Property taxes paying lion’s share for state’s roads, bridges

05/13/2007

As Minnesota's taxes dedicated to roads and bridges have stagnated, property tax payers have picked up the slack.


By Conrad Defiebre,
Star Tribune
May 12, 2007


Motorists who use two interchanges on Interstate Hwy. 494 can thank a surprising group of contributors to Minnesota's freeway system: Woodbury property tax payers.

In the past dozen years, Woodbury residents and businesses have forked over $34 million in taxes and special assessments to add on- and off-ramps at Lake and Tamarack Roads to serve the fast-growing suburb's traffic needs.

"Something needed to be done," said City Administrator Clint Gridley. "There was no money from the state. It had to be on the nickel of our local taxpayers."

They had to pay because dedicated roads funding from state and federal road-user sources such as fuel and vehicle taxes has been relatively stagnant for years. Meanwhile, local property levies for roads and bridges in Minnesota have doubled since the mid-1990s -- to an estimated $1.6 billion in 2006. The result, little noticed by most Minnesotans, is that property taxes have become the state's single largest funder of roads, nearly equal to all state and federal sources combined.

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