Mankato Free Press

By Olivia Stevens

More than $1 million from a federal spending package signed into law Dec. 31 will fund public safety and infrastructure projects in southern Minnesota.

While Mankato did not receive any funding in the final $1.7 trillion bill, projects benefiting the smaller cities of St. Peter, Le Sueur, Madison Lake and Lafayette were included after being requested by U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. According to Jane Meyer, Klobuchar’s communication director, $2 million of last year’s federal budget was dedicated to rural workforce training in Mankato, and $4.3 million to increase energy efficiency in Blue Earth County.

The bill represents the second in recent months dedicating funding to hundreds of projects in Minnesota since earmarks were restored in 2021. While the bill received bipartisan support, every Minnesota Democrat voted in support of the bill while every state Republican opposed it, including 1st District Congressman Brad Finstad, of New Ulm.

$1 million for water treatment

The city of Lafayette received $1 million toward a new water treatment plant to improve water quality for its 500 or so residents.

According to utility and maintenance supervisor for the city, Al Fox, the city has been planning the project for about five years, since the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began limiting the amount of chloride in water discharge.

But Fox knew they would struggle to budget for the $2.5 million price tag without public funding.

“To me it was a super long shot; I didn’t think we were gonna get anything,” Fox said. “I’m very grateful that it went through because we really need to get this done, and it’ll be better for everybody.”

The project includes installing a reverse-osmosis system to soften the city’s drinking water, which Fox said will in turn prevent chloride from entering wastewater in alignment with state regulations. Designing a new building for the system that will be attached to the city’s current water facility is underway.

Residents will benefit from having softer water with fewer minerals, Fox said.

“Historically Lafayette had problems with iron, manganese and ammonia,” Fox said. “We corrected all those problems to a certain point, but this system will polish all that up. It should give pristine drinking water.”

Fox said he hopes to break ground on the project this fall and expects construction to take about a year. The city is expecting to fund the $1.5 million not covered by the federal investment through a state bonding bill.

Police tech, staffing

Other local granted requests are related to public safety improvements in the cities of St. Peter, Le Sueur and Madison Lake.

The Madison Lake Police Department employs only two full-time officers and is planning to use the $164,000 it was granted to hire one more, according to Police Chief Phillip Wills.

Wills said in the past, the department was considered fully staffed when they had three part-time officers in addition to two full-time officers, but they have been short two part-time officers for the last two years.

“We’ve basically not been able to be fully staffed with part-time officers,” Wills said. “Because there’s so many job openings for full-time positions, nobody’s doing where you start working as a part-time officer and then go into a full-time position.”

The investment will cover two years of the new full-time officer’s salary, which Wills said would be difficult for the department to fund on its own. He said he’s hopeful the position will attract more applicants to increase police presence in the city, which has about 1,300 residents.

Le Sueur has also struggled with officer shortages, which Police Chief Aaron Thieke hopes radio upgrades covered by $180,000 in federal funding will help mitigate. He said with so many current job openings, retaining officers requires regularly updating technology.

Without the funding, replacing the radios would take up 15% of the department’s yearly budget, Thieke said.

“Inflation has been difficult for us to manage our budgets as a small community,” Thieke said. “Things become obsolete and we have to replace them, and we always have to try to find unique ways to fund that because it’s getting ever more expensive.”

St. Peter received the smallest amount of money in the region, $33,000, which will be used to update its police department’s computer system. The upgrade will separate police communications from city servers in accordance with Bureau of Criminal Apprehension recommendations, according to City Administrator Todd Prafke.

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