TRUMAN– The Truman City Council heard quarterly updates from the fire, police, ambulance and street departments during its meeting on Monday evening.

Police Chief Justin Jobe said the police department received 711 calls for service this year, which is down slightly from 2020. Jobe shared that several years ago they were around 1,000 calls a year and the highest they’ve had since he’s been with the department was 1,500 calls for service in a year.

Council member Patty Truax asked why Jobe thought they were lower. He said they’re not doing as many residential medical calls, which is partly due to Covid protocols.

“There are a couple areas we did actually increase in,” Jobe said.

These included directed patrols and lock checks, as well as ordinance violations. He said they were also up on calls regarding suspected vulnerable abuse, which is information they get from human services.

“We were up on civil calls and up on assaults by about four calls,” Jobe said.

He also shared that they also recently pulled the speed trailer, which tracks oncoming vehicle speeds.

“I think it still has a good positive effect, but we continue to see speeds drop dramatically,” Jobe said.

He said he’s aware they receive complaints of fast traffic coming into town but the reality is it’s an optical illusion.

“Speeds in general on (highway) 15… they’ve dropped,” Jobe said.

Ambulance department member, Josh Kitzerow, said they’ve had 31 calls over the last month, which averages about one a day.

“Our staffing has been remarkable. We’re almost having too many people on call so we’re working through that,” Kitzerow said.

Street Superintendent, John Bosshart, said that his department has helped the PUC cut some trees and that the department has closed the dump up for the season. He said they’ve done some light maintenance on one of the snow plow trucks.

“It’s getting hard to find parts,” Bosshart said.

As for the fire department, chief Dave Bentz said they’ve had 21 calls and that fire accidents made up the majority.

He said they plan to apply for SAFER grants for some turn-out gear, as they have five new members who need the gear.

Bentz also shared that the department received a matching DNR grant, totaling $10,000, for water flow items. He said they plan to use the funds to replace some hoses and nozzles.

Moving to other matters, the council heard from Greg Burkhardt, a Certified Public Accountant from Burkhardt & Burkhardt, Ltd, who was present virtually to go over some expenditures with the council as some fund balances haven’t been coming through as anticipated.

Mayor Terry Bentele said at the last meeting, the council ran into some issues with balances in some accounts.

Burkhardt said that he had helped the city of Truman transition away from its old accounting software at the end of 2020, moving into 2021.

“We had some extensive conversations with city staff at the time… and we came to a really good agreement on what the city needed to have in place,” Burkhardt said.

He said that he was anticipating questions from the council relating to capital funds, or reserve funds, depending on what the city calls it.

“We set those up with the city’s approval to capture and hold resources that the city is accumulating for specific purposes,” Burkhardt explained.

He said the money is there, it’s just parked in the general fund. He said he would be happy to help the city decide where it wants to move the funds.

Council member Brian Nickerson said, “We had good intentions, but with that new program we just didn’t get it in each department where we wanted it.”

Burkhardt said it was a good thing the council noticed something was off and started asking questions.

Council member Brandon Mosloski said the council wanted Burkhardt to look over the funds and give the council advice before it’s audit time in a few months. Mosloski said he thinks work needs to be done regarding their reserve funds.

“It needs to be cleaned up and numbers put in. It’s there,” he said of the funds.

The council made a motion to have deputy clerk Carol Becker adjust and streamline the city’s budget.

In other news:

— Becker shared that they have received three applicants for the city clerk position who qualify.

— The council approved a 3 percent increase for part time officers and to follow the pay scale for administrative assistance Sherry Hanson and police chief Justin Jobe.