At the Tuesday, May 14 Board of Commissioners planning session, Auditor/Treasurer Shannon Coyle gave a detailed presentation providing insight into the many roles and responsibilities of the auditor/treasurer’s department.
Coyle began by outlining the department’s organizational structure and staffing levels. She noted that the department is now fully staffed after recently hiring a new employee. Coyle praised the work of new Deputy Auditor/Treasurer Bre Mikkelsen and all other staff members who have over 65 years of experience between the seven of them.
In order to show the many responsibilities of her department’s staff members, Coyle showed a slide with many different types of hats, from a top hat to a fedora to a baseball cap to a pirate hat. Underneath each hat was the name of one of her staff’s roles, including land records, banker, tax calculation, elections, accounts payable, investments, ditches, accounts receivable, licenses/permits, forfeitures and delinquent taxes.
A major focus of the auditor/treasurer’s department is property tax administration. As Coyle explained, this is a year-round effort that involves the entire staff. The department is responsible for sending over 29,500 property tax statements twice per year, collecting payments and distributing tax revenue to local municipalities and taxing authorities.
As of early May, the county had already collected 36% of the total $51.6 million property tax levy for 2024. Coyle noted that a large influx of payments is expected as the first tax deadline approaches at the end of the month. She provided updates on collecting delinquent taxes and the tax forfeiture process for properties with unpaid taxes. According to Coyle, $680,000 had already been collected in 2024 toward delinquent taxes
In addition to property taxes, the auditor/treasurer’s department manages land records and ensures accurate documentation as properties change hands. Coyle credited Land Records Specialist Laura Donahue for maintaining and updating these important public records. She also showed important statistics of transferred tax parcels and splits/combos over the past three full years, with there being 2,721 transferred tax parcels in 2021, 2,741 in 2022 and 2,353 in 2023. For splits and combos, there were 210 in 2021, 246 in 2022 and 173 in 2023.
The department also oversees the county’s investments. In 2023, Coyle reported the county received $98.2 million total from tax levies and other sources, which the department carefully prepares and invests according to state statute. This includes monthly account reconciliations and tracking various liquid and special accounts.
“Election administration this year is pretty crazy busy for us,” Coyle said, referring to the three elections (the presidential preference primary on March 5, the primary on Aug. 13 and the general election on Nov. 5) taking place in Morrison County within 2024.
With elections on the horizon, Coyle outlined the department’s extensive election administration responsibilities. These include voter registration maintenance, ballot preparation, absentee voting, training election judges and post-election reporting. She highlighted several recent changes to election laws around automatic voter registration, security and voting rights restoration.
“Election worker protection passed last June, and it’s protecting anyone who works with the elections against threats, harassment and intimidation,” Coyle said. “I was just at the election administration conference a couple weeks ago, and I got to hear what some of these counties are going through: people being accosted in the parking lots and face-to-face confrontations. This just increases people’s fears. It’s just really sad. But there is something in place now that makes it illegal for people to do that, which is good.”
In wrapping up her presentation, Coyle discussed additional duties such as licensing, charitable gambling oversight and accounting support provided to other county departments. She emphasized that her goal is for the auditor/treasurer’s department to efficiently handle “a little bit of everything” related to county financial administration.
Commissioners thanked Coyle for the in-depth report and praised the department’s diligent work across many areas of responsibility, noting that she has been doing a great job since she was hired to fill the position in June 2023. The detailed annual presentation provided insight into the multifaceted operations of the Morrison County auditor/treasurer’s office.
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