City takes over RTC
State making first payment today
Published Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Making good on its promise not to make the Regional Treatment Center the taxpayers’ problem, the state will present Fergus Falls with at least $2.5 million today.
The city officially took possession of the RTC on June 30, to allow time for reuse proposals to come to fruition.
“The purpose of the city receiving these funds,” city Finance Director Bill Sonmor said, “is to make the city whole so none of the burden of the RTC will fall to the city’s taxpayers.”
Sonmor will place the funds in three separate accounts.
• The first will include $960,000 to pay campus operating expenses through June 30, 2008. The state will also pay about $20,000 a month while it continues to use RTC buildings.
• The second will include $1.1 million t o pay for demolishing the RTC water reservoir and for operating costs from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009.
• The third, $447,610, will replace what the city borrowed from its refuse/garbage fund to pay for pollution control equipment at the now-closed RTC garbage incinerator.
“The state is going to help us pay it back because they’re leaving,” Sonmor said. “The purpose of the burner is gone once the state is gone.”
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