KIMBALL -- The Kimball City Council has approved its budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year with one council member disapproving. 

In the final budget hearing Wednesday evening, Council Member Jamie Murdoch disapproved of both the motions to approve the budget and the increase of property tax request, resulting in a 3:1 vote. 

The budgeted 2025-2026 revenue for the City’s General Fund is 3,481,434.34, which supports several areas including, the cemetery, pool, streets, parks, library, police department, and fire department. 

Murdoch expressed her reservations in a previous meeting about the police department’s budget increase to accommodate more full-time positions. 

The budget allows for a fully staffed department of six full-time positions – including the Chief of Police, Seargeant, and 4 officers – as well as the transition of the part-time administrative assistant to full-time. 

The budgeted revenue for the police department is $983,685.38 with the previous year’s total budget being $605,353. 

City Administrator Annette Brower said when comparing versions of the budget that allocated for a lower number of officers, the salaries didn’t drop a significant amount because they are then calculating for overtime. 

The goal is to have 6 officers working 4 days a week, 10-hour shifts with proper rotation and eliminating 24-hour shifts and extensive overtime. 

Council Member Creg Pike said in the Sept. 2 meeting, “We are still understaffed, we have officers and the Chief doing 24 hour on-calls, we’re approaching burn out ... we need to support our emergency services.” 

Murdoch responded with a different point of view, saying it has been a long time since the department was fully staffed. 

"The city has a number they would like to be at; we’ve been trying to fill it, and we’re not,” she said. “We're collecting property tax to pay it ... is it reasonable to say we’re going to fill all of those open positions successfully in a year?” 

Chief of Police Jose Ruiz responded that he has had enough promising applicants and foresees being able to fill the open positions. 

The PD’s Administrative Assistant Rachael Hudson spoke in the council meeting Tuesday night to express the importance of transitioning to a full-time position.

“This is not a wish list that the police department has, this is about ensuring that the PD can meet its legal obligations to protect the city from liability and provide a level of service our residents deserve.” 

She said her position is more than handling the day-to-day office responsibilities, but it expands to maintaining crucial pieces of evidence in criminal cases, such as blood results from DUIs, firearms seized from convicted felons, drugs seized from juveniles, or DNA for sexual assault cases. 

“If any of these are mishandled or the paperwork tied to them is delayed, the result is not just inconvenient, it could mean charges are dismissed, dangerous offenders are back in the community, or the city faces liability,” Hudson said.