File Photo The Renaissance ramp undergoes roof work. The downtown ramps are operating in the black, according to the city finance office.

Minot’s downtown parking ramps are operating in the black.

“We are trending slightly ahead of budget on the revenue side of things and under budget on the expense side of things,” Finance Director David Lakefield told the Minot City Council Monday. “When you look at the operations budget, just the operations portion of the budget for the parking ramps, we are actually profitable to a small degree.”

The profitability excludes capital improvements, though. The city has invested $946,125 in a roof and drainage system for the two ramps and $62,690 for a security system.

“Things are trending in the right direction with the parking ramps. I will give credit to the property maintenance crews. I think they’ve done a great job,” Lakefield said. “We have not had any complaints for quite some time.”

Maintenance staff check the ramps every day, he said. They have been comfortable diagnosing any equipment issues, and the city is keeping replacement parts on hand to make those repairs quickly.

Lakefield said the city has issued 47 passes for the Renaissance ramp and 74 passes for the Central ramp under longer term contracts.

“In the last couple of weeks we’ve had a number of inquiries about buying more passes,” Lakefield said. “We haven’t solidified any of those deals yet, but there has been a lot of interest in just the last few weeks with the parking ramps.”

Mayor Shaun Sipma said parents of students at Central Campus have shown some interest, and the city’s quarterly or monthly passes could be attractive to more families if they are made aware of the option.

The council on Monday formalized parking fees that have been in place at the Renaissance and Central parking ramps. The city took over the operations of both downtown parking ramps in April 2018.

Council member Josh Wolsky advocated a slight change in rates so downtown employees with passes don’t end up paying additional should they extend their pass times by several minutes due to work commitments. Because the change would require new signage and adjustments to electronic equipment, he suggested looking at that change when reviewing rates in the future.

The city has budgeted $73,440 in parking ramp receipts for 2020 and $34,781 in taxes. With resources on hand, the budget balances income with the $108,851 in projected operation expenses. The 2019 budget included $72,000 in receipts and nearly $1.59 million in taxes toward a $1.66 million budget. The higher budget was due to the capital improvements currently under construction.

In other business, the council approved a $67,475 budget increase for construction of crosswalk improvements. The council approved spending the additional money at a previous meeting when it accepted a $161,371 bid from Strata Corp. for the work on crosswalks on Third Street Southeast near the county buildings and on Burdick Expressway East near the zoo.

Money for the local share of the work will come from cash reserves in an account for equipment purchases. Federal funds make up the largest share, with some state funds included. However, federal funds are capped.