EricPratt

Eric Pratt has spent his career on the cost side of the ledger. Thirty years in banking and finance taught him how fast small increases compound for a family, and twelve years on the Prior Lake-Savage School Board showed him the fix: balance the budget, build a cushion, and give taxpayers room to breathe. The board he helped lead erased a deficit of more than $1 million, built a $3 million surplus, and cut property taxes while enrollment doubled.

That is the record behind the first pillar of the Pratt Playbook. In Congress, his affordability agenda means more housing with streamlined federal permitting, increased domestic energy production, and new markets for the farmers and businesses that anchor the Second District. In the Senate, he already put the approach to work for small business: his 2021 jobs budget created the Main Street Economic Revitalization Program, which helps hometown businesses recover, grow, and hire.

The pitch is simple, and it is proven. Lower the costs government controls, back the businesses that employ the district, and let families keep more of what they earn.

Results are the through line of Eric Pratt's four Senate terms. In 2017, he passed REAL ID, so a Minnesota driver's license works to board an airplane and enter a federal building, a fix millions of Minnesotans rely on every single trip.

As chairman of the Senate Jobs and Economic Growth Committee, he authored the 2021 jobs budget that created the Main Street Economic Revitalization Program and Main Street COVID-19 relief, alongside a proposed $100 million Small Business Loan Guarantee program and $17.5 million for workforce training and business development.

He also authored the bill that paid off the state's $1.2 billion unemployment insurance debt and replenished the trust fund, $2.73 billion in appropriations that passed the Senate with bipartisan support, so the burden would not fall on small businesses and their employees. Add nation-leading consumer protections for PACE home improvement financing and $10 million to expand childcare businesses, and the pattern is clear: practical legislation, measurable results, and problem solving over political theater.

Start with the number that confuses everyone: your home's estimated market value. Each year, your county assessor estimates what your home would sell for. That estimate drives your share of the local tax levy, but it is only half the story. The other half is the levy itself, the total dollars your city, county, and school district vote to collect.

Your tax statement combines the two. If your home's value rose faster than your neighbors' homes, your share of the levy grows even when total spending stays flat. If your value rose at the same pace as everyone else's, your share holds steady, and the levy decision is what moves your bill. That is why a neighbor can see a big jump in a year when your own bill barely changes.

Two tools work in your favor. The Minnesota homestead credit refund returns money to homeowners whose property taxes rise sharply compared with their income, and the special property tax refund can apply when your net tax jumps more than 12 percent and at least $100 in a year. File for them with your state return, and check your county's valuation notice each spring, because the appeal window opens right after it arrives.

Eric Pratt's school board years were built on this kitchen table math: hold the levy accountable, keep budgets balanced, and cut property taxes when the numbers allow. It is the same accountability he brings to the Pratt Playbook's promise to control federal spending and protect taxpayers.