BEMIDJI — Minnesota county leaders are expecting a significant shift in costs to their future budgets because of constraints on the state’s own coffers and changes included in the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
In Beltrami County, proposed cuts to libraries, the local history museum and public transit are on the table to offset the increasing burden.
Staff at the Bemidji Public Library and the Beltrami County Historical Society are rallying for support, encouraging residents to contact commissioners about how these funding cuts could reduce services and staff.
County Administrator Tom Barry said the budget committee worked over several months to deliver an increase of less than 10% to the proposed property levy for 2026.
At a Sept. 2 work session, he frequently pointed to cost shifts to counties as driving factors in the decision-making process, including for probation, health and human services like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the state’s new Paid Family and Medical Leave Act.
“Those cost shifts and those unfunded mandates and those additional driving costs have required us to develop more or generate more local revenue,” Barry said. “That's why the tax pie is starting to get bigger. And you can expect that to grow if the state continues down the path that it's headed, and that's going to be pretty significant.”
Historically, property tax dollars made up about a third of the county’s budget, but Barry warned property taxes will likely be funding close to half of the budget in the years to come.
The board set a list of budget priorities earlier in the year, which included fully financing mission-focused operations, such as health and human services, before outside organizations.
At the Bemidji Public Library, Branch Manager Sherilyn Warren said the proposed reduction will bring the county's contribution down to what’s known as the minimum maintenance of effort as part of the state’s library system.
“The way that the funding is done is that the state Legislature mandates that every funding source fund a minimum level of funding in order to participate in the Minnesota Regional Library System,” Warren explained. “Those numbers were set in 2011 based on budget numbers from 2009.”
The library has historically received most of its funding from the county, Warren said, explaining that while the city of Bemidji contributes a small financial amount to the local library, the city owns and maintains the building and the grounds.
In the 2025 budget, Beltrami County allocated $437,725 for the Bemidji Public Library and Blackduck Community Library. The Kitchigami Regional Library system requested just over $450,000 for the two libraries for 2026, but the proposal from Beltrami County allocates about $265,000.
"In 2025, Blackduck and Bemidji's libraries’ budget for materials — new books and new DVDs and magazines and what not — was $75,400,” Warren said. “Even if we committed to cutting all material purchases for 2026 ... we would still have to find over $100,000 to cut from our budget for 2026.
“Feasibly, the only way to do that would be to cut hours of operation and to cut staffing levels.”
Bemidji Public Library Outreach Coordinator Kate Egelhof warned that fewer hours and staffers at the library would not make Bemidji’s downtown any safer.
Egelhof said in her visits with downtown businesses over this issue, one concern she heard about was regarding the safety of the library and the people who hang out there —such as people experiencing homelessness.
“If we lose half of our staff, this is going to be less safe. It is not going to solve any single problem that anyone has with the downtown. It will, in fact, magnify it,” Egelhof said.
“There will be less people to make sure people aren't standing outside smoking or doing drugs or worse, there will be less people to check on safety, like is that person on the corner sleeping or are they having a serious medical emergency?”
Warren said the library is an effective place to provide services to some of the county’s most vulnerable people, citing the free legal kiosk that has an available room for Zoom court hearings.
"You and I are so used to having internet service, cable service, TV service, that we just assume everybody else has it, but not everybody else has it,” Warren said. “When individuals and families need to cut their budgets, the first thing they cut is their cable bill, so they come into the library, they get DVDs. They come into the library to use the internet. They come into the library to print out job applications or resumes.”
“By cutting the budget to the library, we lose those types of services that we offer to not only the most vulnerable, but also to people who are just trying to tighten their own belts,” Warren added.
Beltrami County Historical Society’s Executive Director Emily Thabes said the county's proposed $7,500 cut represents 7.5% of the center’s annual budget. Thabes said it isn’t the first blow to museums or libraries this year.
“There have been multiple reductions at the federal level in funding and operational support for both libraries and museums,” she said. “There's going to be a real strain at the state level on that funding.
“We really need to have every amount of local dollars that we can rely on, especially operationally, because most of the federal and the state dollars that we get are for grant-funded projects. That's for preservation, that's for programming. That doesn't keep our lights on, that doesn't keep staff in the building, that doesn't keep the copier running in most cases.”
Thabes encouraged residents to reach out to their commissioners to preserve the mission of the historical society.
“We've been working so hard these past several years to change the face and space of what history means here,” she said. “I think we've done a great job of that, and this is a great time, I think, for our commissioners to say we value our community history.”
While transit was discussed as another possible area to reduce costs, Paul Bunyan Transit Executive Director Lezlie Grubich said in a Thursday, Sept. 11, interview that the county hasn’t contributed financially to the transportation nonprofit in several years.
Administrator Barry confirmed in a follow-up the same day that about $8,000 has historically been budgeted for Paul Bunyan Transit, but the nonprofit hasn’t applied for the allocation since 2019, when Grubich said it began upgrading its fleet.
“In the conditions that we've been or constraints that we've been given by the state and federal government for cost shifts and rising costs elsewhere, this is a budget that continues to be very difficult to sort of manage going forward,” Barry said in closing remarks of the work session.
“These are not easy decisions to make, but you should be aware of the types of adjustments we've had to make in order to get the budget to where it is.”
The county is expected to set its preliminary budget and levy for 2026 at its regular meeting Tuesday, Sept. 16. Once a county sets a preliminary levy, it may decrease the amount it collects in property taxes, but not increase it before the final decision in December.
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Contributed/Northwest Minnesota FoundationSix awardees from across the Northwest Minnesota Foundation region were recently recognized for their roles in strengthening community.
