Galesville earmarks projects for borrowing during budget review
During the review process for the city of Galesville’s 2026 budget, a trio of planned capital outlay purchases were earmarked to be funded via borrowing.
The Galesville city council reviewed and tweaked the city’s budget for next year at a committee of the whole meeting last Wednesday, where the preliminary budget compiled by city clerk/treasurer Jennifer Hess showed a projected shortfall of a little under $350,000 that needed to be rectified.
A portion of that projected shortfall was addressed by designating three projects to be funded by what’s expected to total to a little under $160,000 in borrowed money: the purchase of a new police squad car and replacing both the roof and the air conditioning system at the Galesville Public Library.
The original preliminary budget presented at Wednesday’s meeting showed projected total expenses of $2,053,007.22 and projected total revenues of $1,705,480.09, leaving a difference of $347,527.13 to account for to balance the budget.
One of the biggest expenses listed in that original budget was $246,993 for a new dump truck to replace the city’s current 2001 Sterling truck, which is used for plowing and hauling snow.
Galesville public works director Todd Peterson requested that item to be placed in the budget. While Peterson acknowledged at the meeting that he wasn’t really expecting that purchase to be approved for 2026, he wanted it in there to call attention to the fact that the truck will eventually need to be replaced.
Peterson noted the truck would need some repairs to the box but estimated that would cost under $10,000.
The council eventually settled on keeping $30,000 in the budget with the intent to not spend it and set it aside as part of a long-term plan to save money toward a new dump truck down the line.
The original budget included salary and benefits for a new assistant chief/sergeant position in the police department for the entire year, though just over $33,000 was shaved off the police budget after the salary and benefits was whittled down from 12 to six months since the expectation is they won’t have someone in that position right at the start of 2026.
A total of $82,000 was slated in the budget for a new police squad car and accessories for it. That number was shaved down to $75,000 after accounting for a little money that would be saved by trading in two of the police department’s older squad cars and then, at the recommendation of alderperson Dave Carlson, removed from the budget entirely by designating it as a project to borrow money for.
Alderperson Jesse Swing proposed doing the same for putting a new roof (an estimated cost of $65,000 that wasn’t originally in the budget at the start of the meeting) and installing a new air conditioning system (an estimated cost of $18,000) at the library.
Alderperson Ryker Todd cautioned that he didn’t want to get in the habit of financing too many projects via borrowing because of the impact it could have on resident property taxes. However, Todd also believed these three purchases were needed and the roughly $158,000 total to be borrowed was a manageable amount.
Other notable removals from the budget during Wednesday’s meeting included $30,000 that would have gone to painting the light poles and replacing the light bulbs in the city light poles and a little under $4,000 that would have gone toward hiring a part-time clerk at 25 hours per pay period.
When all was said and done, the city’s updated 2026 budget, which still needs to be finalized later this month, showed both revenues and expenses of $1,654,060.72, a 3.75 percent increase from 2025’s original budget amount of $1,594,215.99.
