“I am proud of the work all county departments have done to finalize the 2019 budget,” Carlton County board chairwoman Sue Zmyslony said Dec. 26 at the final board meeting of 2018. “We started with a projected 9.83-percent levy increase at the beginning of work on the budget but have now set the levy increase at 2.98 percent.”

A total of $27,429,683 will be levied in Carlton County property taxes for 2019. The 2.98 percent increase is the lowest in the last six years, when increases ranged from 3.48 percent in 2016 to a high of 4.95 percent in 2015.

Savings were realized in several...