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Residents press council on ambulance deficit, LGA reliance and county cooperation
Summary
During public comment and council discussion, residents urged the city to use Local Government Aid and pursue taxing-district options to address a growing ambulance fund deficit; councilors said past attempts to form a county taxing district met resistance and that the city currently bears substantial ambulance costs.
Several residents on Monday urged the International Falls City Council to address the ambulance fund’s growing deficit and to pursue structural funding changes, saying the city has long relied on state Local Government Aid (LGA) and needs new revenue strategies.
Alan Cruz, who identified himself as a resident of Mesa, Arizona and a native of International Falls, warned the council about overreliance on state aid. “If it stops immediately, you have a a 30% shortfall,” Cruz said, referring to the city’s dependence on LGA. He urged pursuit of taxing options to make ambulance funding sustainable and questioned why the city had not secured a special taxing district to recover costs from the broader county area.
Councilors and the mayor acknowledged ongoing concern. The council discussed repeated, unsuccessful efforts to persuade neighboring jurisdictions and the county to form or contribute to a joint taxing arrangement. One council member said, “We will have 2 and a half million dollars of ambulance debt by the end of 20 26,” highlighting the scale of the problem as presented in the city’s financial materials.
Councilor Holden and others said the city had spent many meetings pushing for county assistance and that talks with some county officials had been unsuccessful; they described repeated outreach without county agreement to join a taxing district. Council members said the ambulance service has been subsidized by the city for years and that municipal levy dollars may be required to shore up the fund if other solutions are not secured.
The city’s auditor earlier in the meeting had flagged the ambulance fund’s interfund borrowing as a notable audit issue: the fund’s deficit and borrowing from the general fund create risk to the general-fund reserve if the ambulance receivable cannot be repaid.
No formal action was taken at the meeting to create a new taxing district or to adopt a levy for the ambulance fund. Council members directed staff to continue exploring options and to report back with proposals.
