The Crookston City Council held another budget discussion on Monday evening as they reviewed the budgets for the Police, Fire, Emergency Management, Community Development, and Valley Technology Park.
The Crookston Police Department has 18 police officers and two administrative assistants/dispatchers on staff and a proposed budget of $3,331,372 for 2026, which includes Capital Improvement Project requests. There isn’t much of a change other than salary increases, which are part of the contract. “The revenues stayed pretty consistent with last year. Again, sometimes those numbers are based on the number of staff you have when they require those numbers. You know, salaries are contractual items. Those are usually already debated between a two or three-year contract with the unions,” said Crookston Police Chief and Interim City Administrator Darin Selzler. “Other than that, the other line items stayed pretty static or the same. And you know, we really tried to do that citywide to keep those levels as we can or similar to last year.”
The Police Department has a new squad car in the capital improvement requests at $75,000. “Obviously, each year my request is to always try to obtain a squad car. That cost is usually about $75,000 with equipment and install costs,” said Chief Selzler. “Our business is cars and we can’t do our job without cars. So although we have other requests in there, you know, that are requests, obviously my goal is always just to obtain a squad car.”
Another Capital Improvements request is $30,000 to repair the retaining wall behind the station, as the bricks are starting to erode.
FIRE BUDGET
The Crookston Fire Department, which has six full-time employees, has a proposed budget of $1,278,270, an increase of just over $300,000. Most of the increase comes from contractual increases for salaries and benefits. Crookston Fire Chief Shane Heldstab joined the meeting via Zoom as he was at an Emergency Management conference. He said one added cost is that OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) requires annual physicals for full-time firefighters. “It’s a comprehensive assessment for firefighters based on what they go into, the scenes they go into with a lot of toxins and things like that. So OSHA is coming down with that,” said Chief Heldstab. “So with that being said, we’re trying to get on the forefront of that with these physicals. Annual physicals will give them a better line on if something does start to go sideways, if something internally ends up showing up, these annual physicals will show that sooner than later. So that is why we have opted to increase that line item to cover the cost for these.”
The full-time firefighters received a grant from Safe Home Inspections to provide carbon monoxide detectors. “Knowing that the budget crunch has been impending with tax increases and things like that, they actually went out on their own as the full-time staff and reached out for a grant that they received, which provides carbon monoxide detectors. They have their protocol in place on researching with their demographic and who that would best affect and best pertain to. And so they went and set up that program,” said Chief Heldstab. “With the carbon monoxide detectors, that’s an incurred expense for the city. They obtained the money and are now allowed to go out and do these safe home grants or safe home inspections. They will go out and do the same type of smoke survey, but they can provide these carbon monoxide detectors that have a 10-year life on the battery. They’re able to reach out, make sure the residents within the city of Crookston have their homes properly protected.”
Heldstab said the Fire Department has a few items on its Capital Improvement needs list. The first item is turnout gear, also known as personal protective equipment. “That’s on a 10-year rotation. The NFPA has got those standards already set,” said Heldstab. “Our department right now can comply with that due to the funding that we have, and that’s a great thing because that keeps the guys that are running into a fire, our first line, front line defense, and anybody’s fire, it’s going to keep them properly protected.”
The second item is $92,000 towards the fire apparatus (fire truck) fund. The cost of a new fire truck is around $850,000 so saving up is essential. “As we go through every cycle, every year, it’s putting a little bit of money away so that way when a big expenditure comes up, we’ve already got the money there. Instead of having to go to council and burdening the taxpayers and saying, I need $400,000 or $500,000, if I can put a little bit away every year, that will allow me to replace these apparatus,” said Heldstab. “When we can replace these on their due schedule, we’re able to keep proper equipment, and we can keep that maintained. We’re coming out with the best equipment we possibly can to be able to defend somebody’s home if they have a house fire. If we have a house fire that is fully involved, we can protect our explorers to make sure that we’re not losing multiple homes. We’re only losing one.”
Tomorrow, we will have the Emergency Management, Community Development, and Valley Technology budget discussion recap.
