By Chad Koenen

Publisher

o raise the preliminary tax levy or not to raise the preliminary tax levy—that was the question facing the Henning City Council last week.  ¶  During its regularly scheduled meeting last Monday night, the Henning City Council held off on setting its preliminary tax levy until Monday, Sept. 28 as two different train of thoughts emerged between council members.  ¶  Henning Mayor Jesse Hermanson, who is also a member of the financial committee who looked at the city budget/tax levy, proposed either setting a flat tax levy or a minimal increase to give Henning taxpayers a break after several years of double digit increases.  ¶  “I want to balance giving some taxpayers some relief and not getting the habit of increasing it leaps and bounds,” said Hermanson.

While Hermanson said he would like to see a minimal increase to the preliminary tax levy, councilwoman Jessica Strege said she would prefer to see an increase nearing 10 percent to give the city some wiggle room should unforeseen expenses arise over the next few months. She said she would like the council to fine tune its budget to ensure the council doesn’t cut itself short by setting a preliminary tax levy too low now, as opposed to decreasing it later this year since the levy cannot be increased once it is set

“We (can) set it high and then we widdle it down, but I know publicly that always gets people worried because last year we set it high and hoped to come down we then we didn’t. I just don’t want to (put) ourselves into a corner either,” she said. “I guess I would rather go for 10 percent and dial it back to four and be able to go through (the budget) line-by-line and make sure we are not over extending ourselves and understanding ourselves.”

Councilman Travis Nelson said he understood where Strege was coming from in regards to things popping up near the end of the year that need to be addressed. Since the preliminary tax levy cannot be increased once it is set, he said he wouldn’t be opposed to setting a higher one with the goal of getting the tax levy increase as low as possible.

“Like last year, something might pop up that we might have to do where we need the funds there,” said Nelson.

Councilman Scott Hart said the finance committee went through the budget and brought forth a recommendation to the council and felt that a four percent preliminary tax levy increase would be reasonable for 2027.

However, Hermanson said he wasn’t in favor of setting a higher preliminary tax levy, especially after the Henning tax levy increased by 20 percent in 2024 and 2025, as well as 15 percent in 2026.

“If you want to set it really high and get everybody really mad just to back it back down we can do that too,” he said. 

Strege said she needed more information about the budget and the work the finance committee did before she could support just a four percent preliminary tax levy increase.

In order to give the council more time to set its preliminary tax levy, the city council set a special city council meeting for Monday, Sept. 28 at 5:30 p.m. to discuss and potentially set the preliminary tax levy.

In other news

• Heard an update from Henning School Superintendent Melissa Sparks concerning the upcoming Seasonal and Recreational Tax Base Replacement Aid levy the school district is seeking, as well as the constitutional amendment that could increase funding for the Henning School District in November. 

• Approved a proposal from the Henning Military Park committee to install a new sign at the park. The park will be similar to the new sign at Amundson Park, but will not include the flower bed around the sign.

• Approved a bid of $10,000 to tear down a dilapidated city shop that is currently being used for storage by the utility department. The cost for heating the building last year was between $6,000-7,000 alone, so the council approved moving forward with the bid to clean up the property and potentially constructing a new shop in the future. Items currently stored in the shop will be moved to other city facilities for the winter. The city will also spray form the lean to buildings to utilize the buildings are storage for city equipment.