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Committee lays over Leech Lake Band property tax exemption request for Twin Cities office
Summary
Senate File 15-79, which would exempt the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Twin Cities office from property tax, was laid over for inclusion in the tax omnibus after testimony that the building serves urban tribal constituents and that taxes are a significant portion of operating costs.
Senate File 15-79 to create a property tax exemption for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Twin Cities office in Minneapolis was laid over for consideration in the omnibus tax bill after testimony from tribal officials on Wednesday.
Senator Mohammed introduced the measure remotely and called Lenny Finde, identified as secretary-treasurer of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, to testify. Finde described the office at 2438 20th Avenue South in Minneapolis's Seward neighborhood as a site that provides a range of services for roughly 1,600 Leech Lake band members in the metro area, including child welfare, legal services, tribal assistance, elder advocates, community events, vaccination clinics and other outreach programs.
Finde said the band purchased the building in 2019 and previously had a tenant occupying part of the space. When that lease expired, the band found that property taxes would represent about two-thirds of anticipated operating costs for the current year if the band occupied the building exclusively with its programs. "Without a tenant to offset a portion of the tax obligation, the cost to the Leech Lake Band to operate the building exclusively for our tribal government programs would increase substantially," Finde told the committee. He said the tax burden reduces the band's ability to provide services and that the City of Minneapolis has indicated support for the request.
Committee members raised no substantive objections on the record. Action: Senate File 15-79 was laid over for consideration in the omnibus tax bill.
The band represented that the services offered at the Twin Cities office are the same government functions that typically qualify for exempt status when provided by other levels of government, and the petitioners asked the committee to recognize that operating an urban tribal government office imposes unavoidable property costs.
