The Crookston City Council held another budget workshop meeting on Wednesday, with the Public Works budget taking the center stage.
The Public Works budget is one of the biggest budgets the City of Crookston has (along with Parks and Recreation), and the meeting was over two hours long. Crookston Public Works Director Chuck Getsman reviewed the budget and took questions from the City Council throughout the meeting.
The largest budget request for 2026 was two construction projects costing an estimated $1,700,000. The first project is on South Front Street, where a sinkhole has formed because of the ground shifting, causing the storm sewer system to become misaligned, causing the water to pool in that spot, and causing damage. “There is an area where the ground is sloughing, causing the sewer system joints to become misaligned, and the water is not able to make it all the way to the river as it should,” said Getsman. “Instead, it’s going out of the misalignments and getting that soil wet and causing what some people would call is a big old sinkhole. And that is not safe for the residents or for our infrastructure. So we need to get that repaired and get that sinkhole filled in.”
The second item was a water main break prone area at South Minnesota and Strander, where five water main breaks occurred in two years. They would close a loop in the water line in that area that has left businesses and homes without water. “We’ve had multiple water main breaks, and when we try to centralize it, we end up cutting off water to multiple businesses over in that area and other residents, because it’s not a closed-loop system. It’s just dead ends,” said Getsman. “This project will upgrade the water main over there and extend the water main so it becomes a closed loop so that we don’t have to worry about having a whole block without water, and we’ll be able to centralize it better. These upgrades will also allow some of the businesses in that area to hook up to water. I think a handful don’t have that chance right now.”
WATER BILL REVENUE
Getsman’s projected revenue for the water department is $1,448.000.
Residential water – $450,000
Apartments water – $103,000
Commercial water – $345,000
Industrial water – $550,000
GARBAGE COLLECTION SAVING MONEY
The City of Crookston started using Waste Management to pick up garbage in June this year, and Getsman was asked if that would save the city money instead of losing money on garbage pickup. Getsman said they didn’t replace one garbage pickup employee when they left the city for another job, so that is saving money. They are projecting to bring in $160,000 in garbage pickup funds, while they are projecting to pay Waste Management $120,000 in 2026. “I feel like it’s still a little early to tell, but right now we are seeing the salary and some of our spending go down underneath the garbage budget since waste management has taken over,” said Getsman. “Since then, yeah, we’ve seen a reduction in that budget.”
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS UPGRADE
Getsman also has money budgeted for 2026 to go towards new Christmas lights, and he plans to do it over the next three years to replace the current lights. “Multiple people have reached out to myself and other staff members, especially while we’re putting up the Christmas lights. Is there any chance we can upgrade these things? So that’s what we are looking into,” said Getsman. “One of my asks is to have a Christmas light reserve, hopefully get it started next year, which will help cover the cost after the 2027 MnDOT construction downtown is done. We’ll have new lamp poles, so once we know what dimensions we need, it’ll help us purchase the new Christmas lights.”
The Crookston City Council will meet on Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the City Hall Council Chambers and again on Wednesday, September 24, at 5:30 p.m. as the budget discussion continues.