paid then also increased by 1 percent with residential taking a slightly bigger hit to compensate for ag having a smaller piece of the pie.

Finally, commercial and industrial are similar to residential by increasing in value a little bit and seeing a net tax capacity increase.

“Ag got smaller and residential took a bigger piece and commercial took a bigger piece this year,” Laue said.

She said in the past it has happened differently with ag taking a bigger piece of the pie.

“It shifts constantly but when you’re talking about these three classifications, if one changes and the others don’t, it will shift unequally, especially with the market we’ve had the last five years,” Laue said.

One resident, during the public hearing portion, asked a question about commercial properties.

“I think we all can agree, the board and the public, that we need industry. Commercial take a big load of that tax off of us as residents,” Laue said.

In closing her presentation, Laue spoke about some of the programs people can apply for to help alleviate their burden. These include homestead, special ag homestead and a senior citizen deferral program.

“The other thing is visit with us. We can’t do anything about your valuation for 2026 pay because statutorily that time has gone. That’s in the spring when the valuation notices come out,” Laue said. “But we can help going forward. Have us out to your property if you don’t think the characterizations are right, pop in if you think the land is wrong. Give us the information that we don’t have and let us make any adjustments we can on the property.”

She told those present she was happy to take their numbers and talk to them further.

Commissioner Richard Koons noted that it’s unfortunate that the TNT notices that went out included numbers for the preliminary levies as many of the jurisdictions have since lowered theirs. However, it was said that the state has it set up this way.

Commissioner Jaime Bleess added that, when planning the budget and levy, they were told to expect insurance costs to come in at around a 20 percent increase but the actual figure was closer to a 9 percent increase.

“So we thought we better levy for it or we’d be up a creek without a paddle, but that’s one of the awesome things about giving us time to take it (the levy) down, but then when the notices come out with proposed, and we know it’s already down, we know it causes stomach aches but there’s nothing we can do,” said Bleess.

County Auditor/Treasurer Mike Forstner then gave some specific information about the 2026 budget and levy and provided some graphics such as a pie graph showing what tax dollars provide. The biggest slices were for general government, public safety, human services and roads and bridges.

The board had previously discussed in a budget workshop some changes that have been made since September to lower the levy, including a reduction to the human services budget, due to some changes with the state and a reduction to the COLA adjustment.

It was also said that the increase is due mainly in part to wages and benefits along with increases in various department budgets due to rising costs in general overall.

“I know you guys expressed interest in lowering it from the 9.76 increase and at the November 17th work session, we discussed getting that down to 5.89 percent,” Forstner said.

Koons confirmed that the general consensus of the board is to adopt the 2026 budget and levy at a 5.89 percent increase but the board will take an official vote at its next meeting on Dec. 16.