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By LeAnn R.Ralph
HUDSON — A referendum question on the April 2 election ballot asking voters whether they want to increase St. Croix County’s property tax levy by $896,000 each year going forward passed with 54 percent of the vote.
Among a total of 19,259 votes cast, 10,402 people voted in favor of the referendum question (54.01 percent), and 8,857 people (45.99 percent) voted against the referendum question.
The nearly $900,000 will be used to hire additional public safety employees that would include two mental health co-responders, one youth justice early intervention specialist, two sheriff corrections deputies, one sheriff investigator, one district attorney investigator, and one deputy clerk of court.
The additional employees added to the budget would put St. Croix County in the position of exceeding the state-imposed levy limit, and in order to levy the additional property tax, St. Croix County was required to have the approval of the voters.
The $896,000 increase in the property tax levy will be a one-time increase, but it will occur every year in perpetuity.
St. Croix County will not be adding an additional $896,000 on to the property tax levy every year, so that the first year, the levy will increase by $896,000, and the second year it would increase by $1.8 million.
Instead, the $896,000 will be added to the levy one time, but the additional tax levy will remain in place going forward.
Adding $896,000 to the property tax levy for the additional public safety employees will amount to an increase in property taxes of $5 per $100,000 of property value.
A $200,000 property will pay an additional $10 per year in property taxes, while a $300,000 property will pay an additional $15 per year, a $400,000 property will pay $20 more year, and a $1 million property will pay $50 more per year.
Voters in St. Croix County defeated a similar public safety referendum question on the April of 2023 ballot that would have exceeded the property tax levy limit by $3.5 million per year.
Among 28,993 total votes, there were 17,018 who voted “no” on the question (59 percent) last year, and 10,784 who voted “yes” (37 percent).
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