The Babbitt City Council held a special meeting on Monday. The purpose of the meeting was to interview a police department candidate and discuss updates to the Banyon system the city uses for accounting.
The candidate was Cory Merten, who has not yet graduated from his police officer training course. Upon graduation, he will be eligible for a job in Babbitt’s severely understaffed police department.
The council spent about 30 minutes asking questions, and Merten had a few questions for the council regarding the required living radius and community engagement.
Merten placed significant emphasis on the role of law enforcement in local community engagement. He expressed deep interest in making himself present and highly visible within Babbitt, should he be hired. An example he gave was how he always makes time to stop by the local park on his rounds and hand out stickers, candy, and coloring books. He wants “people to know is that not all cops, or patrol officers, are bad people. There are good cops out there.”
Merten is interested in Babbitt specifically because, “It seems like a close-knit community, from what I’ve been told; they’re pretty engaged on wanting a police department here…I’d like to see this department succeed and help be a reason why it does.”
He also enjoys swimming at Birch Lake, to which Mayor Andrea Zupancich quipped, “Where do you park when you go over there?” getting a laugh from the council and referencing the ongoing discussion about ADA accessible parking being installed at Birch Lake Beach.
After Merten’s interview, the council heard from city auditor Tom Kelly and city clerk Nancy Sanford about proposed changes to the Banyon system. Banyon is the company the city contracts with to organize all the city department funds, including public utilities commission, the library, and the recreation department.
The changes have no impact on how much funding each department receives; rather, it will be a way to more easily access information on each department’s budget and provide more government transparency.
Deputy clerk-treasurer Sara Powell invited department heads to be a part of the conversation.
“This is your chance, we’ve got an idea and we are about to push go on it, we want to include you in the final draft,” said Powell.
Each department’s general, equipment, and “carryover” funds will be recategorized; carryover funds are the leftover money from departments that didn’t spend all of their allotments in a given fiscal year. This will make it easier to see which departments are under versus over-budget, and allow the city to see how each department is spending its money.
Sanford hopes that the restructuring will be ready to go live by Jan. 1. The proposed changes will also combine the two licenses Banyon currently provides the city of Babbitt, saving anywhere between $3,000-$5,000 a year. The reorg could combine water, garbage and sewer bills for residents, making bill pay more streamlined for users. It would also halve postage, printing and paper costs for the city by sending one bill instead of two separate bills.
Council member Joseph White is in favor of the changes, but made it clear in order to, “prevent different city councils from robbing the departments blind, we need to vote it in so that all these funds are designed, so that when we have needs, there’s money there, it’s frozen and it takes a supermajority to be able to overrule that.”
