Could policing in Kasson change?
A memo to the Kasson City Council from Police Chief Josh Hanson led to a conversation about the future of policing in Kasson.
“I’ve debated this quite a bit over the last three weeks but I think it’s something that needs to be said and thrown out there, not as a threat or even something I would fully support, but I think the conversation needs to be had about our relationship with Dodge County and the city of Kasson probably on many fronts but mainly on law enforcement,” Mayor Chris McKern said at the most recent city council meeting.
Hanson, as part of his monthly department he ad report said there would be changes in a service provided currently by the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office.
“The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has informed us that they can no longer process our criminal complaints through the state interface for eCharging and eCitations,” Hanson wrote in his report. “Due to limitations with the current RMS, I requested that they wait until Pro Phoneix goes live but they want us to take over by January 2025. The Sheriff’s Office told us they sometimes spend 20 hours a week processing eCharging and eCitations for Kasson.”
With budget season well underway, McKern said he was frustrated to get the notice about the change, and was concerned what it would mean for the budget.
“I’m thinking alright it’s November we’ve already done our budget where do we find.5 FTE to do that so I got a little irritated,” McKern said.
McKern said he was even considering proposing a recommendation to eliminate the police department altogether, forcing the Sheriff’s Office to provide policing for the city.
“I’m not saying I’m going to make a recommendation to eliminate the police department which I was going to do last week but I have thought twice about it, about making that recommendation but there’s got to be a way we can work together,” McKern said.
Email Exchange
Following last week’s city council meeting, the DCI requested the email exchange between Sheriff Scott Rose and McKern.
“I left a message with your office yesterday afternoon to give me a call when you can,” Rose wrote in an email to McKern.
Rose explained he was contacted by County Administrator Jim Elmquist about McKern’s concerns.
“FYI…your current records person should have no problem taking on this work without much change in the office there,” Rose wrote in an email. “I’ve included a time chart from Records regarding PD work. Last year we spent 191 hours processing KPD citations — which amounts to around 3.5 hours a week. You already have all the connectivity needed there so the only thing we need to do is train your records person on how to e-file these charges (electronically filing your citations and complaints with the attorney’s office and state). Minnesota Sheriff’s Assoc. Legal advised us that your police department’s e-filing should be done by your Chief and PD, not by the Sheriff’s Office on your behalf. West Concord will be doing their own as well, I believe the Chief there will be doing theirs. The e-filing could be done by Josh too from that standpoint. I never thought of it as a budget issue for KPD when we’re talking an average of just over three hours a week — especially when you have a Chief and Records person in the office.”
Emails sent by the DCI to Hanson, Rose, and McKern for this story all went unreturned.
McKern in a November 21 email to Rose wrote “We were told 20 hours a week by the Chief.....”they sometimes spend 20 hours a week completing the process for us.” That would be 0.5 FTE. and the reason for my concern.”
“According to the data between the two PD’s it could have been 20 hours a month for us at times but I don’t see how that would be a week — the amount of time is dependent on tickets and cases,” Rose wrote in an email. “We will help train your records person and support her getting started.”
McKern in a follow up email wrote “I will be having a discussion with council about the future of policing in Kasson at our next meeting. We may be forced to make some changes to our budget before it is set and the number would be helpful, I was assuming that finance could print a report with the Kasson share of county taxes easily. If not, I can wait until a better time to have numbers.”
Future Conversations?
McKern during the meeting said he learned the city of Kasson taxpayers paid $394,000 for the Sheriff’s Office in 2024, through its taxes, and thinks the city should get its fair share of coverage.
According to McKern from January 2023 to October 2024, deputies responded to 457 calls in Kasson either on their own or to assist. During the same time period McKern said the city police responded to 404 calls to assist other agencies.
McKern also argued they have explored getting direct coverage from Dodge County, similar to what other communities like Dodge Center, Hayfield and Claremont have.
“We were explicitly told every time we’re not going to cover the city of Kasson,” McKern said.
McKern said he sent an email to the Sheriff, outlining the different options he sees for the city.
“I said the city of Kasson in my estimation has three options moving forward with law enforcement,” McKern said. “That’s the status quo, which is you know 40% of our levy, which is fine because we have a safe community. I think it’s worth every penny.”
McKern also said “the writing on the wall is that small community police departments are going to be very difficult to staff.”
He explained previously when the city would have open positions for cops there would be between 30 and 40 applicants, which they no longer receive.
McKern said he thinks there need to be conversations between the city and the county about coming to some sort of compromise.
“If there was a way to preserve our department longer to have community policing in the city of Kasson, if we could have some kind of a hybrid contract where we pay for direct policing from the county to cover certain hours in the evenings and that type of thing and we had our community police folks that are here interacting with the community when everybody’s awake during the day is that a better model going forward…I don’t know but I think it’s worth at least exploring,” McKern said.
No decisions were made during the meeting. In a follow up email, when asked for comment City Administrator Tim Ibisch said “I believe the Mayor’s comments at the meeting stand for themselves. As the number of total police officers nationwide continues to fall, it puts stress on all departments especially in smaller towns like Kasson.”
But McKern, whose term expires at the end of the month, said he thinks a conversation should at least take place between the city and the county.
“I think if the conversations start it might be a very long process… but it’s going to be difficult for small police departments to maintain,” McKern said.
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