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LOCAL GOVERNMENT AID GETS INCREASE IN BUDGET DEAL

The City of Crookston will an increase an additional $136,267 in their Local Government Aid (LGA) after the special session omnibus bill increased funding for most cities involved in the LGA program.  The total increase for Crookston in 2020 will be $145,539, bringing its LGA funding to $3,852,782. 

Crookston City Administrator Shannon Stassen said this is good news for Crookston and that Crookston spends this money on its emergency services. “It’s certainly great news for Crookston and all Minnesota cities that are part of the Local Government Aid Program,” said Stassen.  “It’s a great tool for controlling property tax increases in areas where property values aren’t high enough to support basic services.  See this as a real positive and rest assured that the dollars that are allocated here are put to great use.  Nearly all of it is put towards emergency services – Police, Fire, and Emergency Management – is where those dollars are directly placed in terms of what Crookston does with it.  That’s a big portion of our budget, but that’s part of what leads to us being one of the safest cities in Minnesota and having one of the best ISO ratings in Minnesota for fire protection and water delivery.”

Stassen said the city has a culture of running lean and effectively and will continue to do so even with the boost in the budget. “You’re talking about 17 years of running very lean, very efficiently,” said Stassen.  “I think you’ve seen the City of Crookston respond to that and not only deliver the same services but continue to add services.  We’ve reduced full-time equivalency through efficiencies, technologies, doing everything we can in terms of energy efficiency and continue to work with Otter Tail on that.  Even in rehabbing some of the buildings we’ve added insulation and work on being lean and running as well and efficiently as possible.  What does this mean?  It means we’ll continue to do that because that’s the culture in the city but maybe not so much wringing our hands in terms of how are we going to make all of this work.” 

The $3.8 million is the most dollars Crookston has ever received from the LGA program, but still falls about $500,000 short of inflation estimates since 2002. 

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