The Crookston City Council met on Monday evening to discuss budgets. KROX continues our budget discussion with a recap of Emergency Management, Community Development, and Valley Technology Park.
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT-
Crookston Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Shane Heldstab gave the presentation on the budget. The presentation wasn’t long because it is a small budget, but Heldstab said the Emergency Operating Center needs some updates, and the command posts need some new supplies. “I’ve got full-time staff that will go through, and they will check our supplies. We’ve got our six command posts at Crookston. They’ll go through, they take their time, they go, and they look at what supplies are there, that those lists have been there,” said Heldstab. “We know what we need to be prepared at all these command posts. They’ll come back and they’ll say, hey, we’re short this or we’re short this or hey, this is expired. Maybe these batteries corroded, something simple. We’re able to be able to take out of our emergency management budget, we’re able to take that and use those funds to be able to resupply. It’s all in the process of being prepared, and that’s essentially what’s driving that budget.”
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT-
Karie Kirschbaum and Taylor Wyum of the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority presented the Community Development budget. Kirschbaum noted that since she has come to Crookston they have received between $8 million to $9 million in grants. “We ended up having a bill written on behalf of us through Representative Cagle, and we were awarded $2.7 million to help the city offset some of the funds for the Highway 2 project through Crookston, so that the taxpayers don’t have to do that. And that will be part of our 2027 project,” said Kirschbaum. “I can’t tell you how excited I am just to say that, but nobody really understands. Right now, we’ve gotten almost $4 million just for that project to offset the cost to the taxpayer. And they’ll never see that because it had to happen anyway. But in 2027, we won’t have to raise funds for that project. And sometimes we have to raise taxes, but we do any project we can find to find a grant to offset costs to the community.”
Professional fees from $20,000 in 2025 to $80,000 in 2026 were one item in the budget that saw an increase. Some projects will be happening in 2026, and that comes with more professional fees. “I had $20,000 in there last year, which we kind of hit and I have had to tap into maybe other people’s department’s funds to make that happen,” said Kirschbaum. “But that’s architects, engineers, surveys, preparation to get projects done.”
Childcare and housing shortages are a big deal across the state, including Crookston. CHEDA is working with First Children’s Finance and received a grant to help with childcare, but employers are saying housing is a problem, and if they get housing, then childcare is a problem. “Some of our larger employers have reached out to me saying, we need childcare, we need housing. So that’s one of the drivers of why we’re trying to put in housing behind Casey’s and then to develop childcare. And we’re hoping for even a foundation-type mentality,” said Kirschbaum. “We haven’t hit all of our stride yet, but we meet once a month. There’s a group of probably 15 or 20 of us, and we’re saying, can we raise funds to help keep home daycares going? They can’t afford extra staff or they can’t afford a day off, or maybe it’s to help them just get higher wages. So that’s happening right now.”
VALLEY TECHNOLOGY PARK-
The Valley Technology Park budget was another quick presentation, but SEH said it needs a new roof at an estimated cost of $350,000. Although it doesn’t look like it will happen in 2026, it needs to be on the radar. “It’s a great building. We use it for incubators. We’ve got good companies and good businesses in there,” said Kirschbaum. “So that $350,000, do we wrap that into another bond? It’s a smaller project because you don’t want to do a bond really for less than, say, a million. What other projects does the community care about? It doesn’t have to happen this year, but it needs to be on our CEP and on the radar to get us slotted for future budgets.”
The Crookston City Council will have another budget workshop on Wednesday, September 17 at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the Public Works Budget. The council has also scheduled two more budget meetings for Monday, September 22 and Wednesday, September 24. The preliminary budget for 2026 needs to be turned in to the state by September 30.