May 9—JAMESTOWN — The Stutsman County Commission on Tuesday, May 7, unanimously approved a 1% levy limit increase for agencies outside the county for their 2025 budgets.

The county will notify all outside agencies, which include Jamestown Regional Airport, James River Valley Library System, James River Senior Citizens Center and the Stutsman County Soil Conservation District, among others. The agencies can submit a budget request of 1% over what they received from Stutsman County last year.

Jessica Alonge, auditor/chief operating officer, said the preliminary taxable value increase for 2024 is about 4.72%.

"That may change between now and June," she said.

Commissioner Joan Morris said she proposed the 1% levy limit increase because the outside agencies' budgets will increase by at least 5%.

For the 2024 budget, the county commission approved a 2% levy limit increase. The taxable value increase was 6.3% in 2023, which was used for the 2024 budget.

The county commission is expected to approve a preliminary budget by Aug. 6. Once the preliminary budget is approved, the budget cannot be increased but can be decreased.

The county commission unanimously approved a request to purchase the items needed for the Stutsman County satellite office locations to connect to the Statewide Technology Access for Government and Education Network.

Josh Smaage, information technology director, said the county road department and the Stutsman County Sheriff's Office storage building sites need to be connected to the STAGEnet.

Benefits of being connected to STAGEnet include having file servers, wireless access, security cameras, keyless entry access, endpoint protection, network security, dispatch backup and disaster recovery.

Smaage said he was going to include costs to connect the sites to STAGEnet in the 2025 budget but a grant through the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services recently became available. The grant does not require a local share.

The total one-time cost to connect the two sites to STAGEnet is about $13,000. Recurring costs would be more than $8,000 annually between the two sites.

In other business, the county commission unanimously approved changing the time of its regular meetings to 9 a.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.

The Stutsman County Park Board unanimously approved renting two portable restrooms in an area near the baseball diamond or where a restroom facility was formerly located at Jamestown Reservoir.

In January, the park board approved removing a restroom facility in the shared-use area between the North Dakota Farmers Union camp and the park area at Jamestown Reservoir. The tank below the vaulted toilets was also removed. The restroom facility was also vandalized.

The park board was exploring the purchase of a vaulted toilet. Parks Superintendent Karl Bergh got quotes for the delivery and installation of a single-vaulted toilet.

The park board wanted Bergh to obtain quotes for a double-vaulted toilet because of all the kids who use the playground and the North Dakota Farmers Union camp.

Bergh said the picnic shelters were vandalized. He asked if a security camera could be installed on the Stutsman County Sheriff's Office's new storage building or the North Dakota Farmers Union camp building to help deter vandalism.