FAIRMONT– Ahead of its regular meeting on Monday, the Fairmont City Council held a two hour workshop to discuss the 2026 budget. Vehicle replacement, equipment purchases and recreational amenities took up the bulk of the conversation as the council considered a multitude of factors that would affect the tentative 6.8 percent levy increase.

The city’s Finance Director, Paul Hoye, started by talking about the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for general government buildings, which included library lighting retrofit– which will be a shared cost with the county– city hall facility, SMEC building and ice arena.

Under police, Hoye mentioned the potential new police department facility and included past studies done by Wold Architects and Engineers and Brunton Architects, which had costs for a multi-purpose facility with options for city hall, police and fire. Numbers for how much needs to be set aside in 2026 for a 2030 project was provided to the council.

“Included in the 2026 proposed budget is a $100,000 levy increase for general government buildings. If we did that each year for the next five years, in 2030, we would have a $500,000 levy for government buildings that would pay for the debt service on that new facility. Between that and cash on hand in five years we’d be able to fund that facility,” Hoye said.

Council Member Britney Kawecki asked if it looked favorable to receive other funding to help pay for a new building, rather than just levying.

“I think what Paul’s trying to achieve is to create a viable opportunity to fund this project within a timeframe planned out using city funds primarily. However this does not preclude the city from aggressively going after grant funds to help supplement what we’ve got going,” said Interim City Administrator, Jeff O’Neill.

As for the fire department, Hoye said there wasn’t much planned for 2026 except for some portable radios budgeted. However, he did say in the next few years a new ladder truck, expected to cost $2.1 million, would need to be purchased.

“Right now there’s about $500,000 that’s sitting in our general fund and has been designated. What I recommend to the council is that we transfer those funds in the budget in 2026 and move it out of our general fund and into the capital fire truck replacement fund and have those funds available for this truck in 2028, possibly 2029,” Hoye said.

Council Member Randy Lubenow asked how many years are in a ladder truck’s “useful life.”

“The useful life of a fire truck in downtown Chicago is a lot different than the useful life of a fire truck in Fairmont,” he said.

Mayor Lee Baarts said they would need to get that answer from the fire chief, who was not present at the budget workshop. However, Street and Parks Superintendent, Nick Lardy, chimed in and said the truck is 25 years old and finding parts when they’re needed would be difficult.

Moving to the street department, Hoye pointed out that some requests exceed the capital project levy but said it’s been maintained the last three years.

“That’s $830,000. In 2026, there’s a little over $400,000 that we’re over that levy amount,” Hoye said.

Some of the biggest things in the 2026 budget include $260,000 for replacement of a 1990 dump truck and $370,000 for replacement of a loader.

Maynard questioned the useful life of a 35 year old truck and said now seemed like the opportune time to make a one time purchase and spend down reserves to pay for the truck’s replacement.

Council Member Britney Kawecki asked how many more trucks there are to replace. She asked whether there were any problems with it.

Lardy again said finding parts would be difficult. He said the truck is a second line truck, but they would put the new truck in the first line up and move one of those units into the second line.

However, Kawecki said she would like to see the service records at the next budget workshop and said when they did the 2025 budget this truck wasn’t planned for replacement.

Public Works Director Matthew York said this would be a way to modernize the fleet and pointed out more could be done with it than with a 1990 vehicle.

Maynard said he viewed this as the cost of maintaining a fleet of vehicles.

“We need to recognize that equipment has a life and when it reaches the end of that life, we need equipment to replace it. As Paul said, we have the reserve funds available. The truck is 35 years old. Let’s replace it,” Maynard said.

When it came time to talk about the loader, Kawecki again questioned the potential purchase.

Maynard said, “here we are again running up against the life of equipment. Yeah, equipment is expensive, but so are injuries.”

Kawecki said there have been no injuries and said she didn’t think this purchase was necessary.

“I feel that we’re adding more equipment when we need to be utilizing what we have. I don’t think other businesses and companies will be adding equipment when they have everything,” she said.

After almost an hour of discussion, the council moved into the parks department, which was the 5th category out of about 15 on the workshop agenda.

York noted that in the budget, there’s $320,000 set aside for Emerald Ash Borer. He explained that this includes removal and disposal of trees and then replacement of trees as well.

Lubenow asked if that amount includes replacement of power lines as trees on private property fall and destroy them.

“You know it’s going to happen, especially if trees on private property aren’t removed. So what are we going to do when they knock power out?” Lubenow asked.

York said Ash tees on private property will need to be a discussion of the council on whether it wants to move forward with any sort of assistance to help citizens remove their trees.

While talking about the park budget, Lubenow spoke about the Park Board’s recent recommendation to shuffle around some park amenities.

“You’re thinking that $10,000 this year and $100,000 in 2027 plus the $191,000 is realistic to complete all three projects?” Lubenow asked.

York said the city would like to consult with a skate park designer once the plan is approved. He said then they would like to start on the pickleball court at the current skate park.

“We should be able to get to a point where by this time next year we have a lot better idea of what costs will be,” York said.

Lubenow asked York whether he had heard requests from citizens to put the pickleball courts at the soccer fields. York said he had only heard that suggestion earlier in the day from Council Member James Kotewa.

However, Kawecki said she brought up the idea a year ago and that since the Sentinel article recently came out about the park amenity shuffling suggestion, she has heard from residents who say they do not want the pickleball courts where the skate park currently is.

While still a park, the Aquatic Park has its own budget and the recommended amount in the 2026 budget for the Aquatic Park is a hefty $482,000. Lubenow said it would be nice to see how much money the pool made or loss this summer since it just closed for the season on Friday.

“I think we need to get a handle on if we can spend $482,000 on upkeep at the pool and make it reasonable to the taxpayers. Obviously no one wants to close the Aquatic Park but do we have to do two big projects in the same year?” Lubenow asked.

“We do have two larger projects for 2026,” Hoye said.

The two projects, replacement of sand filters and resurfacing the splash pool cost $250,000 and $165,000 respectively.

“Both of these projects are funded with liquor store funds,” Hoye said. “We are able to do both of them in 2026 without it impacting the tax levy but it is spending quite a bit of our liquor store fund balance.”

Next, the council talked about the lakes restoration fund which includes $230,000 for 2026 with $200,000 for Curly Leaf Pondweed and $30,000 for a dock at Gomsrud Park, which Kawecki said she would like to see come out of the park fund instead.

Hoye said historically the docks have been funded out of the lakes restoration fund but said liquor store funds could be used as they’re often used for recreation. He said it was up to the council.

Lubenow asked about weed management. Community Development Director, Pat Oman, gave a reminder that the lakes management committee is new and just talks about and reviews information but that the city council is the decider on any matter.

“I would like to bring forth in September at least the concept of the harvesting RFP. There’s not only some local vendors that would have an interest in that, but the work the DNR is doing… is data that’s continuing to be collected each month,” Oman said.

The council quickly spent the remainder of its scheduled time going over water, wastewater, stormwater and electric.

To wrap up the meeting, Hoye spent a few minutes going over the five year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) which has $119 million in it.

The council unanimously passed a motion to continue the budget discussion during a special workshop on Sept. 8.