District parking lot proposed tax abatement to move forward
News | Published on May 27, 2025 at 4:12pm EDT | Author: frazeevergas
0Public hearing to be held on Monday, June 9
By Robert Williams
Editor
The Frazee-Vergas School Board held a special meeting on Thursday, May 22, to discuss the district’s property tax abatement for parking lot construction and improvements.
The total amount of the proposed tax abatement is $1,071,263 over eight years to pay the principal and interest on approximately $825,000 of bonds issued to finance the parking lot improvement district-wide and associated finance costs.
There are four projects: the junior varsity baseball lot, the softball lot, resealing existing parking lots and the kitchen parking lot.
Ehlers Senior Municipal Advisors Matt Hammer and Jodie Zesbaugh discussed the funding mechanism and answered questions of the board.
Funding is expected by August with an estimated closing date of August 7.
Much of the discussion for district representatives revolved around if all four projects should be completed. After discussing each, it was decided that they all have merit from preventative maintenance to fixing accompanying problems, like flooding that occurs where the softball parking lot will be constructed.
The tax impact is approximately $2 per month on a $300,000 home and it is not expected to change, according to Hammer. Any agricultural property owners qualify for Minnesota’s Ag2School tax credit—an automatic 70 percent tax credit is provided to all agricultural property within the district except homes, garages, and one acre surrounding agricultural homesteads.
The district does have the option to lower the amount by not going forward with all four projects. That decision would need to be made prior to the public hearing.
The date anticipated for the public meeting is Monday, June 9.
In other actions, the board rescinded a resolution from April because Creative Community Consulting was listed as the designated partner on future projects when it should have been Frazee Area Community Club (FACC).
The issue was discussed at the last board meeting and the board approved the revised resolution and also approved the resolution to provide a public hearing to grant a proposed property tax abatement to provide funds for the construction of and improvements to parking lots at the four sites in the school district.