By Jeanne Larson

At its September 15 meeting at the Public Works Building in Sandstone, the Pine County Board presented a new preliminary budget which contained no increase in the tax levy for the coming year. Although the proposed budget kept expenses for the Health and Human Services and the Road and Bridge funding exactly the same as last year, the amount going to construction bonds and jail bonds was slightly less than in 2009, allowing the new budget to include $40,000 to the Rail Authority and to include a slight increase in the HRA budget. The total proposed levy is for $14,289,330 which will be adopted in December if no changes are made before then. The levy cannot be any higher than that which is adopted, but it can be lowered or changed in other areas.

County Assessor Michael Sheehy said that there were very few new housing starts in the county at this time, but that there were some new additions going up on properties. Zoning Administrator Kurt Schneider agreed that the county is not seeing new housing starts like it has in pervious years.

In conversation with the County Assessor, Commissioner Doug Carlson expressed his opinion that those who raise horses should be recognized as legitimate farmers and be treated as equals with other farmers when it comes to taxes and assessments.

The board held a discussion concerning problems with the county emergency services changing over to an 800 megahertz radio system. The new system would require the county to have towers in the northern and eastern parts of the county where radio towers are not available at the present time, making it difficult, if not impossible, to get 9-1-1 dispatch to these isolated areas of the county by mobile communication. Deputy Steve Ovick explained to the board that all sites for towers to the new system have been set up except for the Duxbury area, and that the new system should be up and running in 2 years. The county may experience some problems with state funding because the State of Minnesota, which pays for the backbone of the new system, prefers to have four counties go together in planning to combine their dispatch system, and Pine County has only Kanabec County as a possible partner in the venture. Counties in the north are working with St. Louis County, counties to the south are already in cooperation with others, and west of Pine County lies Wisconsin. After discussion, Board Chair Ed Montbriand said he felt Pine County should have some talks with Kanabec County to see if they would want to enter into a partnership. It was felt that if Pine County’s problems of finding three other counties to partner with were explained, that the State might help out with funding the project anyway.

Commissioner Carlson made a motion for the board to write a letter of support to Pine Medical in its efforts to get grant money to build a new facility in Sandstone. He explained that if the medical center can get a grant, St. Mary’s medical in Duluth with match the amount of the grant. The board approved writing a letter of support.