The Crookston Ways & Means Committee (Crookston City Council and Department Heads) met on Monday night and discussed the proposed 2020 budget/levy and five-year capital improvement plan. The committee voted to officially set the levy at three percent, which matches the preliminary levy.
COUNCIL LOOKING AT ADDING ANOTHER CUSTODIAN
That three percent levy means that without any additional cuts, the budget is forecast to use $231,000 from the City of Crookston’s reserve funds. Councilman Jake Fee said he wanted to keep the new squad car and body cams for the Crookston Police Department in the budget. The committee also discussed the full-time custodian position in the budget with Councilman Steve Erickson, saying there is no reason the city shouldn’t be keeping their buildings clean. Councilman Tom Vedbraaten asked why the city was looking to purchase a Roomba instead of hiring two custodians, and City Administrator Shannon Stassen said the Roomba would be a trial attempting to make it possible for one person to do the cleaning. Acting Mayor Dale Stainbrook noted there is still some work to do with limiting the use of reserve funds, but that the custodian was necessary because there is plenty of cleaning to be done. “We still have $200-and-some thousand to play with, I think,” said Stainbrook. “As you heard tonight too, we are probably looking to hire another person full-time, but we’ll have to run it through our union first as far as custodian work on our buildings. There is a lot of them, the pool, police, the arena, maybe park shop, city shop for sure. It’ll be some tweakin’ once we find that person and spread them out awful thin it sounds like. Probably need more than one, but that’s just the way it is.”
A motion was also made to begin the process of hiring a custodian to start in 2020 during December. The committee also discussed the estimated capital improvements for the pool, with Vedbraaten saying he hoped that it would be cut in half because the city went from paying the Crookston Public Schools in the neighborhood of $66,000 a year to having a $200,000 budget. Stassen and City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner explained that there were no revenues associated with the budget yet, because of the city’s limited time operating the pool. Still, the hope is revenues will offset a portion of the budget. Weasner also noted that they need to upgrade the showers and the budget is the best guess to estimate costs because it will be the city’s first year operating the pool
The five-year capital improvement plan was accepted, which lists possible projects being considered by city departments.
ONE-TON TRUCK BID
The committee voted to move forward with the purchase of a one-ton truck from Brost Chevrolet. The State bid price system provided the lowest bid. However, the statute allows a 5 percent variance for local governments to purchase locally, and the Brost Chevrolet bid fits within that variance explained Stainbrook. “We’ll go ahead,” said Stainbrook. “It came within 5 percent of the state bid, and we prefer to buy local. All our departments are very frugal. They aren’t going to buy something they don’t need. I know the park shop; they need an update with a pickup. Down the road, there are attachments to maybe put on a plow. They probably have a few more parking lots to plow down the road now with the pool and snow removal at the arena. It will be a good addition to their fleet and whatever else they need.”
The committee also approved the reports of its October 28 and November 12 meetings.
