The Crookston Ways & Means Committee met on Monday night inside the City Hall Council Chambers to discuss six different departments’ budgets for the 2022 year. The committee will have roughly one month to review all the departments with an end goal date of September 20th.
COUNCIL BUDGET
The first budget reviewed was the Council budget. City Administrator Amy Finch discussed what items are taking top priority in the Council budget. “One of the main highlights is recurring stipends,” said Finch. “In this upcoming budget, we proposed a $50,000 budget for that item. That includes annual stipends to DCDP and Tri-Valley; DCDP will be adding a few park benches downtown with that money and waste receptacles as well.”
Some of the annual stipends may be 50-50 agreements between the companies which would also leave more money left over for other departments. The Council Budget also holds the Ox Cart Days Fireworks budget, and after the successful show a few nights ago, the city will plan to move forward with that budget staying the same in 2022.
MAYOR BUDGET
The next budget that was reviewed by the Ways & Means Committee was the Mayor’s Budget. The mayor’s Budget did not have any changes needed for the upcoming year as the only line items for the budget were salary and travel expenses that were already built-in.
ADMINISTRATION BUDGET
The committee then viewed the Administration Budget. This budget includes the City Administrator and City Administrator’s Assistant. Finch went over some of the smaller fees associated with the Administration Budget. “We will probably make a few slight adjustments with this budget,” said Finch. “Our police chief Paul Biermaier is planning to retire in 2022, and we have money set aside in this budget for spending on job advertising. It’s tough out there right now, hard to find people for jobs, and we may end up needing to spend a little more than the $3,000 that we set aside this past year for that.”
ELECTIONS BUDGET
Following the Administration Budget, the Elections Budget was then reviewed by the board. The elections budget rotates based on the Cities Elections. Nothing was budgeted for this year as there were no elections; however, there will be a budget for Elections in 2022, and Finch discussed what it would look like. “Two of the biggest expenses in this budget are paying the election judge and the election equipment we use,” said Finch. Because 2020 was a presidential election year, we may be able to actually cut back on some money in this department for 2022 because we won’t need to spend as much on paying election judges.”
BUILDING OFFICIAL BUDGET
The committee also spent some time looking at the Building Official Budget. This budget will increase for smaller items such as office supplies, new chairs, and other smaller increases that the department was operating a very tight budget on. The increase for the department will be set at 3.62% for the 2022 year.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BUDGET
Lastly, the Ways & Means Committee reviewed the Information Technology Budget. IT Director Chad Palm gave a presentation to discuss what new technology may be added to enhance the department’s performance. He explained more in-depth what changes will be made and how they will affect the city. “Some of the talking points for 2022 include replacement of computer workstations, a shift from our current office productivity platform to Microsoft 365, and we also talked about a redesign of our city website,” said Palm. “We also discussed moving away from paper time cards and adding digital for 2022.”
There have not been any IT Department upgrades for a few years now, so the technology in Crookston and the department has started to fall behind a little bit. All committee members agreed that the IT Department would be one budget that increases dollars for 2022.
There will also be the addition of an IT Technician for the 2022 year to lighten the load for Chad and allow him to focus more on the Cities servers and other tasks. The salary for the IT Technician as of now is going to be set at $45,000.
Once all the budgets are reviewed and discussed by the Ways & Means Committee, a spreadsheet will be created to show the public where the money is being spent and how different increases in percentage points per department could be shifted around moving forward.
The discussion was quick on each budget, and some of the heftier budgets will be addressed at the next Ways & Means Meeting, which will be held next week on Monday night, August 30, at 6:00 p.m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2qsCu-3W4s
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