What Luverne voters are deciding about the city utilities
A short guide to City Question No. 1, with a source on every fact. Updated September 24, 2026.
Today, Luverne's city council runs the electric utility, and the water and wastewater systems too. This fall, voters decide whether to hand that job to a new five-member commission.
What are residents deciding?
Whether to amend the city charter so a new Municipal Services Commission, not the city council, manages the city’s electric, water, and wastewater utilities and sets their rates.
The charter is the city's constitution, so this is a bigger change than an ordinance. The city keeps owning the utilities either way. The question is who runs them.Amendment text
What do yes and no mean?
A yes vote
A no vote
The amendment passes if at least 51% of the votes cast on the question are yes.MN Revisor of Statutes
Read the full ballot question
City Question No. 1. Charter Amendment: Create New Independent Commission to Govern City Utilities
Shall the Luverne City Charter be amended to establish a new governing structure with a new layer of city government for the City's electric, water, and wastewater utilities by (1) creating a new five-member independent policymaking body to be called the Municipal Services Commission to consist of three elected members who must be City residents, one appointed representative of a large utility customer who need not be a City resident, and either a sitting Council Member or the City Administrator; (2) creating a new employment structure under which the Commission would employ a General Manager to supervise and manage the Commission's operations and employees and existing City staff with responsibilities for the City's utilities would be transferred to the authority of the Commission; and (3) transferring most of the City Council's existing responsibilities for the management, operation, and supervision of the City's utilities, including the authority to set utility rates, to the new Commission?
This is the wording the council adopted on August 10, 2026 (Resolution 24-26, Exhibit B). The petition committee disputes the phrase “a new layer of city government.”City of Luverne Legistar
What changes, and what stays the same?
Rates, management, and utility staff would move to the commission. Ownership and existing obligations stay with the city.
- Would change: the commission sets rates, provides a general manager, and becomes the employer of utility staff.Amendment § 3
- Would stay: the city owns the utilities, and existing bonds and contracts remain the city's obligations. The commission would handle utility operations and contracts within the authority the amendment grants. The council keeps approval over specified matters, including new bonds, real-estate deals, and contracts longer than ten years. A second clause also keeps some contract and franchise authority with the council; the two overlap.§ 4(b)§ 3(b)§ 3(f)
- Not right away: the elected seats are filled at the next general election after adoption, which would be November 2028. Until then, the council keeps running the utilities.§ 4(a)
Who would make the decisions?
Five commissioners: three elected residents, one city representative, and one council-appointed representative of a large utility customer.
Any commission action takes three votes, so each member, including the large-customer representative, has one vote and no veto.§ 2(i) The commission sets rates, but the formula for payments from the utilities to other city funds must be approved by both the commission and the council. Neither can set it alone.§ 3(i)
Once created, the commission could be abolished only by another charter amendment.§ 1(c)Minn. Stat. § 410.12
What changes covers the seats, terms, and the payment rule in detail.
What would it mean for my bills and taxes?
The amendment itself sets no dollar amount. The effect depends on choices the commission and council would make later.
The main argument is about money the electric utility sends to other city funds. Those transfers were $624,330 in 2024 and $261,675 in 2025.2024 audit, p. 512025 audit, p. 49 If they shrank, the city would choose between raising property taxes, cutting spending, or using reserves. If the savings reached customers, electric bills would fall.
The amendment covers electric, water, and wastewater. The dollar figures and the household scenario in this guide cover the electric utility only; water and wastewater transfers are not modeled.
Bills and city money has a household scenario: enter your home value and electricity use to see both sides.