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Shorewood council reviews South Lake Minnetonka police 2026 budget; staff to return with detail
Summary
Police Chief Justin Ballsrud presented a proposed 2026 Joint Powers Authority budget with an overall increase he described as 8.4%. Councilmembers sought line-item clarifications including disability benefits, part-time staffing, vehicle repair/lease expenses and a city-by-city breakdown; staff will return with corrected formulas and more detail.
Police Chief Justin Ballsrud presented the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department's proposed 2026 budget at the July 28 Shorewood City Council meeting, describing an "overall increase of eight point four percent from the 2025 budget" and noting that grant offsets reduced the figure to about 6.7 percent on a net basis.
Councilmembers questioned several line items. Chief Ballsrud said large increases in disability benefits were driven by estimates tied to the Family Leave Act and pointed to new part-time positions (records clerk and evidence technician) offsetting a prior full-time CSO. He acknowledged a possible formula error in one schedule and agreed to verify the numbers.
Councilmembers also pressed for a city-by-city breakdown of costs (the JPA covers multiple member cities), clearer presentation of contract and overhead calculations (including whether Excelsior salaries include overhead), and more predictive reporting for repairs and maintenance. Chief Ballsrud explained that vehicle repair and lease costs rose in part because a squad car involved in an officer-involved shooting was held by the BCA for nearly a year and then spent months in a body shop, leaving the fleet short and prompting interest in moving from leasing toward ownership of vehicles.
The Council did not vote on the budget and invited Chief Ballsrud to return with corrected calculations and additional details ahead of formal budget approval.
