The Polk County Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday to hear updates on county projects, the preliminary levy and 2027 budget, and take part in an award presentation.
HIGHWAY UPDATES/INNOVATION AWARD PRESENTATION
Polk County Engineer Richard Sanders presented action items for board approval. The first item was a certificate of performance and a certificate of final acceptance regarding the grade widening of County State Aid Highway 12. The project was bid out to Knife River Materials for $2,226,844.10, but the final cost was $2,177,707.84. Sanders was pleased to see the project come in under budget as well as the work done by Knife River. “When the project’s finalized, we have to go through the process of allowing me to sign the certificate of performance, and myself and the county administrator to sign the final voucher, so that we can pay the final voucher out,” sanders explained. “And so the CSAH 12 project from Fertile up to CSAH 41 is complete, and now we can finalize with Knife River Materials out of Bemidji their final voucher,”
Following the action items, Sanders was joined by Dustrol consultant Donn Johnson, who presented Sanders with the Innovation Award for his work with Dustrol on the CSAH 9 project in 2025. Following the completion of the project, which used hot-in-place recycling, an article was written about it, leading to Sanders and Johnson receiving the Roads and Bridges Award at the 2026 Asphalt Recycling and Reclaiming Association awards ceremony. Johnson and his team wanted to thank Sanders for his role in the project, so they brought him a framed copy of the article as their Innovation Award. “As we worked through it, we thought jointly that this might be a project worth nominating for a national award with Roads and Bridges,” Johnson explained. “So we did that, and I also hired a writer out of Chicago to come up and write an article about the project, which he did. We gave the article to a magazine called Asphalt Pro, and they put that in their magazine, and got a great response to it, and so we decided to go after the national award that way. And my peers voted it as the best project in the United States in 2025 for hot-in-place recycling. So, we invited Rich down to the Asphalt Recycling and Reclaiming Conference, and we got our Roads and Bridges awards. Later, I met with our CEO and President, and we talked about how big a deal that was to us, and we thought about Rich, so we decided to have another award made for him, which I presented to the board and Rich today.”
EAST POLK HERITAGE CENTER APPROPRIATIONS REQUEST
Jeff Lee and Bonnie Stewart from the East Polk Heritage Center brought their appropriation request before the board. The request is for $5,000, which Stewart said was the amount the county has allocated to them annually for the last five years. With other funding sources like memberships and appropriations from the City of Fosston, the heritage center would receive enough funds to cover their estimated $15,000 in annual expenses, with some money available to put toward improvement projects like paint on the Larson House, window sill replacements in the Moen Schoolhouse, and the replacement of a log in their cabin.
They also addressed the planned expansion to a new building, but shared that without the proposed $25,000 capital project funding from the county, they have had to rework their plans and cut their costs in half. Lee spoke about the lack of available space for the number of items they currently have, which has led them to rent storage units for their extra items. Lee and Stewart agree that a new building would help alleviate some of the pressure on their current facilities. Polk County Board Chair Joan Lee thanked Lee and Stewart for their presentation and will consider all appropriation proposals made before the finalization of the 2027 budget in December.
UNION LAKE INVASIVE SPECIES PROJECT/MCINTOSH SCHOOL UPDATE
Jacob Snyder was the next person to appear before the board. He brought forward a request to allocate $7,500 in budgeted funds to the Union Lake Sarah Improvement District (ULSID) to spray for Eurasian Watermilfoil, an aquatic invasive species (AIS) in the lake. ULSID also sprays for the Curly-Leaf Pondweed, which was sprayed for in the spring. The entire $7,500 will be used in the spraying effort, which costs around $47,500. “We’ve been assisting Union Lake Sierra Improvement District since 2015 with special projects,” said Snyder. “They are a budget line in our AIS task force, and what we do is we, on any given year, target a different species of aquatic invasive species. Last year we did curly leaf pond weed, which you have to spray in the spring, and this year they’re choosing to do Eurasian watermel foil, which is more of a fall spraying species. It’s really the yin and yang with those two species in Union Lake trying to get a handle on them growing to really crazy depths.”
Snyder provided an update on the old McIntosh School, which was torn down in late August following the board’s approval of the demolition request at their last meeting. Snyder told the board that tearing down the chimney and stairwell were the toughest parts, but the rest of the building came down as expected. He also reported that a connecting wall between the school and Smeby Auto received some damage but could be repaired if needed. The next steps will include a review by an asbestos coordinator to determine what remediation would be needed and whether any material, such as brick, could be salvaged and recycled for other projects. The review and cleanup of the site are expected to be completed by the end of September. “The chimney sat 60 feet high. Getting her to fall in the right direction was a juggling match, and the contractor’s been doing a great job getting after it,” he said. “So now it’s clean up, get the debris to our landfill, get it all remediated, and we’ll work with Smeby Auto to get the common wall all patched back up, and away we’ll go.”
2027 BUDGET/PRELIMINARY LEVY DISCUSSIONS
Polk County Administrator Chuck Whiting and Finance Director Stacy Grover discussed the 2027 budget process and the preliminary levy during the meeting. Whiting introduced five drafted options for the preliminary levy.
Option 1: $30,126,653 (3% increase of $877,475)
Option 2: $30,272,899 (3.5% increase of $1,023,721)
Option 3: $30,419,145 (4% increase of $1,169,967)
Option 4: $30,711,637 (5% increase of $1,462,459)
Option 5: $31,004,129 (6% increase of $1,754,951)
Based on the board’s conversation with Whiting, he understood that Options 1 and 2 are the most likely, but he wanted to give the board plenty of time to review them before making a decision on the levy at the September 22 board meeting. Once the preliminary levy is set, a public hearing regarding the 2027 levy will be held on December 1. Following the hearing, the board would need to approve the 2027 budget and levy before December 31.
Grover spoke about the Draft Fund Balance Policy, which classifies fund balances into five categories and ensures they are used properly. Grover wanted to provide the board with an update so they have a better understanding of how the fund balances will work when budget discussions begin later this year. “I think it went well,” Grover said. “It’s just a revision update of old policy that we’ve got. We’re just trying to establish some guidelines as we’re working on budgets going forward.
Grover also noted that changes in the finance department have delayed completion of the 2025 audit in time for the 2027 preliminary levy discussion. She noted that following the integration of the new financial and payroll software, systems are starting to work together and evolve. Grover announced that moving forward, she will provide monthly updates to the board on the finance department’s current state, so they can be held accountable for their work and get back on track going into 2027 and beyond. “We’re really trying to kind of some set some realistic goals, where we want to go, any changes internally,” she explained. “It’s really hard to go from decentralized to centralized, and so it’s just really trying to work internally with staff and departments, and also our own department with roles and responsibilities.”
The next Polk County Board of Commissioners meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15, at 9:30 a.m. in the boardroom at the Polk County Government Center.
