In a cost-cutting move, Ramsey County will close its longstanding detoxification center in downtown St. Paul, letting go 43 workers by the end of December in favor of out-sourced services for residents actively suffering from substance abuse.

That’s not the only cut rolling out with the new county budget, which would eliminate the equivalent of five full-time workers from the suburban library system, as well as the entirety of the library budget for substitute staffing. Workers say they’ve been told the Shoreview branch — one of the busiest libraries in the state, and the second busiest in Ramsey County — will soon close on Fridays.

The likelihood that smaller branches may have to shutter for the day when workers call in sick will go up a notch.

“The library staffing is not keeping pace with the growth and the needs of the county,” said Melissa Nykanen, executive director of the Friends of the Ramsey County Libraries, following the county’s annual truth in taxation hearing.

Tax-budget hearing

The hearing, held Thursday evening, drew a standing-room only crowd to the Ramsey County Courthouse in downtown St. Paul, including detox workers about to lose their jobs, upwards of 25 library workers and Friends of the Libraries members wearing red shirts “I Love My Library” t-shirts, and a long line of homeowners objecting to the county’s proposed 9.75% tax levy increase.

The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners will vote to finalize the biennial 2026-2027 county budget and tax levy on Tuesday, and more than one speaker during the two-hour hearing noted that deep changes to the budget proposal are unlikely this far into the budget season.

Workers with AFSCME Local 8, which represents four bargaining units spanning the majority of county employees, said they’ve noticed an increase in county management positions, including a new deputy county manager, even as more frontline staff are let go and services are reduced or outsourced.

A reporter’s call to Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Moran, who chairs the county budget committee, was not immediately returned on Friday.

Grants, service contracts

Some speakers said the county should take a harder look at the $38.4 million in grants and service contracts it maintains through 213 nonprofit partners, which could be a good starting point to reduce spending.

“The sheer volume is staggering, ” said Sebastian Stoss, a candidate for House District 36A, which includes both Anoka and Ramsey counties. “They probably provide some good services, but they should not be getting money from property taxes.”

County officials have defended those partnerships, which run a wide range from emergency overnight shelter for homeless residents in the winter to community outreach. Some of the larger grants go to Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services for shelter or housing programs.

County officials have called the 9.75% tax levy increase necessary in the face of rising costs, limited revenue growth, increased demand for services and uncertain state and federal funding.

The proposed county budget totals $929.25 million in 2026 — a 6.57% increase from the 2025 supplemental budget of $848.5 million. The 2027 proposed budget of $968.45 million is a 4.22% increase from 2026. About 46% of the county budget is funded through property taxes.

Objections to rising property taxes

Thursday’s hearing drew a mix of St. Paul residents and suburban homeowners united by sticker shock. Multiple speakers said they had seen their property taxes — which vary broadly by neighborhood and property type — increase by double-digit percentages in recent years, clocking in much higher than inflation.

Some questioned their own wisdom in repairing or adding to properties that now bear both higher home values and higher tax burdens as a result of their investment. One man took off his glasses and said he needed new ones, but had to choose between paying $200 for a fresh pair or buying his children Christmas presents. Others showed up with stories about friends and neighbors picking up work shifts in second or third jobs to maintain middle-class lifestyles for their families.

Rising property taxes, they said, were not helping.

“It’s simply property taxes, and the fact they’re out of control,” said Patrick Heavirland, proprietor of 71-year-old Charles Cabinets in Roseville, who said many small businesses are leaving the county.

“They tend to cut the things that people see the most and care about the most, like the library for instance, instead of cutting some obscure program,” said Heavirland, noting some two-thirds of his profit is devoted to paying property taxes. “You can’t tell me that in a more than $900 million budget you can’t find some waste and fraud … and program on top of program that overlap each other.”

Thomas Biggs, who complained of “declining city services,” said after seeing two homes in his St. Paul neighborhood sell for less than the county’s determination of their estimated market value, he’s confident his home had been “over-assessed” for the purpose of calculating property taxes.

“I don’t think the continued reliance on property taxes to fund city services or county coffers is sustainable,” Biggs said.

Detox to close, libraries to cut staff

Shauna Peters, a county detox worker, said the county board was operating off bad data around the detox program’s billing practices and effectiveness, and she questioned why the county manager’s office would add managerial level positions like a new deputy county manager while cutting frontline staff.

“Detox saves lives,” Peters said. “There are 43 of us that are losing our jobs at the end of this month. Maybe half of us were offered other positions in the county. … We have received asinine internal job opportunities that none of us qualified for.”

The proposed cuts to the seven-branch library system follow what’s predicted to be a $590,000 budget shortfall, Nykanen acknowledged.

She said staffing is moving in the wrong direction relative to the county’s population growth. The library system’s workforce reductions would drop overall staffing from the general equivalent of about 101 full-time employees to 96 employees. That’s down from 110 employees some 25 years ago when the county’s population was smaller, Nykanen said.

Meanwhile, eliminating the budget for fill-in staffing means more workers will be transferred between library branches on an emergency basis to cover shifts if someone calls in sick. Workers predicted some smaller branches might have to close for the day when staffing gets more and more spread out.

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Cassie Heyman, a library associate in digital services, said she did not attend the hearing to advocate for a raise or more benefits for herself. She’s worried about the services the library could and should be offering the greater community.

“We care about digital literacy,” Heyman said. “We want to offer computer classes. But how can we with this lack of staff? … We just want the staffing.”