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Shafer City Council met May 20 for a regular meeting all members were in attendance.

The meeting began with Dennis Oberloh from Oberloh and Oberloh Audit Services.  Oberloh told the council the city’s general fund remains healthy, rising from $728k to $760k  in receipts in 2024.  He told the council the city has a general fund balance of $983,659 which represents 129.3 percent of 2024 receipts.  Oberloh said a city should aim for 35-50 percent  and noted Shafer is in a very good place fiscally.  

Oberloh told the council the city has two payments left on one of the two GO Bonds totalling $140,000.  The other remaining bond balance is $620,000.  

Council then passed an ordinance amending the fee schedule.  Included in the change was a tree escrow requirement of $1000, business snow shoveling (if a business fails to shovel the city will for a fee) of $50/hr, an assessment search fee of $25, a pre-application conference fee escrow of up to $1200, a water trunk charge per single family lot of $3,00, a sewer trunk charge of $3,900 and a landscape fee escrow of $1,000.

Council then accepted donations from the fire gambling relief fund for $538.18 and $321.98.

Council then gave city engineer Jake Guzik permission to do a preliminary capital improvement plan for the next ten years.  

Maintenance supervisor told the council the videoing by Visi Sewer is about 1/5 complete in Buffalo Ridge.  Council asked Cooper why it is taking a while to complete. Cooper said the prior council only budgeted $20,000 per year which doesn’t cover many homes.

Council adjourned at 6:28pm.

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