St. Louis County Board approves a budget of more than $500 million for first time

The St. Louis County Board unanimously approved its 2025 budget during a meeting Tuesday, December 17. The budget totals out at $504,403,199. This is the first time the county’s budget has been greater than $500 million.

St. Louis County Communications Manager Dana Kazel said the budget supports investments in a range of county services including public safety, roads and bridges, public health and human services and general government while also factoring in significant inflationary impacts.

“The 2025 budget also supports employee wages and benefits including the need to sustain the employee medical plan,” explained Kazel. “It reflects increased investment in community programming, and technology and building infrastructure needs, supports economic development activities, incorporates ongoing inflationary impacts, and includes strategic personnel investments in the areas of public safety, adult protection and recruitment and retention.”

About one-third of next year’s budget is funded by the property tax levy, which increased 7.23% this year. The final levy was approved at $180.310,863 million.

“I’m proud to put this forward. You hear ‘half a billion dollars in a budget’ and you wonder what are they doing with that,” said Commissioner Annie Harala. “You need to remember: we have as many road miles as MnDOT District One. We have three courthouses. We are the largest county east of the Mississippi River. These are things that we are both proud of but also requires investment to ensure we have equitable services for people throughout the county.”

This was the County Board’s final meeting of the year. They will next meet on January 7, 2025.