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starTribune.com MINNEAPOLIS - ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA Last update: October 17,2006 -12:00 AM Review: School levy pushes up tax bill Citizens League annual survey of property taxes found that school spending is driving tax increases in many cities statewide. Anthonv Lonetree, Star Tribune Until voters in the Centennial School District finally passed a $4.7- million-per- year operating levy last November, the district was trying to get by on one of the metro area's smaller tax levies. What a difference a year makes. On Monday, the Citizens League released its property tax review for 2006. It showed that among the eight metro communities where residents are paying the highest percentage of home-market values in taxes were three cities served by the Centennial schools: Centerville, Circle Pines and Lino Lakes. The major driver, of course, was the newly approved school levy, said Bob DeBoer, the league's senior program associate, who says schools statewide were the primary recipients of tax hikes in the 202 communities it surveyed in 2005 and 2006. "The state share of K-12 funding has gone down," DeBoer said. He noted, however, that the league chooses not to weigh in on two questions -- "Are we spending enough? Are school districts being efficient?" -- that he says often arise. The league has provided its survey, he said, to give citizens information before local governments decide each December how much to levy in taxes for the following year. According to projections released earlier this month by the nonpartisan research staff of the Minnesota House, homeowners may see property-tax bills producing an average increase, on a statewide basis, of 9.4 percent in 2007. That's compared with a 10.1 percent average increase statewide in 2006. Digging deeper into the 2007 projections, the House report suggests that homeowners outstate could see heftier percentage hikes than their metro counterparts -- 12.5 percent on an average basis, compared with 8.1 percent in the metro area. New to the Citizens League report this year are profiles of 135 communities that, DeBoer says, offer a more complete view of how property taxes have changed in relation to other communities. The information is available at www.citizensleaQue.net. Making a difference?