(FARGO) – Fargo City Commissioner and Deputy Mayor Denise Kolpack said she expected the City Commission’s budget discussion to be a hard discussion, based on previous meetings on the budget and publicly made comments.
She said she thought there were good points made at the meeting, and that, for the most part, people were respectful. A few times the audience reacted – which she called ‘understandable.’
“We had a packed room, which was really good to see, people showed up because of some of the proposed cuts that came out over the weekend,” Kolpack said. Those cuts were in a list of four amendments proposed by Commissioner John Strand. The amendments were not acted upon due to lack of a second to Strand’s motion to consider them for discussion. The amendments included trimming additional full-time equivalents, sunsetting certain boards and committees, eliminating an administrative office and the addition of two to four new sworn police officers in lieu of funding a handful of non-core services.
A cost-of-living adjustment of 4.5 percent was agreed upon to by the commissioners.
“We know we’re behind in salaries, we have data that proves it, and we’re losing employees every week to other municipalities,” Kolpack said.
Mayor Tim Mahoney and City Administrator Michael Redlinger said work on the 2026 budget will begin this calendar year.
“Budgeting is a year-round conversation, and it should be,” Kolpack said. “We should always be looking for efficiencies. And that’s been a clear directive of all of us that this will be an ongoing expectation, which I support.”
