Ramsey County Board Public Hearing on Proposed 2027 Supplemental Budget and Tax Levy - September 10, 2026
Ramsey County Board Public Hearing on Proposed 2027 Supplemental Budget and Tax Levy - September 10, 2026
The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners held a public hearing on September 10, 2026, at 5 p.m. in Council Chambers, Courthouse Room 300, to receive public comment on the proposed 2027 supplemental county budget and tax levy. The hearing was for comment only; no votes were taken. Two members of the public testified, and the chair declared the hearing closed after no additional speakers came forward.
Public Comments & Testimony
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Greg Copeland, a St. Paul resident from District 3 on the East Side and a former Maplewood city manager, called for reducing the tax levy and made several recommendations: freeze hiring on all vacant positions; seek across-the-board savings in nonpersonnel items in each department; repeal the salary ordinance passed in June; and follow Mayor Herr's example by cutting board salaries. Copeland suggested returning to the 2024 salary of $101,000, saying that would save $67,697, and eliminating the $7,200 expense account, saying that would save another $50,000. He also opposed county spending on downtown St. Paul, citing a tax break of 7.9 percent this year and about 6 percent last year, and said a downtown park bond program should be avoided because there are at least 10 parks downtown and Harriet Island Park. He said the county could save $320 million by not pursuing that. Copeland urged phasing out the railroad authority, arguing the Met Council should take responsibility for related projects such as the trolley, Rush Line, and White Bear Lake issues, and said the county should claw back a $22 million contract. He also said cutting out the railroad authority would free almost as much money as the new dollars required by the county's 8.25 percent increase.
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Casey Cox, a St. Paul resident from Ward 1, expressed difficulty with the meeting location, saying the public hearing should be held in a more accessible and affordable place. Her main issue was county funding of nonprofits: she said that in a pie chart she brought two years ago, 47 percent of spending went to nonprofits, and she argued the county should cut that funding, proposing reductions to 40, 30, or, in her opinion, 20 percent. She said it is not the government's responsibility to give these services to organizations, identified a list of the top ten nonprofits she said receive about $3 million, and questioned their administrative costs at 37 percent. She said the county should investigate where money goes and should stop supporting nonprofits in favor of services constituents need. Cox also said she agreed with Copeland's calls for cuts.
Key Outcomes
- No votes were taken at the public hearing.
- The chair declared the public hearing closed after no one else came forward to testify.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone. Today is September the tenth, twenty twenty six. This is the Ramsey County Board of Commissioner proposed twenty twenty-seven supplemental county budget and tax levy public hearing. So just uh to give some idea of what today looked like, there is no votes taken for the public hearing today. The public hearing on the proposed twenty twenty-seven supplemental county budget and tax levy is now open. The purpose of the meeting is to allow the public an opportunity to comment on the proposed twenty twenty-seven supplemental county budget and tax levy. For those who are here to speak at the public hearing, when you are called to speak, please state your name in the city of residence before making your comment. Um, I any home is okay. And of course we uh are enjoying that, and I've been following your your hearings, so I'm just going to go through a kind of a list of some changes I'd like to see the board make to reduce the tax levy. Uh uh Mr. Coleman. We had a copeling. We had a billion dollars. Excuse me, Mr. Copeland. Did you give us your um city of residence? Yeah, St. Paul. Okay, thank you. District three. Okay, beautiful. Garrison can back it up. Anyway, over on the East Side. Okay. Okay. Uh. So you got me off my train here. All right. Just to give me let me give you a few ideas. Um do I get another minute since we had a little uh action uh interaction there with the board that we don't usually have? I mean, thank you. Blessings. Okay. You know, I know you got a big job ahead of you uh as a former uh city manager who uh had this task of balancing a budget. I always like to cut taxes. And the first year I was over there at Maplewood, we froze them. The second budget, we cut them, and we added cops, and we added a uh inspector uh for the community that they never had in 50 years. I was there when they had their 50th anniversary. And we gave a lot of promotions. And how do we do that? Well, we had a lot of uh changes in the administrative structure. We got rid of the second level of uh uh assistance uh typically, although in some cases we had people who decided that they would rather work in Oakdale or retire or whatever. So those things happen. But we don't have to have a big tax increase. We should freeze hiring right now on all vacant positions. We should look for across the board uh savings among the uh nonpersonnel items in each department. You should repeal your salary ordinance that you passed in June. Uh I think I was one of two people that showed up to speak against that. Um, and follow the example now of Mayor Herr and cut your salaries. Uh frankly, uh I am suggesting you go back to a uh 2024 salary of 101 uh thousand dollars.
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