Community Resource Specialist

Community Resource Specialist

Salary

$28.74 - $40.29 Hourly

Location

Public Safety Center - 710 South Front Street, Mankato, MN

Job Type

Full Time

Job Number

202600071

Department

Public Safety

Division

1420010 Public Safety Operations

Opening Date

09/28/2026

Closing Date

10/13/2026 11:59 PM Central

• Description
• Benefits
• Questions

Description

The 2026 starting rate of pay is $28.74 - $31.54 per hour with advancement to $40.29 per hour.

Grade: STA3 FLSA Status: Non-Exempt

Safety Sensitive Position: Yes

Supervisor Title: Public Safety Commander

Minimum Qualifications of Education and Experience:

• Must possess an Associate's degree in a field related to the job duties. Degrees may be in Human Services, Psychology, Social Work, Education, Criminal Justice, or related field.
• Candidates must possess two (2) years of outreach/advocacy work, code enforcement, public safety or community development experience.

OR

• Any satisfactory equivalent combination of education, training, and experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the duties of the job proficiently may be substituted for the above requirements.

Nature of Work:

Under the direct supervision of the Public Safety Commander, the Community Resource Specialist is a civilian public safety professional who serves as a bridge between the Department of Public Safety, individuals and families in need, community organizations, and local and regional service providers. The position provides proactive outreach, resource navigation, referral coordination, follow-up, and community engagement for individuals impacted by crime, homelessness or housing instability, mental health concerns, substance use, family or personal crisis, and other circumstances that may contribute to repeated interaction with public safety services. The Community Resource Specialist works collaboratively with Police, Fire, Community Development - Housing, other City departments, Blue Earth County, victim advocacy organizations, behavioral health providers, housing and homelessness service providers, schools, nonprofit organizations, and other community partners to connect individuals with appropriate services and reduce barriers to receiving assistance.

About Us:

Our employees are committed to working in an environment that fosters the core values of the City of Mankato - positive attitude, accountability, respect, teamwork, and integrity. We care about making a positive difference in the lives of others. Our work is challenging and has purpose. We listen and engage with each other and our community. We are empowered and trusted to make good decisions that align with the public service principles and core values. Our organization is committed to investing and developing each other. We will recognize and celebrate our collective achievements and individual accomplishments.

We take pride in investing in our employees. Our team enjoys a supportive work environment that encourages not only success for the community we serve, but for you as well. Come grow your career with us!

Duties / Responsibilities

Primary Essential Work Functions:

Victim and Family Outreach

• Provides proactive follow-up, resource coordination, and support for victims of crime, vulnerable adults, youth, and families affected by crisis or traumatic events.
• Connects individuals with appropriate victim advocacy, legal, housing, behavioral health, financial, and other community resources.
• Coordinates with victim service providers, county agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other partners to improve access to services and identify gaps in available resources.

Homelessness and Housing Outreach

• Conducts proactive outreach and ongoing engagement with individuals experiencing homelessness or housing instability.
• Assists individuals with navigating shelter, housing, benefits, transportation, employment, food, healthcare, and other basic-needs resources.
• Collaborate with City departments, Blue Earth County, housing providers, shelters, nonprofit organizations, and other community partners to promote housing stability and reduce repeated public safety contacts.

Mental Health, Substance Use, and Crisis Resource Coordination

• Provides outreach, referrals, and resource navigation for individuals experiencing mental health, substance-use, behavioral-health, or other personal crises.
• Supports Public Safety personnel during and following appropriate calls for service by assisting with de-escalation, service connections, and follow-up.
• Coordinates with crisis teams, treatment providers, recovery organizations, and other community partners and supports diversion or alternative-response efforts when appropriate.

Community Outreach and Engagement

• Serves as a primary liaison between Public Safety and residents, neighborhood associations, businesses, schools, community organizations, and other stakeholders.
• Coordinates and participates in community engagement, education, crime-prevention, and relationship-building activities, including Night to Unite/National Night Out.
• Identifies community concerns and opportunities to strengthen trust, communication, accessibility, and relationships between Public Safety and the community.

