City of Fargo officials are asking its departments for across the board cooperation to come up with solutions to its $6.8 million budget shortfall for 2026.
City Administrator Michael Redlinger says revenues are not producing as expected, expenditures have increased as costs have driven upward, and pandemic era aids that supported the city during covid are ending. He says it all adds up to having to work together to re-establish a baseline for the city’s budget.
The city commission met Monday of this week to workshop the budget, and discuss an array of proposed cuts. Department heads presented $5.9 million in potential cuts, as well as $150,000 in potential revenue opportunities. Options being floated include closing the Northport Library, major reductions to potholing and street paving, reductions in snow removal downtown, and holding off on filling currently open positions among many other proposals.
Redlinger says it’s highly likely there will be noticeable pain across the board, including layoffs, but they are trying their best to work on making the most impacts they can with the least amount of public disruption as possible.
"Is it a service that many, many people use, is it a service that impacts a smaller number of people... transit is a good example there. Not every transit route has the same level of ridership, not every service we're providing in the library has the same level of saturation with the public. But we do know that there are those services, and those things we do provide, like public safety and public works - that are community-wide. Everybody's driving on that street in the snow in the wintertime, and that is something that's much more difficult to think about slowing down some of those service deliveries, because everyone is relying on that."
Redlinger says the city will also be navigating the restructuring as the new property relief law takes effect at the state level. He says it doesn’t paint the entire picture, but is a factor. Redlinger says they are focused on keeping public safety whole, with minimal to no impacts at the police and fire departments.
He says the preliminary budget is due August 4th, with final numbers due by the end of September.