The 2025 budget for the City of Oshkosh will be finalized next week, and one of the larger expenses is a new training facility for the fire department. The Oshkosh Fire Department is asking for $7.7 million to renovate an old Army National Guard training building. The training facility will help with recruitment and retention, according to Fire Chief Mike Stanley. The Oshkosh City Council will vote on the final budget on Nov. 12, but agreed to add the $7.7 million at a preliminary meeting on Wednesday. Chief Mike Stanley says OFD has never had its own training facility, forcing new recruits to train in abandoned buildings and empty parking lots. In 2020, the Fire Department built a large training tower in the parking lot of an old Army National Guard training building on North Sawyer Street. Now, they are asking for $7.7 million to renovate the building and the rest of the lot. It's really an innovative and efficient use of our resources, you know, an opportunity to do something with what was an old building that we were just using for storage," Stanley says. The renovations would include classroom space, new technology, and a workout facility. "We want to be prepared for, as new technologies, new needs in the community emerge, that we know how to handle those," Stanley says.The building would be key in recruiting and retaining firefighters, according to Stanley. "Our neighbors to the north in Appleton have access to a world-class training facility at Fox Valley Tech, our neighbors to the south in Fond du Lac, several years ago, built a brand new, multi-million dollar training facility," he says. "So as I'm making that decision of where am I going to start my career and spend my career? Do I have a place to train?"The Fire Department will also need station improvements in the coming years due to aging infrastructure, but Stanley says he believes the training facility should be the next step. The needs are many and the dollar is few," he says. Already included in the 2025 budget, OFD will receive another ambulance and a full-time ambulance team.At a preliminary budget meeting, the Oshkosh City Council said it would put $7.7 million in a contingency fund as part of the city's capital improvement budget. In my opinion, police and fire are the two most important things that local government does, so we are going to do something for the fire department in terms of their capital improvement schedule next year," council member Jacob Floam says. "We'll have a better picture of that in and around January and February.The Council will explore more efficient ways to use the money, such as building a joint training facility that OFD would share with the Oshkosh Police Department, according to Floam.Stanley says he is grateful the council is considering the department's needs in the 2025 budget. Fortunately the city council and our community have been very supportive of the Oshkosh Fire Department," he says.