Case Coordination and Follow-Up

• Receives referrals from Public Safety and other City staff and coordinates appropriate outreach, services, and follow-up.
• Works collaboratively with individuals and service providers to address barriers, coordinate services, and reduce repeated crisis or public safety contacts.
• Recognizes circumstances requiring immediate referral to sworn law enforcement, emergency medical services, licensed mental-health professionals, adult or child protection, or other appropriate authorities.

Community Partnerships and Resource Development

• Develops and maintains partnerships with agencies providing victim services, housing, homelessness, behavioral health, substance-use, youth, senior, and other human services.
• Maintains current knowledge of community and regional resources and participates in multidisciplinary teams and collaborative community initiatives.
• Identifies service gaps, partnership opportunities, and potential improvements to community-resource and outreach programs.

Program Evaluation, Training, and Administration

• Maintains appropriate, thorough, accurate, timely and professional documentation of contacts, referrals, outreach activities, service connections, outcomes, and other program measures to evaluate effectiveness and identify community trends.
• Provides reports and recommendations regarding service needs, recurring issues, program outcomes, and opportunities for improvement.
• Provides community education and resource information and supports City staff with training and information regarding available community services.
• Maintains records and performs duties in accordance with applicable confidentiality, data-practices, and City requirements.

Other Work Functions:

• Performs physical and mental demands and work environment requirements for this position.
• Attendance during regularly scheduled work hours and outside regular hours as necessary.
• Effective and respectful communication and interactions with other employees, supervisors, individuals from other organizations, and community customers.
• Performs other related work as assigned or apparent.

The above is a general listing of job duties. Essential and non-essential functions may vary by individual position. Reasonable accommodations may be available for both essential and non-essential job duties.

Communicates With:

• Internally - Police Commanders and Sergeants, Other Police Officers, Community Service Officers, Reserve Officers, Records and Fire Personnel, Public works staff - Streets, Parks, Infrastructure, Central Garage, Information Technology, Human Resources, Public Information, and Community Development, City Manager's office.
• Externally - Residents; victims and families; neighborhood associations; businesses; schools and educational institutions; Blue Earth County Human Services; victim advocacy organizations; shelters and housing providers; healthcare and behavioral-health providers; substance-use treatment and recovery organizations; nonprofit and faith-based organizations; community coalitions; neighboring law enforcement agencies; county and state agencies; and other community and regional service providers.

Supervision:

• None

Qualifications / Conditions of Employment

• Must possess a valid drivers license and be able to drive in the State of Minnesota.
• Must successfully complete a psychological evaluation from a licensed psychologist, background investigation, physical examination, drug test, and fingerprinting.
• Must comply with organizational and departmental policies.
• Must comply with data practices policies and standards relative to not public data. Any access to not public data should be strictly limited to accessing the data that are necessary to fulfill the employment responsibility. While data are being accessed, incumbent should take reasonable measures to ensure the not public data are not accessed by individuals without a work reason. Once the work reason to access the data is reasonably finished the not public data must be properly stored according to city policy and the Minnesota Statutes.
• Safety Sensitive Notice. This is a safety sensitive position which requires cannabis pre-employment drug testing. Safety sensitive position means a job in which an impairment caused by drug, alcohol, or cannabis usage would threaten the health and safety of any person.

Hours of Work

General working hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and evening, weekend, holidays, and outside of regular hours as necessary.

City of Mankato

2026 BENEFITS OVERVIEW

For Regular Full-Time Employees

The City of Mankato provides a comprehensive, balanced, and competitive benefits package as part of your total compensation. The Citys benefits programs address both the immediate needs that you and your family may have, such as medical coverage or flexible spending accounts, and your long-term needs, such as retirement savings. The following outline of City-offered benefits serves as an overview and does not provide all provisions, limitations, and exclusions. If there is a contradiction between this and the official plan documents, the plan documents will prevail.

