The fire department is its own fund in the city's books, fund 203, with its own levy, its own audit line and its own contracts. In 2026 it runs on $237,782. The station it runs out of costs the city another $115,989 a year, and will until 2057.
Where the money comes from
It is financed four ways: the city's tax levy, the seven townships under contract, state fire aid, and state grants. The levy and the township contracts together carry about four fifths of the fund.
| Revenue | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property tax levy for fire | $100,709 | $97,612 | $100,922 |
| Township fire contracts | $108,378 | $93,785 | $93,785 |
| State fire aid | $33,000 | $33,000 | $33,000 |
| State grants and aids | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 |
| Fire suppression reimbursement | $3,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Delinquent utility assessments | $210 | $210 | $0 |
| Interest | $75 | $75 | $75 |
| Fire fund total | $255,372 | $234,682 | $237,782 |
Source: City of Kenyon fire and first-responder revenue summary, October 20, 2025 (December 2, 2025 packet). Totals are the budgeted fund, not audited actuals.
Where it goes
The fire fund ended 2025 with a balance of $124,418, down $218,382 in a single year, because the department bought breathing apparatus: SCBA at $116,805 and a filling compressor at $39,640 from Alex Air Apparatus of Alexandria, quoted to the council in November 2023 and approved that December, with about half paid out of the state's Public Safety Aid and out of the department's own fundraising rather than the levy.
| Expense | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transfer to capital fund | $64,500 | $90,000 | $90,000 |
| Uniforms | $56,000 | $16,000 | $16,000 |
| State aid passed to the relief association | $26,000 | $30,252 | $30,252 |
| Capital lease principal | $18,407 | $0 | $0 |
| Training fees | $13,000 | $10,000 | $7,000 |
| Repairs and maintenance | $12,000 | $12,000 | $12,000 |
| First responder budget (folded into the fire budget after 2024) | $10,846 | $0 | $0 |
| Insurance, property and liability | $6,250 | $8,000 | $10,630 |
| Relief association donation | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 |
| OSHA safety clothing and equipment | $0 | $8,046 | $8,000 |
| Pagers and maintenance | $2,000 | $6,100 | $8,000 |
| Insurance, workers' compensation | $5,500 | $6,100 | $6,100 |
| Fire fund total | $264,181 | $234,398 | $237,782 |
The twelve largest lines, sorted by the 2026 budget; the total is the whole fund. The first-responder budget was folded into the fire budget after 2024. Source: City of Kenyon fire department expense summary, October 20, 2025.
Show the other 19 lines, none of them over $6,000
| Expense | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utilities, natural gas | $6,000 | $6,000 | $6,000 |
| Utilities, electric and water | $5,375 | $5,000 | $5,000 |
| Operating supplies | $3,500 | $4,500 | $4,500 |
| Capital lease interest | $3,212 | $0 | $0 |
| Auditing | $3,000 | $3,000 | $3,000 |
| Motor fuels | $2,500 | $2,500 | $3,000 |
| Banquets and special events | $2,500 | $2,500 | $3,000 |
| Utilities, phone and internet | $2,755 | $3,000 | $3,000 |
| Medical | $2,600 | $2,600 | $2,600 |
| Practice meals | $2,500 | $2,500 | $2,500 |
| Dues and subscriptions | $1,200 | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Repairs, building and structure | $1,500 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Utilities, sewer | $850 | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Miscellaneous | $1,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Utilities, refuse | $585 | $600 | $600 |
| Office supplies | $0 | $100 | $500 |
| Computer support | $0 | $0 | $500 |
| Travel | $350 | $350 | $350 |
| Administration fee | $250 | $250 | $250 |
The $90,000 transfer to the capital fund is the next truck: money set aside each year rather than borrowed. The $30,252 of state fire aid does not stay with the city at all — it passes straight through to the relief association, where it becomes the firefighters' pension, and the city adds a $10,000 donation on top.
The building is not in that budget
None of the figures above pay for the station itself, because the station was borrowed for. The city carries two debt funds named for it — fund 320, 2016B GO USDA Bond Fire Hall, and fund 321, 2016B USDA Note Fire Hall — and they are levied separately from the fire fund:
| Fire hall debt levy | 2026 | 2027 proposed |
|---|---|---|
| 2016B GO USDA bond, fire hall (fund 320) | $95,681 | $95,572 |
| 2016B USDA note, fire hall (fund 321) | $20,308 | $20,308 |
| Total | $115,989 | $115,880 |
Source: the city's 2027 levy memo of August 6, 2026 and the fund-by-fund revenue report of December 9, 2025.
