There are signs all around Winnebago telling people about the road construction taking place in Winnebago.

It turned out to be a busy night for city engineer Matt Cole when the Winnebago City Council held their regular meeting on Tuesday, June 11.

The majority of items on the agenda were related to the Cleveland Avenue Street Project and Cole began his evening by providing council members with the latest project update.

“The construction along Cleveland Avenue is moving forward in spite of the rainy weather the area has been experiencing,” Cole said. “We are still committed to getting the project completed this construction season.”

Cole then reviewed pay estimate No. 2 to Ulland Brothers, in the amount of $223,745.

“This payment will cover work that took place from the end of April through the end of May,” Cole told council members.

The payment was unanimously approved by the council.

Cole then presented two Public Facilities Authority loans for the council to approve.

“These loans are both made possible by the Clean Water Revolving Fund. The first one is for sewer work and is for $2,348,975 and has an interest rate of 1.594 percent,” Cole shared. “The second loan is for drinking water infrastructure work in the amount of $508,824 and has an interest rate of 1.087 percent.”

Cole pointed out that the city had received a Water Infrastructure Fund, or WIF Grant in the amount of $2,035,295 which is why the loan for drinking water improvements was so much less than the loan for sewer work.

Cole’s last item of business for the council was to gain approval to apply to the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority for a loan and/or grant from the Drinking Water Revolving Fund for a lead service line replacement project.

“We are estimating the cost of replacing lead pipe to be around $23,250,” Cole said. “This loan/grant would help cover that cost.”

Police chief Nathan Goette was at the meeting to get the council’s approval to offer Michael Sharp a position with the Winnebago Police Department.

“The Personnel committee, the city administrator and I interviewed Michael Sharp on June 4,” Goette reported to the council. “It was the recommendation by all that a contingent offer of employment be made to him.”

Goette said that Sharp would need to pass a background check and physicals before the hiring would be official. Sharp’s starting wage would be $30.29 per hour.

Next, Goette presented a proposal for the city to add a hiring bonus for new police officer hires.

“As of June of this year, there are 214 job postings for police officer positions on the Minnesota POST Board website,” Goette commented. “With the increased demand for police officers, hiring bonuses have become far more common in law enforcement as an incentive for potential applicants.”

Goette said his research showed that the range of hiring bonuses is from $4,000-$10,000, with $5,000 being the most common.

“The hiring committee agreed on a $5,000 hiring bonus, split into three payments to aid in retention,” Goette explained. “The payments would be $1,500 upon being hired, $1,500 after one year and $2,000 after two years of employment. Ideally, if we find the right two candidates, we only have to do this twice.”

The council members were in consensus that the hiring bonus was a good idea.

“I think it is great as a hiring bonus,” council member Tony O’Donnell offered. “In the future we may have to look at also having a retention bonus.”

The council also adopted a new police officer wage scale which will have six steps compared to the current scale which has seven steps.

The starting wage on the new scale is $30.29 per hour while the sixth step is $40.72 per hour.

“The hiring committee felt updating our scale was important for Winnebago to be able to be more competitive with other cities in what we pay our police officers,” Goette commented.

In other business, the council also:

• Approved a quote, in the amount of $129,226, from Ulland Brothers for bituminous overlay of First Avenue SW.

• Approved contracts to hire independent contractor Darold Nienhaus as a Wastewater operator and Building official for the city of Winnebago. Nienhaus will be paid $1,700 per month for his work as a Wastewater operator and $683 per month for his work as the Building official.

• Voted to put the 2024C Bond Proceeds, which the city is due to receive on June 13, into an account with 4M – Minnesota Municipal Money Market. The funds, which amount to just under $2.7 million, will earn an interest rate of 5.25 percent until they are needed to pay bills related to the Cleveland Avenue Project.