EMPLOYER PROVIDED BENEFITS:

Paid Vacation:

Vacation accruals, utilization, and payouts vary within each collective bargaining agreement and/or employee handbook. The following is the general overview of the vacation benefit:

• Vacation hours may be accrued to a maximum of 50 days or 400 hours.
• Hours are accrued incrementally each pay period.
• Vacation hours may be taken in 30-minute increments.
• Unused balance carries over year to year.

Years of Service - Vacation Days Per Year

0 - 5 years - 10 days

6 - 10 years - 15 days

11 - 14 years - 17 days

15 -20 years - 20 days

21 years - 21 days

22 years - 22 days

23 years - 23 days

24 years - 24 days

25 years - 25 days

26 years - 26 days

27 years - 27 days

28 years - 28 days

29 years - 29 days

30+ years - 30 days

Paid Sick Leave:

Employees earn 8 hours of sick leave per month.

11 Paid Holidays and 1 Floating Holiday:

All regular full-time employees of the City, except those who are governed by a union contract or different holiday policy, receive the following paid holidays:

1. New Years Day

2. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

3. Presidents Day

4. Memorial Day

5. Juneteenth

6. Independence Day

7. Labor Day

8. Veterans Day

9. Thanksgiving Day

10. Friday After Thanksgiving Day

11. Christmas Day

12. Floating Holiday

Health Insurance Coverage Through Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MN:

• Health insurance plans to choose from: $5,000 HDHP with an HSA, $3,400 HDHP with an HSA, $500 CMM, $100 CMM/Traditional Plan

• Single Coverage

• The City will contribute 95% of the premium for the IRS Minimum Embedded Deductible Plan.

• The City will contribute 100% of the premium for the alternative High-Deductible plan.

• For all other single coverage plan options, the City will contribute at the same premium rate as the IRS minimum embedded deductible plan.

• Dependent Coverage (Employee + Spouse, Employee + Children, or Family)

The City will contribute 90% of the premium of each High-Deductible Plan option. All other plan options the City will contribute at the same premium rate as the IRS minimum embedded deductible plan.

• Employee Responsibility

• Employees are responsible for paying the remaining percentage of premiums, which will be deducted through payroll, on a bi-weekly basis.

• City contributions for union members will follow negotiated contract language.

Employer and employee contributions for non-union employees are shown below. Please note that union employee health insurance benefits may vary by contract.

NICE Healthcare (Free to all full-time employees):

NICE Healthcare is an integrated primary care clinic - meaning NICE offers almost all of the services of a traditional primary care clinic and then some. And better yet, NICE brings that care to your home, office, or wherever you happen to be.

Offers employees and their household members an amazing healthcare benefit with no out-of-pocket fees. Below are the comprehensive primary care services that NICE offers:

• Same-Day Chat and Video Visits
• In-Home Visits with 35 Free Labs and Physical Tests
• 550+ Free Medications Can Be Prescribed by Our Clinicians
• Free Virtual Physical Therapy
• Free Virtual Mental Health Therapy
• Free In-Home X-rays and EKG Services

Minnesota Paid Family Medical Leave

Minnesota Paid Family Medical Leave is a benefit for employees to be able to have paid time off (with partial wage replacement) and job protection for employees who need to take leave for certain medical or family-care reasons. This is a State required benefit for all employers in the State of Minnesota. Premium contributions for this benefit will be at a shared cost to the City and the employee. Premium rates for 2026 are .78% of gross earnings. This will be split 50/50. Employees will see a .39% of gross wages after tax deduction.

Term Life Insurance:

The City provides a term life insurance policy at no cost to the employee. (Face value is 125% of employees base salary up to a maximum of face value of $50,000).

