City officials press Grant County board to revisit sheriff contracts, citing double taxation and lack of daytime patrols

City officials and residents urged the Grant County board on Monday to rethink the county's law-enforcement contract model, saying towns are paying both county taxes and separate city contract levies without receiving consistent daytime patrols or ordinance enforcement.

At a work session restricted to the contract topic, Barrett city clerk Rita Rudy said her town pays more than $42,000 a year for contract coverage but gets few daytime patrol hours and little ordinance follow-up. "We're not getting ordinance enforcement. I mean, they'll respond to come out, but there's no enforcement," Rudy said, adding that 60% of the town's contracted patrol hours in the first four months of the year fell between midnight and 6 a.m. "Our residents want daytime presence. These kids in town need to see a law-enforcement officer."

Jeff Foltz, who introduced himself as City Administrator for Owatonna, told the board he had only just seen meeting materials and asked whether the county had run numbers showing the tax impact on municipal taxpayers. Foltz said cities want a "happy medium" that preserves needed patrols while reducing costs such as by cutting assigned hours. "We want law enforcement. We aren't here to say we're going to jump—we're not going to do anything. But our costs have to go down," he said.

Multiple town leaders and public commenters echoed those themes. Boone Carlson of Wendell and public commenters asked the board to review whether deputy positions that replaced former city police remain necessary given declining population and shifting call volumes. "What level do we need?" Carlson asked, urging a detailed breakdown before committing to continuing the current contract model.

County auditor Chad gave a rapid estimate of one possible tax-impact scenario the board had discussed: adding $350,000 to the levy would raise the county tax rate slightly and translate—using a working ag-land value example—into roughly $0.50 to $1.00 per acre and an approximate $40 annual increase for a $300,000 home. He cautioned those were quick estimates and asked the board not to rely on exactness until staff ran detailed numbers.

Board members repeatedly framed the issue as both a policy and budget question. Some commissioners said the intent of the county's contracts was to realize savings compared with each city maintaining its own police department; others warned that shifting contract costs to the county levy would disproportionately affect agricultural landowners and require transparent public explanation. No formal action or votes were taken during the work session; the board said it will continue the analysis and revisit the contracts as part of budget planning ahead of the preliminary levy process in September.

The discussion produced several explicit requests for staff: run options showing the fiscal impact of consolidating contract costs onto the county levy (including per-acre and per-household estimates), analyze how many deputy positions replaced prior city police and whether those positions are still needed at current service levels, and produce scenario estimates for partial-hour reductions or different cost-sharing formulas. The board also asked the sheriff's office to clarify guaranteed daytime coverage levels and to explain whether additional daytime patrols could address the visibility concerns raised by several towns.

The board closed the cities' portion of the meeting without a vote. Commissioners said they want a financial and operational plan in hand by preliminary budget deadlines so they can account for multiple possible outcomes when setting the levy.