The city carries the building at $2,583,395 in its 2021 Capital Improvement Plan, depreciated over forty years from 2017. The 2025 audit lists a single USDA bond in governmental activities: $2,120,000 issued August 28, 2017 at 0.90 percent, maturing in 2057, with $1,889,727 still outstanding at the end of 2025. Forty years at nine tenths of a percent is USDA Rural Development's Community Facilities loan. It is open to cities of 20,000 or fewer, fire stations and fire trucks are named uses, the term is capped at 40 years, and the rate is set from the community's population and median household income.
The building costs Kenyon more each year than running the department does. The fire hall debt levy of $115,989 is larger than the entire fire operating levy of $99,962, and it will be, at roughly this level, until 2057.
The township contract
Each township signs the same one-page contract, renewed every April 1 and cancellable by either side on 120 days' written notice. The money is worked out from two numbers and nothing else:
- The city is responsible for 51 percent of the fire department's operational budget and the townships together for 49 percent. That split has held since 2018.
- Each township's share of the 49 percent is its sections covered divided by 118.5, the total township sections in the primary service area.
For 2025 the operational budget was $191,398, so the townships owed $93,785.02 between them. Wheeling Township, with 6 sections of the 118.5, owed 5.06 percent of that: about $4,748. The city sends each township a written claim by February 1 and is paid by August 1, and the parties are required to meet jointly, outside their own regular meetings and with a quorum of each board present, at least 60 days beforehand.
The contract is deliberately narrow about what the money buys. The annual operational budget may include a capital amount for tools and equipment, but not for land or buildings; a township that wants to help pay for a station negotiates that separately. The city owns the buildings and the equipment outright, insures them, names each township as an additional insured, and indemnifies the township within the Chapter 466 liability caps. The township's only obligations are to pay and to put the levy to its electors at the annual town meeting.
What a call costs the person who had it
| Charge | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fire call | $1,000 | Billed to the person or property owner receiving service, requested or not. Minn. Stat. 366.011 and 366.012 let the city certify an unpaid charge to the county auditor to be collected with the property taxes. |
| Engine | $190 per hour | Extraordinary time and equipment, Attachment B of the fee schedule. |
| Tender (tanker) | $180 per hour | Attachment B. |
| Grass rig, mini pumper, equipment | $140 per hour | Attachment B. |
| Class A foam | $150 per pail | Supplies are billed at cost. |
| Repeated non-fire, non-medical calls | $150 | More than three in twelve months. |
| Police or fire report | $35 | Data request through the police department. |
2026 fee schedule, Attachment B. Damaged equipment is billed at replacement cost.
The relief association
The Kenyon Firemen's Relief Association is a separate 501(c)(4) with its own board, its own money and its own by-laws. It holds the firefighters' pensions, and it buys equipment out of its own funds rather than the city's. Its board has nine trustees: six elected by the members, plus two municipal officials named by the council each year and the fire chief.
In November 2023 the council voted, over Mayor Doug Henke's objection, to move the charitable gambling premises permits at the Municipal Liquor Store from the Kenyon Snowdrifters — who had run them for more than twenty years — to the relief association, so the department could fund a tanker and air packs without tax dollars. The association had asked for it in a letter that October, naming eighteen other towns whose fire relief associations already ran the pull-tabs. The effect shows in the filings: gross receipts went from $163,013 in fiscal 2024 to $1,985,505 in fiscal 2025. In tax year 2024 the association sent $34,969 back to the city for the fire department and $23,514 to the truck fund, and $88,447 in lawful-purpose distributions in all.
It also raises money at a dance every June at the fire hall, bingo on the third Thursday of the month, a mailer, and the pancake breakfast at the Muni during Rose Fest. The board of trustees meets on the third Monday of the month at the fire hall. Alongside it sits the Kenyon Volunteer Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, a separate 501(c)(4) exempt since June 2014.
Sources: City of Kenyon fire department page and 2026 fee schedule; Kenyon V.F.D. 2024 and 2025 response reports and the 2025 township fire contract, council packets of December 3, 2024 and December 2, 2025; fire fund revenue and expense summaries of October 20, 2025; fire department standard operating guidelines of February 2021 and relief association by-laws, council packets of November 9, 2021 and June 9, 2026; 2025 city audit; IRS Form 990 and Minnesota Gambling Control Board filings for the Kenyon Firemen's Relief Association; Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge, History of Goodhue County (1909), pp. 205–206; Sanborn Map Company, Kenyon, Minn., May 1933 revised May 1944, Library of Congress; KDHL Radio, June 26, 2017; USDA Rural Development, Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program. Compiled September 14, 2026. This site is independent of the City of Kenyon and of the fire department.