Retirement - PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association)

1. Must participate as directed by Minnesota Statutes.

2. Employer and employee contribution rates vary depending on position.

3. May obtain refund of employee contribution on termination of service.

2026 Employer/Employee PERA Contribution Rates - Effective January 1, 2026

Contributions are calculated on gross bi-weekly salary each pay period.

Coordinated Plan

Employer: 7.5%

Employee 6.5%

Police and Fire Plan

Employer: 17.7%

Employee 11.8%

OPTIONAL VOLUNTARY BENEFITS AVAILABLE:

The following benefits are available on an elective basis at the employees choice:

Deferred Compensation Plans (457)

Plans available through Mission Square Retirement, Nationwide Retirement Solutions, and MN State Deferred Compensation Plan.

Health Care and Day Care Flexible Spending Accounts

Computer Purchase Program

0% interest for up to 3 years (max. $3,500) to purchase a home computer

Voluntary Payroll Deductions Available for:

• Dental Insurance - Coverage through MetLife - 100% employee cost
• Vision Insurance - Coverage through MetLife - 100% employee cost
• YMCA membership at corporate rates
• Savings Bonds
• Various voluntary group life and disability plans.
• AFLAC

Credit Union Membership - Eligible for membership

• MN Valley Federal Credit Union
• Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union

Vacation Purchase Program

Employees may purchase additional vacation time (limits apply).

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

In Addition:

The City of Mankato is a qualifying employer of the Student Loan Forgiveness Program.

Questions regarding benefit information can be directed to Human Resources at 507-387-8664.

01

The following supplemental information may be used as a scored evaluation of your knowledge, skills and experience. Be certain that the choices you make correspond to the information you have provided in your application. By completing this supplemental questionnaire you are attesting that the information you have provided is true and accurate. Any information provided may be reviewed by the hiring manager. Any misstatements or falsification of information will eliminate you from consideration or may result in dismissal. Do you understand and agree with this statement?

• Yes
• No

02

Do you currently posses a valid drivers license and are eligible to drive within the State of Minnesota?

• Yes, I have a valid Minnesota drivers license and am eligible to drive.
• Yes, I have a valid drivers license from another state and am eligible to drive.
• No, I do not have a valid drivers license.

03

Which of the following best describes your level of education?

• High School Diploma / GED Equivalent
• Some college
• Certification in relevant field
• Associates / 2 Year Degree
• Bachelors Degree in progress
• Bachelors Degree
• Masters Degree
• None of the above

04

Which of the following best describes the degree that you completed?

• Human Services
• Psychology
• Social Work
• Education
• Criminal Justice
• My degree is in an area NOT listed above
• N/A - I have not completed a degee

05

If applicable, please list the specific field of study in which you possess a degree. If no degree, type N/A.

06

Which of the following best describes your years of experience working in outreach/advocacy work, code enforcement, public safety or community development?

• No experience
• Less than 6 months
• More than 6 months, but less than 1 year
• More than 1 year, but less than 2
• More than 2 years, but less than 3
• More than 3 years, but less than 4
• More than 4 years, but less than 5
• More than 5 years, but less than 6
• More than 6 years, but less than 7
• More than 7 years, but less than 8
• More than 8 years, but less than 9
• More than 9 years, but less than 10
• 10 or more years

07

Please describe your experience working in outreach/advocacy work, code enforcement, public safety or community development. If no experience, type N/A.

08

Please describe your experience working with community resources related to mental health, substance use, homelessness, housing, victim services, vulnerable adults, youth, healthcare, benefits and other human-service needs?

09

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT: If selected as a finalist, are you willing to undergo a background investigation which may include, but not be limited to: pre-employment personnel assessment, verification of employment and education records, identification verification, drivers license record, fingerprinting, criminal history, and pre-employment physical examination, and drug testing?

• Yes
• No

Required Question

Employer City of Mankato

Address PO Box 3368

Mankato, Minnesota, 56002

Phone 507-387-8531

Website http://www.mankatomn.gov/jobs