Lakeville's City Council Denies Donation From One of its Own

The Lakeville City Council rejected a donation of more than $4,000 from on Monday evening, potentially paving a path that could lead to eliminating a that was previously unanimously approved.

The new police record technician position, a position designed to assist officers with writing and filing reports to cut down on their clerical duties and allow them to spend a greater share of their shift in the field, has already seen a few funding twists en route to its creation.

Creation of the position was approved on a 5-0 vote during the March 21 City Council meeting, though at the time motioned to amend the funding for the position to come from the general fund. The position was originally proposed to be funded out of the city’s liquor fund, but Ratzlaff Labeau and other members agreed that they didn’t want to set a precedent for funding positions from that fund which has historically been used for capital improvements and debt servicing.

Originally budgeted to be created in 2012, Little had sought to begin the position beginning with the last six months of 2011 and had offered to sacrifice half of his roughly $8,600 annual council salary to help fund the earlier hiring.

The motion to accept Little’s $4,332 donation was approved 3-2 with Labeau and Mayor Mark Bellows dissenting, however, due to regulations concerning the acceptance of donations which state that a two-thirds majority is needed for approval, the motion failed. A 4-1 vote would have been required for the motion to actually pass.

“I think we’re setting a precedent that I’m uncomfortable with,” said Bellows during discussion of the motion. “In this case, because we are elected officials, it is that element of politicizing that act of generosity.”

Little was surprised by the move, he said.

“I’ve never been given such a hard time trying to donate money to something,” said Little. “I would be at odds with saying this is a political move. I am owning up to exactly what I told every resident I talked to I would do which is to cut my salary. Those accusations that this is political, I would lodge those back, because the attacks on this are absurd.”

Little contends that since the position has already been approved during a budget adjustment process, denying the donation at this point would only serve to create a steeper expenditure from the 2011 budget.

“The only question that we have in front of us right now is whether or not we’re going to make the taxpayers pay $4,000 more for this position,” he said.

But LaBeau has made it previously clear that while previous budget adjustments were approved, the door was being left open to revisit the 2011 budget at any time.

“I was willing to accept the budget cuts that night,” said Labeau regarding the previous vote. “A lot of them were just kicking the can down the road until next year. I said we would revisit and make sure that we continued to look for additional budget cuts.”

Labeau also countered that she was also uncomfortable with setting a precedent by accepting the donation for a specific purpose.

“I do not want to support establishing giving dollars to dictate where it goes especially when it’s an increase in cost to the budget,” she said. “I can’t support donating to create a new position and have an ongoing liability.”

Bellows stated that if the donation wanted to be made with no stipulations into the general fund that “we would gratefully acknowledge that.”

“I’m not putting it into the general fund because I think it needs to be used in the police department,” said Little.

It’s unclear at this point if the council intends to reverse the creation of the police records technician until 2012 or if that position will be hired at a later date in 2011 to offset the anticipated $4,000 donation. The issue is scheduled to come up at the council’s next work session on April 11.

“I’m disappointed with the decision to put divisive politics before citizens,” said a noticeably upset Little after the meeting. “They rejected (the donation) for reasons I still don’t understand.”