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City Council makes the difficult decision to close the pool as cuts begin

The Crookston City Council held a Budget Session and Discussion Monday night following the regular City Council Meeting.

The City of Crookston is in a $1.8 million deficit, and cuts must be made. “Unfortunately, we do have a very difficult budget season; as I have mentioned before, the city really has not funded our capital, we’ve not funded a lot of maintenance, and we have differed a lot of maintenance,” says Shoobridge. “All of that has kind of snowballed on us, and now we have a significant budget deficit. With the draft budget, we have a deficit of about $1.8 million. I anticipate being able to cut a significant portion of that as we get better information, for example, from our insurance carriers, workers, and comp insurance.”

Some significant expenses were discussed, and the council made a few decisions to get the ball rolling on budget cuts. One item that was discussed for about 30 to 40 minutes was the Crookston Community Pool. There were pool supporters in attendance who expressed their concerns, but the council, knowing they would have to put at least $2 million into the pool, decided they would need to close the pool. The savings of closing the pool would be over $300,000 a year. “We did have some significant expenses that were eliminated from the budget,” says Shoobridge. “One of which is the pool facility; as everyone knows, it is 50 years old, past its prime, and I really do feel for the people who use it.”  The council had a lengthy discussion about the closure of the pool, with nobody on the council “wanting” to close the pool, but faced with the budget shortfall and big costs to fix up the pool, they felt they had no choice. “The council really did voice that it’s not a decision we want to make, but financially, we are just forced into a corner,” added Shoobridge.

The council did not approve a request for an additional staff member by the Crookston Housing Economic Development Department. The new position would cost the city over $90,000 after salary and benefits. “The council identified that with our current fiscal situation, we need to make do with what we have,” said Shoobridge.

There are more difficult decisions to come. “We still have some structural deficiencies in our finances to address, but it will be a positive outlook in the long run,” says Shoobridge.

The council members asked that they be presented with a line-by-line budget going forward to make decisions while looking at all the information. Administrator Shoobridge asked the Mayor to add a Budget Workshop for next Monday so that the Council could keep working on finding the best ways to make the budget more manageable. “I did ask the Mayor for another meeting this coming Monday as the Council has identified they would like to go more line by line so they can get a fuller understanding of where we stand,” said Shoobridge.

You can watch the budget discussion by clicking the video below.

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