Ramsey County Assessor Pat Chapman and County Auditor Tracy West briefed the St. Paul City Council Budget Committee on 2025 estimated market values and tax-capacity trends that will determine property taxes payable in 2026. Chapman said countywide tax capacity is “at an all-time high of about $8.80 million,” and that residential value accounts for the majority of estimated market value in both the county and the city.

Chapman and West described classification-driven shifts: commercial property comprises a smaller share of estimated market value but a larger share of tax capacity because of higher classification rates (commercial can account for about 9% of estimated market value but roughly 17% of tax capacity in the county). In Saint Paul, exempt property is also large (about 18% of estimated market value), which does not produce tax capacity.

West explained the regional fiscal-disparity program, which pools 40% of growth in commercial and industrial property value and redistributes it to jurisdictions based on population and market value per capita. She said the program changes where tax dollars are distributed (not the total paid by a property owner) and that donor communities with high commercial value contribute more while recipient communities receive more of the shared pool. West said Ramsey County and Hennepin County are contributing less to the pool this year because of downtown commercial declines, but the shared pool overall rose by roughly $1,000,000 over 2025.

West gave a dollar example for Saint Paul: fiscal-disparity distributions to the City of Saint Paul are projected at about $44,300,000, up 9.3% from last year. Using a median-value residential property example, the presenters showed neighborhood-by-neighborhood projected changes: in Thomas-Dale the median property value rose from $217,300 to $231,100 (a 6.4% value increase) and the tax bill on that median home would increase about $267 or 8.5% excluding a school referendum; the downtown planning district showed a much smaller projected change (about $8 or 0.3% in that example). Including a school referendum would raise the example Thomas-Dale increase to roughly $513 (16.3%) and raise downtown by about $211 (8%).

County staff walked the committee through how multiple factors combine on the proposed tax statement: changes in fiscal-disparity contributions, homestead market-value exclusion adjustments, classification-driven tax shifts (for example, commercial declines shifting burden toward residential), and levy increases for county, city and other taxing jurisdictions. In the median-home example without the referendum, West said a $280 year-over-year change breaks down to an $88 reduction from fiscal-disparity changes, a $18 reduction lost from the homestead market-value exclusion (because the home’s value rose), $121 from classification shifts and value changes, and the balance from increases in county, city and special-district levies.

Committee members asked about property-tax relief programs and application rates. West and Chapman noted state and county programs—homestead market-value exclusion, property-tax refund (PTR), and senior/disabled deferral programs—and said outreach is ongoing. Chapman announced that the county’s homestead application was available online starting the day of the presentation and reiterated that PTR information is available at the state PTR website. Committee members requested follow-up materials, including maps of median incomes by neighborhood and longer trend series on median values.

West closed by noting calendar deadlines: jurisdictions certified maximum levies to the county auditor by Sept. 30; Ramsey County will mail proposed tax statements between Nov. 11 and Nov. 24; St. Paul’s Truth in Taxation meeting is scheduled for Nov. 25 (per city notice) and Ramsey County will hold its Truth in Taxation public hearing on Dec. 11 with final levy adoption Dec. 16. Several council members encouraged continued outreach on tax-relief programs.