St. Cloud looks to add four police officers next year

The St. Cloud Police Department will add four officers to its ranks if the mayor's proposed budget is approved by the City Council later this year.

St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis unveiled Monday the preliminary 2022 budget, which includes an 8.4% increase in the city's public safety budget. Kleis attributes the need for additional officers to growth in the city and region.

"We've more than doubled our commitment to public safety in the last decade because, as a regional center, our daytime population exceeds 180,000," Kleis said. "And that's the police force that we budget for — even though the population of our city is only 68,000."

Part of the increase includes funding for three full-time officer positions previously funded by a partnership with St. Cloud State University and St. Cloud Technical & Community College that isn't being renewed due to the colleges' declining enrollment and a decline in other funding sources, Kleis said.

"We are not reducing the amount of public safety staff," he said. "We are being somewhat defunded in that area but we are not defunding it at our level."

The preliminary budget also includes a 17% increase to the information technology budget and an 11% increase to the public works budget.

"Despite a very challenging year, we're able to put significant resources into our top two priorities: public safety and infrastructure," Kleis said.

The city slashed the 2021 budget by more than $2 million to account for pandemic-related income loss. The 2022 preliminary budget will rebound to pre-pandemic levels — and accounts for the projected 4% growth in the city's tax base in 2022.

The preliminary budget includes $79 million in governmental funds, an increase of 4.2% from the 2021 budget but only a 1.2% increase from the 2020 budget that was adopted in December 2019 before the pandemic.

About 40% of the city's governmental funds budget comes from property taxes and about 18% from local government aid approved by the Legislature. Kleis is proposing a 2022 tax levy of $30.8 million, an increase of about $1.6 million over this year's levy.

While the levy is proposed to increase, residents most likely will not see an increase in city taxes unless their property values increase because the increase in the levy mirrors the growth in taxable property the city has seen, Kleis said.

The council is expected to approve the preliminary budget and levy in September and the final budget in December. The council will also approve an enterprise budget that includes funds supported by user fees such as water and sewer. Kleis said Monday he is not proposing any fee increases this year.

Jenny Berg • 612-673-7299

Twitter: @bergjenny